Whole house audio receiver and speakers help

[Blade]

I am looking at getting some ceiling speakers for the house. I am looking at these speakers as I have heard good things about them:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=300-402

I plan to have 8 pairs of speakers around the house running off of the AB8SS switcher. What receiver would be the best to use to power 8 speakers so that they sound good.

Would a 2 channel 100w receiver do the job ok?

I appreciate any feedback. TIA

[completelyhis]

Blade,
I have those exact same speakers in every room. I ran them through an ab8ss with a 100w amp for a long time, and it worked great. guests often remarked at the quality of the sound. not "audiophile" by any means, but definitely pleasing to the ear. If you get a sound snob in your house (the kind of person who spends >$500/speaker) and he is knocking them, just tell him they cost you $15, and he'll shut up. They are really good speakers.

Ian

[zimmer62]

Blade, I said I'd get back to you and I haven't yet.

The main concern when using a single amplifier and an AB8SS is that the volume levels for each room are not adjustable from homeseer.

I thought of running this route with wall volume controls at each zone. The only thing that would be a problem is if people turn down the volume at a zone, but I want it back up for an announcement or something. I don't like a local override that's not remotely resettable, back to a normal level.

For me I really want complete control, plus local control at each zone, thus if I want to make an announcement over the house speakers and there is someone sleeping in a bedroom, it could turn off their speakers and speak the other rooms. You'd be able to do this with the AB8SS... in my case I'd like to adjust the volume too. At night I like to listen to music in my bedroom, and I'll change the volume to a level I like, but many times forget to boost the volume the next morning and will not hear the wake up announcement which I need really loud

If I control the homeseer volume for that instead of the amplifiers volume, the whole house's volume gets turned way down, and that's not desirable.

I'm looking into:

Sonos
Squeezebox Duet
Rusound
and maybe rolling my own.

Right now I have some of my speakers run to a central location, and some not.

I have 7 zones right now

Basement Gameroom
Basement Bathroom
Laundry
Kitchen
Bedroom
Livingroom
Workshop


The gameroom and the laundry / bathroom are on the same amplifier, and their volumes cannot be change independently.

The workshop, kitchen, and livingroom all have their own receivers and I can adjust the volume locally when I'm there. The bedroom I use a T-amp instead of a receiver, I can adjust the volume locally.

My goal is to change the speakers in the bedroom to ceiling speakers, add a pair in my office, add a pair in the living room ceiling, a pair to the upstairs bathroom ceiling, separate the basement speakers to zones that can be adjusted independently, and power the speakers I have on the deck.

In the future I'd like to add speakers in the garage.

So I'm kinda asking a lot, and looking for a total of 10 zones, possibly adding more, other bedrooms hallways etc. Do I really need volume ajustment at each place? Probably not, but would I like it? Yes.

10 zones, most solutions start to get really expensive.

The rolling my own solution is kinda what I've done but IR control of the receivers is unreliable, and frustrating at best.

I've thought about trying to modify one of these sonic impact T-amps I have to allow for remotely controlling the volume. I'm almost certain it's possible using a 1-wire potentiometer, or a micro-controller with some additional hardware I could get the effect I'm looking for. I saw someone convert one of the sonic impact t-amps to digital where they could press a button for up and down control, so I know it's possible, it's just a time consuming project I haven't had the time for. So If I add that to a matrix line level switch box I'd have everything I'm looking for. And on the cheap < $100 a zone with great sound...

I've got speakers for everything, pretty close to the quality of the speakers you posted there, and I'd have to agree with the quality, it's plenty good enough. Not $500 a speaker quality, but I think most people assume they were pretty expensive when they listen to them. In my kitchen people think I have a subwoofer which is kinda funny considering it's just these little $30 a pair ceiling speakers.

[Pete]

I currently have 8 pairs of speakers thru out the house. I ended up purchasing Pyle speakers. These are mounted on the walls in each room. (currently have Kitchen, Living room, Dining Room, up/downstairs foyer and four bedrooms. These are rectangular in shape. I also utilize the AB8SS switcher. Source A is Homeseer amplified by a small footprint Radio Shack amplifier. Source B is my multizone multimedia reciever. In addition I put AB switches in the Living room and all of the bedrooms. The living room has a touch screen and is a local sound source. Each of the bedrooms have multimedia recievers and thus they are the "B" of the AB switches. The quality of the sound from HS with the small amp is OK.

