I want to make the walls shake

[Plimogz]

Hello, all you fellow AT forumers,

What I need help doing is figuring out how to set up a loud stereo system in multiple (4-5) rooms of my house.

Before I get to meat of my OP, I want to state that audio fidelity/quality is not of the utmost importance to me.

What I dream of setting up is a system wherein I have numerous speakers spread out throughout a two-story, single family, residential house. I would like my system to be overbuilt in the sense where I can turn up the volume on a particularly quiet MP3 and when the playlist goes on to a very much louder recording, the speakers don't crap out on me. And I want it to be able to pump out block-rattling decibels.

And I have no idea where to start.

I know I'm going to need an amplifier. (yes, I'm a total novice in these things, obviously) and I would like to have five or six pairs of stereo speakers to spread around the house (man, will I love a pair in the garage). I would also like to have a couple of sub-woofers (one upstairs and one downstairs) to really rattle the foundations if I so feel like. My budget will be something around 2K$. And I plan on having a computer sound card putting out the signal, so it isn't meant to be anything really fancy.

I'm not opposed to building my own speaker boxes if that'll save me some $$.

As I said, I am absolutely not going for clean, distortion-free sound; I really do not care if it sounds muddled when I turn up the volume -- so long as it can be heard through the walls 300 yards away. What I am going for is a system where, on a scale of 1 to 10, setting it to 6 is risking a visit from the police, and where 1 or 2 is the casual setting for messing around the house with my tunes resonating lightly all about the place.

To quote Douglas Adams, I want speakers which "would have impressed the guys who put up Stonehenge"... but I want multiple sets spread out throughout the place. And of course the actual size is not so important as the noise they can output.

So that is it. You could say that I want to make a ruckus --and you would probably be right. I suppose one might also say that I'm aiming for some permanent hearing loss, lol. So be it!

I am rather broke; so inexpensive, make-shift solutions would be most welcome. Or perhaps suggestions as to what I should look for in pawnshops, flea markets or on craigslist.

There it is, can anyone help me set up something ridiculously loud?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Tl;Dr
Big Dayton Sub near the wall(s) that u want to shake

 

[sdifox]

big enclosure is the name of the game

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm

and your edtimated risk of 6 is low more like 11

 

[Tristicus]

Can't tell if you're serious or not..

 

[vshah]

do you want all of them playing the same source simultaneously? if so, you'll need something like this:

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=3118&sku=41067

to distribute the audio, along with a lot of cabling. depending on how big your house is could be $100-200 for wiring alone. this leaves you $1700 for speakers.

regardless, for that price you've got about $280 bucks for each pair of speakers and corresponding amp. just go on craigslist and buy a bunch of old amps/receivers and a bunch of cheap speakers. If you can find a 5.1 receiver, you could use that to power two pairs of speakers if it supports a "5 channel stereo" mode

edit: to really make your walls shake you'll need a sub which I didn't account for. to make your walls shake in any room of your house would require several subs, which is out of your budget.

 

[mshan]

Amplified speakers musicians use for concerts?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I suppose one might also say that I'm aiming for some permanent hearing loss, lol. So be it!

As much as people joke about this, it is actually a concern. If you get this system together, I recommend you buy an SPL meter so you can figure out how loud you're listening and then limit your exposure time accordingly.

As for how to get loud for cheap...

Is it necessary to get all of your rooms going right away? With a 7.1 receiver, you could get 3 rooms going in stereo and 1 room going in mono. It might also have pre-outs for zone 2 which would allow for expansion of the remaining rooms with some splitting of the pre-out signal. (Assuming the source is analog... since I think most cheap multi-zone implementations are still limited to analog... I could be wrong).

To get loud, you're going to want speakers with high sensitivity (also called efficiency in some cases). This is as important or more important than your amplifier power.
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html
With higher sensitivity, a speakers will be louder when being driven by any given amount of power.

Not only do you want high sensitivity, but the speakers must also have enough cone area / excursion capability to move enough air and handle the power you'll be throwing at them.

If you're really going to be pushing this system loudly with multiple channels driven, you'll more likely run into a situation where you start to run out of power from your receiver. If this happens, you'll start to clip the output sent to the speakers. You said you didn't care about sound quality, but this is really a concern since this can damage speakers in addition to just sounding bad.

Buying a beefy receiver will help. Buying a dedicated amplifier would be better, but I don't think you have the budget to do that in multiple rooms.

If by "walls shake", you're after a lot of bass, then you could potentially be spending a significant portion of your budget just on subwoofers. If you let capable subs handle the bass, it will be easier for your speakers to get loud since they don't have to cover low frequencies.

On the other hand, the suggestion to get some "pro" oriented gear might be the best idea. I don't know anything specific about these products, but I imaging you'd want a bunch of powered monitors. http://www.zzounds.com/cat--Active-Powered-Main-PA-Speakers--2737

 

[kornphlake]

I'd suggest PA gear, it will be the loudest in the smallest package, but it often comes at a premium price.

On a budget I'd get a few of these
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=248-749
then buy old "monkey coffin" speakers from thrift stores. That will get you the loud part and leave you ~$1000 for a big sub and an amp to shake the walls. Something like this would be a good place to start:
http://billfitzmaurice.net/T48.html

 

[melchoir]

Look for Cerwin Vega AT-15s. Buy a pair for each room. You won't need a sub to shake walls with these.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Yes, a good pair of floorstanding speaker can give outstanding bass while also delivering high quality mids and highs. It's not going to be easy to pull off with your budget though. Good luck with your search though, sounds like it should be a fun place when you're done.

 

[Corn]

Look for Cerwin Vega AT-15s. Buy a pair for each room. You won't need a sub to shake walls with these.

