Whole House Audio Help!

[markjsanti]

Hi, I'm a complete noobie here and need some help... It seems like a lot of you know what you're doing here, so I figured I'd ask for your help! I just purchased my first home and I also just purchased HS2. I have a Yamaha surround sound for my Living Room theater but i'd like to add speakers to the kitchen and hallways for entertaining with music(nothing crazy!) What are the steps and what do I need? Is the Yamaha receiver useful at all? How do I control the music? Would I have to connect an amp or my receiver to my PC?

Thanks so much in advance,

Mark (the rookie!)

[completelyhis]

give us a few details, such as:

receiver model (and if you know if it is multizone capable)
wiring - is it prewired, if not do you have access to pull wires where needed)
desired control - do you want to control the input/volume etc from the Yam or @ wall where the speaker is

Others may ask for more information, but that's a good start.

Ian

[markjsanti]

Thanks so much for the reply!

Receiver Model is Yamaha HTR-6130... I've purchased an iPad and hopefully could control the audio with the HSTouch. Wiring I can pull in no problem... its being framed at the moment! As for control, I'd like to control volume from the iPad, but whatever works best is good for me! Also I've read a bit in the threads about Homesser announcements, that would also be good!
Hope thats sufficient!

[completelyhis]

I'm just trying to get a feel for the architecture of your setup. Here are more questions:

I would assume you want to control the audio w/the Ipad using HStouch?
Do you want to control each speaker/zone individually, or globally? This question pertains to volume, on/off, and input.
You mentioned kitchen and hallways...how many zones do you see wanting when it's all finished?
Where will your HS PC be located in relationship to the living room surround sound receiver and the speaker zones?

The receiver you mentioned does have an A/B zone selector, which is good. It does not have RS232 control, which isn't so good.

I'd be glad to share with you how I do my setup, if you're interested.

Ian

[markjsanti]

Sure that sounds great... I would just like to control globally, don't need individual zones... I think it would just be an extra four or five speakers throughout the hallway and kitchen... I'm thinking of keeping the HS pc in my basement just beneath the family room and kitchen which are open concept with eachother....

[Rupp]

Sure that sounds great... I would just like to control globally, don't need individual zones... I think it would just be an extra four or five speakers throughout the hallway and kitchen... I'm thinking of keeping the HS PC in my basement just beneath the family room and kitchen which are open concept with eachother....

One of the easiest ways to get your sound to various locations is to use wireless speakers. Then you can use one transmitter to send signals to all your speakers. If you plan on running speaker wires and speakers then all you need is a impedance matching speaker selector that has as many connections as the pairs of speakers you have and then all you have to do is connect your speaker out to the speaker selector and your set.

[markjsanti]

Could you send me some links to some hardware that I would need... Just so I could get a better idea? Not sure if I'd go with wireless, but maybe I'll reconsider...

[Rupp]

Something like this :
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...ource=googleps

and speakers. Run each speaker wire to this device and then one set of wires from you receiver and your done and your receiver can power multiple sets of speakers safely.

[markjsanti]

And I guess I'd connect my reciever to my pc somehow?

[Rupp]

Yes, you can simply run your PC's speakers line out of the PC and connect it to one of the receivers inputs. I bought a plug that is a small "headphone" connector on one end and is an RCA out put on the other. Link Then I simply ran a RCA pair from the speaker line out to the receiver. Now anything that the HomeSeer server speaks or plays ie Media Player plugin goes to the receiver.

[markjsanti]

That sounds great! You're awesome!

[markjsanti]

Is there any type of low cost decent speakers you'd recommend? Also any specific speaker wire?

[Pete]

I would recommend 16/4 to a wall plate then 16/2 to the speakers. You can get some deals on Ebay for multiple sets of in-wall/ceiling speakers.

Run the 16/4 wires near your audio source. Pair them up with cat5 for future expansion.

My speakers are in the walls but many folks prefer them in the ceilings.

Here's a cheap means of distribution with one amp / put volume controls/switches in the wall plates.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Leviton-7-Zone-M...item3a5b2802d1

[markjsanti]

Thanks for the info and the link Pete!

[jackpod]

another side to think about. Do you think you will use this a lot? Do you care about the quality? Have you ever been in a house that has a nice distributed audio system? Are you a fan of compressed MP3's? can you tell the difference between a compressed MP3 and CD quality? Are you aware that the lower the quality the faster "listener fatigue" sets in?

I installed a 6 source, 6 zone Nuvo system ( I then added another 6 zones) with moderate speakers. The nuvo is on from the time we get home until it is time to watch an episode or two of whatever series we are currently watching. On weekends it is on from when we get up until we settle in the theater. The quality is great, it comes with keypads for each zone, has 20 watts per channel per zone) I can have a playlist of what I want to hear in the garage or workshop and the wife can be listening to one of her playlists at the same time. It is interfaced with Homeseer (in my case not with the homeseer plugin but with Cinemar's Musiclobby/J River/Nuvo plugins) I have it setup with 3 zones of ripped cd's, plus XMRadio, satelite TV and home theater audio feeds. It is nice to be able to distribute TV audio throughout the house, so if you are not directly in front of the TV, you can still hear what is going on. The quality is so good, I opted to rip all of my CD's in wav format (all 700 gigs worth) and with a pro quality sound card (M-Audio Delta 1010lt (actually 2 of them)) I can feed my high end home stereo from the digital feed and can't tell the difference between it and an actual cd player ( I might add, McIntosh amplification and Klipsch Kornerhorns are not something that you can buy at Best Buy). The server that stores the wav files also acts as my video server with a good part of my DVD collection also ripped using TheaterTek as my virtual DVD player. All in all I have 6.5TB of storage on this box. This part of my setup is the most used and most enjoyed part of my HA system.
Not something you can buy at Radio Shack, but if you serious about your media, look at a quality whole house audio system. I prefer Nuvo but there are others such as Russound, B&K and others
I might also mention in my case my TTS is a completely separate system with most rooms having a 3rd speaker in the ceiling. I have 19 controllable zones of TTS on the property including outside zones