whole house audio setup

[fisheerman]

Ok here goes.

I have decided to go ahead and install whole house audio into my home that was built last year. Luckily I prewired the house with speaker wire running from my media closet to each room. Also there is a feed from my living room to the closet that will serve as the audio signal.

My current setup is that I have a dedicated home theater system that is independant of the whole house system. It has a pioneer 1016, projector, xbox 360, wii, microsoft media center, etc.

In my living room I currently have a pioneer 816 just doing component switching for a cable box and a dvd player to a panny plasma on the wall. As noted above I have a feed (speaker wire) at this location running to the wiring closed.

So here is what I want to do. I'm going to install 5.1 surround to the living room as well as feed about 5 pairs of speakers that will have volume controls at each location. When I first purchased the 816 I wasn't going to run 5.1 in the living room I was just going to power the house with whatever source was running at the time. I am starting to rethink this and just go ahead and install 5.1.

Anyway my question is should i abandon the 816 and go with a multi zone receiver such as the denon avr587 or will the 816 work? Again, Im trying to drive 5.1 and whole house audio from one receiver. dual source isn't that big of deal but would be nice if the price doesn't get out of hand.

The speakers that I am using are the MTX add a zone systems 6.5" in each room and the 5.1 are polk audio 65 inwalls.

Any advice would be helpful

Thanks

-fish

 

[RupTheKid]

fish,

Are you going to be playing the same music in every zone, or will you have multiple independent zones? If you're going to have more than one zone playing independently at the same time, you can keep the 816 and go with some type of streaming control system with a local zone amplifier, or keep a multi-room multi-zone amplification system. What type of wiring do you have to each local volume control? The Control4 system is very popular - it offers complete flexibility at a fraction of what these types of systems used to cost just a couple years ago. Still, if you have the hard wiring in place, a system from Sonance, Niles, SpeakerCraft, or Jamo may offer much of the performance at a further reduced cost.

 

[fisheerman]

Rup

I'm looking to just have everything in the house play the same so multizone/multisource is out.

At the most I would want to be able to cut the sound from the 5.1 and just stream to the rest of the house or vice versa.

thanks

-fish

 

[Fallen Kell]

Someone has been neglecting their reading of the front page of AVSForum:

http://www.audioholics.com/twe...le-house-wiring-basics

http://www.audioholics.com/twe...e-wiring-basics-part-2

http://www.audioholics.com/twe...e-wiring-basics-part-3

http://www.audioholics.com/twe...-house-wiring-basics-4

Probably the first one will give you the 2 will give you an idea of what kind of equipment you should be looking at and what things you might want to do extra in terms of running wires (control systems for volume or changing radio station/CD track/audio source, etc., etc.,)

 

[fisheerman]

thanks for the reply Fallen Kell

I'm pretty versed at home wiring as well as distributed media. My question was more for comments or suggestion on the Denon avr587 dual zone capabilities verses running two different receivers my pioneer 816 and some other TBD receiver for my specific setup and needs.

thanks

fish

 

[RupTheKid]

fish - a quick Google search didn't reveal any photos of the back of the unit. Do you have a pre-out to main-in jumper on the back of the 816?

When you run multiple zones from the same amplifier you need a speaker selector just for simplifying connectivity. Something like the Jamo SS-4, Niles, or any other decent manufacturer will provide one for ~$70.

The big problem is that for every zone you have connected your amplifier impedance load halves. For just your main zone, your amplifier sees the MTX 8 ohm load. When you add another zone, this drops to 4 ohm. When you add three more zones, this drops to 2 ohm. So even if all your speakers are easy to drive, your 816 is still seeing <2 ohm load (with dips below one ohm) because you have one channel effectively driving five speakers. And while your Pioneer is comfortable with 8 ohm loads, 4 and 2 ohm loads are a whole different story and will likely burn out your receiver in short time. If you're going to connect 5 other zones in addition to your main ones, the front L & R amplifier outputs from the Pioneer just aren't going to cut it. Going to a Denon multi-zone receiver will resolve your problems if you're going to keep the Pioneer for supplying the juice to your 5 zones and the Denon for your living room 5.1 will provide your inputs to the Pioneer. If this is the setup you choose, you're going to need a whole lot of jumper cables, because the Pioneer can't use all five of its channels to duplicate stereo sound, and you have to feed each channel the right signal manually.

This is a difficult thing for me to explain over email - if you need further instruction drop me a phone call.

Best,

Rup

 

[fisheerman]

Rup

I guess i left some things out. Each set of speakers has its own impendance matching volume control at the room.

I am also running a leviton speaker distribution block like this. Audio Module


With the volume controls and the distribution I think everything is pretty clear.


It is more on how to drive this system. Should I look to get two receivers (816 + another) or go with a single receiver with 2 zones (like the denon avr 587)?

again dual source isn't required.

Thanks

fish