This, if sound quality is 2nd fiddle to loudness, Cerwin Vega is what you want. I'd bet you could find the DX-9 or DX-7's cheap on Craigslist.

 

[Modelworks]

So that is it. You could say that I want to make a ruckus --and you would probably be right. I suppose one might also say that I'm aiming for some permanent hearing loss, lol. So be it!

Don't joke about a very serious issue. I know a lot of people who thought it fun to have really loud car stereos, home theater. They ALL have hearing loss. The thing with hearing loss is you don't notice it, everyone around you does. When you are tweaking the equalizer and adjusting things to sound best to you thinking it must be the source, or the speakers, or the amplifier , you might want to consider it isn't the equipment , it is your hearing .

I learned the lesson a bit too late. My hearing was excellent when I was tested in the Navy I had a range of 22hz - 18khz. After years of listening to hi power audio this year it was tested at 41hz - 12khz a major loss . Good sound doesn't have to be loud.

 

[vshah]

Don't joke about a very serious issue. I know a lot of people who thought it fun to have really loud car stereos, home theater. They ALL have hearing loss. The thing with hearing loss is you don't notice it, everyone around you does. When you are tweaking the equalizer and adjusting things to sound best to you thinking it must be the source, or the speakers, or the amplifier , you might want to consider it isn't the equipment , it is your hearing .

I learned the lesson a bit too late. My hearing was excellent when I was tested in the Navy I had a range of 22hz - 18khz. After years of listening to hi power audio this year it was tested at 41hz - 12khz a major loss . Good sound doesn't have to be loud.

but loud sound...has to be loud

i much prefer good sound to loud sound though.


and OP, when are you ever going to even play this system at its full loudness? you said it yourself, you'll get the cops called on you...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Build a huge sub box, but make it part of the drywall too. The whole drywall cavity would become the encosure.

I think this would be fun.

 

[vi edit]

Build a huge sub box, but make it part of the drywall too. The whole drywall cavity would become the encosure.

I think this would be fun.

What you are looking for is Infinite Baffle. And the drywall isn't the enclosure, your basement/attic/garage/ect is.

 

[iRONic]

Get some Crown Pro gear and some of these:

 

[Plimogz]

Thanks for your replies everybody! Here are my thoughts...

@sdifox (post#3): That royaldevice.com link is awesome, unfortunately, it looks like it would cost a couple of hundred grand to achieve it. *relagated to an obscure part of my mind under the heading "what if I hit the jackpot numbers"*

@vshah (post#5): That amplifier is pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure that what I want to do will imply something along those lines. Thanks for the heads up! And I plan on playing it at (or near) max volume when I move somewhere where I can spread out the speakers and the nearest neighbors are at least some hundreds of yards away. Or perhaps in the (admittedly) unlikely event that everyone in my vicinity gets replaced by hard-of-hearing bodysnatchers. Or something along those lines...

@mshan (post#6):

Amplified speakers musicians use for concerts?

I would imagine that those would be too expensive for my budget. However, if I could find some used or whatever, do you suppose they could be driven by a "normal" amplifier? I.E. the same kind of amplifier people use to drive run-of-the-mill floor speakers? or would I need more power? ... Oh, or are "amplified speakers" speakers with built-in amplifiers and which thus allow indepedent input of signal/power?

@YOyoYOhowsDAjello (post#7):

Is it necessary to get all of your rooms going right away? With a 7.1 receiver, you could get 3 rooms going in stereo and 1 room going in mono. It might also have pre-outs for zone 2 which would allow for expansion of the remaining rooms with some splitting of the pre-out signal. (Assuming the source is analog... since I think most cheap multi-zone implementations are still limited to analog... I could be wrong).

No, It absolutely isn't necessary to get the whole thing going at once. Actually, looking at prices for even pretty average quality audio equipement, I can see that I'm never going manage doing the whole house for 2K$. In light of that, I'll probably try to get about halfway there (say, 3 rooms) with the capacity to add more as time goes by. So, your suggestion of a 7.1 receiver (especially one with a pre-out for a second zone) strikes me as a valid option which definitely deserves some consideration.

@kornphlake (post#8): Very interesting! Now, if I'm reading you correctly, I would place a Behringer A500 Reference Power Amp 2 x 230W along with a pair of "monkey coffin" (lmao) speakers in each room, split my analog source with a pre-amplifier and run wires through the house to carry the signal from the pre-amp to the power amps?

@melchoir & Corn (posts#9 & 11): Looking through some google results I came across this random quote describing the AT-15: "Big speaker well suited to playing rock music loudly" -- that actually does sound like the ticket! Thanks for the input. I'll make sure to keep an eye peeled for some used Cerwin Vega's as I go about trying to get my setup put together.

OK. Again, all my thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter. I'm thinking that I may have a bit of a firmer grasp on just how I might go about making this idea reality. I'm going to have a good look around ebay and craigslist to get a better idea on prices and such and maybe come up with a draft of what my final setup could look like. Once I know a little more about the actual components which I feel could fit the bill, I'll probably be back for some more advice. It should go without saying that I'm most certainly up for some more input if anybody cares to share.

 

[kornphlake]

Thanks for your replies everybody! Here are my thoughts...

@kornphlake (post#8): Very interesting! Now, if I'm reading you correctly, I would place a Behringer A500 Reference Power Amp 2 x 230W along with a pair of "monkey coffin" (lmao) speakers in each room, split my analog source with a pre-amplifier and run wires through the house to carry the signal from the pre-amp to the power amps?

Exactly, use an amp for each pair of speakers, if you only care about volume connect 2 pair of speakers in parallel to achieve a 4 ohm load. There are other amps out there, you might find something else comparable for less money, the Behringer has a reputation for being pretty low end for pro audio, for home use there's nothing with as much power at that price that I'm aware of.