[Blade]

Well I cannot order the speakers from Parts Express.
I added 8 speakers to my cart and they wanted to charge me $197 US for USPS priority shipping. Can you say rip off?
I will have to find another source

[nightwalker]

that's a bit much for shipping, it gets so i hate ordering anything that's not local, or at least in country. I tried to buy a new battery charger from a place in Canada and they were doing the same thing to me except in reverse. Needless to say I found it somewhere else.

[bpm32]

Well I cannot order the speakers from Parts Express.
I added 8 speakers to my cart and they wanted to charge me $197 US for USPS priority shipping. Can you say rip off?
I will have to find another source

I'd be willing to ship them to you if you had them shipped here first (Indiana) - but I just checked the shipment price to Canada. (keep in mind I've never shipped out of the country!) It's showing at best $25 (I estimated 15 lbs for the package). That still seems high, but not as bad as what you were looking at!

[Blade]

I appreciate it. CompletelyHis is looking into shipping me some so I am waiting to hear back from him. If it falls thru for some reason, I will let you know.
Thx

[Bill Brower]

I went to Goodwill and got and older stereo home receiver and used it.
I prefer older ones because they have a mechanical on/off switch and volume control in case the power blinks. Works fine through an AB8SS.

If I wanted to do a bunch of speakers I'd get some car speakers with grills and paint the grills to match the room.

[Mountainman]

The main concern when using a single amplifier and an AB8SS is that the volume levels for each room are not adjustable from homeseer.

I thought of running this route with wall volume controls at each zone. The only thing that would be a problem is if people turn down the volume at a zone, but I want it back up for an announcement or something. I don't like a local override that's not remotely resettable, back to a normal level.

For me I really want complete control, plus local control at each zone, thus if I want to make an announcement over the house speakers and there is someone sleeping in a bedroom, it could turn off their speakers and speak the other rooms.

If I control the homeseer volume for that instead of the amplifiers volume, the whole house's volume gets turned way down, and that's not desirable.

Right now I have some of my speakers run to a central location, and some not.

10 zones, most solutions start to get really expensive.

The rolling my own solution is kinda what I've done but IR control of the receivers is unreliable, and frustrating at best.

So If I add that to a matrix line level switch box I'd have everything I'm looking for.

This is exactly the type of system I am (slowly) building. It seems the only way to get all of these features is to roll your own. In my case all of the speaker wiring goes to a central location. Volume control inputs in each room would go directly to HomeSeer so HomeSeer will know and manage the audio levels for announcements and then change back to the current volume level.

I think the key is a matrix line level switch box. I'm planning to use the Xantech ZPR68-10, http://www.xantech.com/Audio/AVDistr...ution/ZPR6810/. It's controllable via RS-232, rackmountable, expandable to 24 zones, and any set of outputs can be switched to any input (so the entire house could be running off a single synchronized source or electronically divided into several zones on the fly with exact speakers being off entirely - complete control). I don't plan to use the video connections.

[completelyhis]

I see the 9 zone expander for around $800, and the unit itself for $1200. Man I wish this stuff was more affordable!

[Mountainman]

No doubt! Every birthday I collect another piece..but it will be well worth the wait.

[bpm32]

For those who have these speakers (or any other in-ceiling speakers for that matter), how do these mount? We've decided to add speakers to each room, but the cold weather might get in the way.

We're getting ready to add another layer of insulation in our attic and I don't want to go climbing through the new layer if I can help it. I'm planning to pull wire today for these things. Once the speakers come in, I was hoping we could cut holes in the ceiling from inside the rooms, wire up the speakers, and pop them in the ceiling.

Your expertise is appreciated!

Brian

[completelyhis]

very easy, just cut a hole in the sheetrock using the template (be sure it's not near the studd/joist). Then the speaker just screws in and holds itself in place like the remodel boxes you can buy for adding an outlet somewhere.

the trick is running the speaker wire. what i did is take my 100' "fish tape" and push a heck of a lot of it through the hole, then when i went to the attic it was right there for me to hook the speaker wire to.

[Blade]

Would this stereo receiver power up to 12-13 pairs of speakers using the AB8SS. I realize I will need 2 AB8SS switchers. Just wondering if the receiver would be enough. I cannot seem to find receivers anymore that are more than 100W for 2 channels.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...0047013&catid=