house sound system

[driver]

hi all new to all this but here goes

i live in a terraced house when i gutted the place i decided i want some type of sound system in ( basic radio/mp3 ) nothing fancy i have run seperate wires from the ceilings to under the stairs ( 11 in total ) i want an apm that i can fit under the stairs so i can plug say im ipod into it and it will play music through out my house. ive asked people for help and have been fobbed off so to speak any help is most apreciated thanks
lee

[driver]

i also need the speakers for the ceiling havnt bought these yet because apparantly i need certain ones for the certain amp ( 300 watt, 500 watt, 1000 watt )

[kalniel]

If it's just radio/mp3 then you don't need to worry about the highest fidelity and you've got a couple of options. One is to use a computer to serve the music, and have networked media players in the various rooms so they can play it. Systems like Logitech Squeezebox, Apple airplay, Philips streamium etc. all do this. For Airplay for example you just need iTunes on your computer/ipod etc. and Airplay compatible speakers/amps/docks in the rooms etc.

If you don't have a computer to act as a server then you need to get a device to act as the server (ie that will pick up the radio/act as a dock for your music source etc.) and broadcast to the rest, and again the same systems mentioned above have models that can do this, or you can use propitiatory multi-room systems like those from Arcam etc.

In short, you don't need wires - you can either use a home wifi network or use propitiatory wireless systems built into hifi units.

[scaryjim]

tbh without knowing exactly what wires you've already put in and how you want the system to work, it's difficult to make any suggestions.

Just for one example; are the wires suitable for using as speaker wire over the lengths you've laid in? Speaker wires need relatively low resistance, so for long runs you need quite heavy wire.

I'm also not sure what you're trying to acheive. Do you want to play the same music in all the rooms at the same time (which sounds like the most likely from your description)? Or do you want the music switchable as you move around the rooms so it comes from one source but plays in the room you're in (in which case you'd need some kind of control mechanism)? Or do you want different music to play in different rooms at the same time? If it is the first one, why would you want to do that when you can only be in one room at once? Why not just have a portable system that you carry around with you?

Too many variables

[kalniel]

He might want to host a party But even then, it's certainly preferable to have a system you can switch on/off in individual rooms, as well as control volumes independently.

[scaryjim]

You shouldn't have said that - I'm now plotting intricate control systems with arduinos and movement/heat sensors, and the wife would go nuts if I started talking about fitting automated sound control systems throughout the house

to be fair, I don't think the landlord would be that impressed either

[kalniel]

You shouldn't have said that - I'm now plotting intricate control systems with arduinos and movement/heat sensors, and the wife would go nuts if I started talking about fitting automated sound control systems throughout the house

to be fair, I don't think the landlord would be that impressed either

Tell her it means she'll be able to nag speak to you wherever you are in the house. No more 'I didn't hear you dear' excuses

[scaryjim]

Hmmm, room-to-room intercom as well? Looks like a requirement to buy a bunch of el-cheapo android mobiles with wifi to do the room-to-room communication side of things....

Better get this new shed built first though, eh

[kalniel]

Don't even need a phone - a second hand ipod touch more than enough. Record 'memo' to mp3. Play over wifi network. Done.

[suedenim]

A system like this: http://www.sonos.com/

[DanceswithUnix]

Doing this properly is usually really expensive. A google for "multiroom audio" turns up things like this:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...incognito-kp10

So there you need a compatible amplifier, you need cat5 not speaker cable going to the rooms, that goes to an amplifying controller panel and from there to ceiling speakers. £300 per room from a quick look on Richer Sounds.

Sounds like you just want a big amplifier to drive all the speakers. Are you expecting to use cheap car speakers?

I can't see the finished sound being that good tbh, if only because having sound sources in multiple rooms will interfere with each other, and speakers are expected to be pointing at you rather than in a ceiling pointing down.

[driver]

cheers for your replys

i just want an amp yeah with plain jane ceiling speakers i have run standard speaker cable to each speaker point to under the stairs

im not realy botherd about sound interfeatance and ive had someone try sell me the sonos system £700 justfor the amp part and the the speakers ontop :l

can ijust bung an amp under the stairs with a jack to say my ipod and have done with it?

and also say a speaker is 40watt each and i have 11 ( 440 watts ) can i use a 500 watt amp?

thanks again lee

[scaryjim]

Ooooh, where to start.

Firstly, yes, you can do it like that, but I'm still lost as to why you'd want to just blast the same music into every room in the house at once. Still each to their own.

More importantly, audio doesn't work as simply as you just plug in as many speakers as you want and Bob's your uncle. Each speaker has an impedance, and an amp is designed to output a particular power level (watts) into that impedance. Vary too far from the impedance and you start causing problems. Have too low an impedance and you start pulling far too much power through the amp, causing serious problems. You get a very low impedance by connecting lots of speakers in parallel - so your set up, with 11 speakers all plugged into one speaker output, is going to pull way too much power through your amp.

This means you'll need to connect some of your speakers in series with each other and some in parallel, and it's going to be a bit of guesswork as to which to do where to balance the sound.

You haven't mentioned whether you've set up multiple wires so you can run 2 or 4 speakers to each room to preserve stereo or not, but it doesn't sound like you have. So you won't have stereo (which means you'll need to buy a mono amp or bridge the outputs) and tbh if you've only got one speaker per room you're going to have a very uneven volume distribution.

Plus, you say you've run "standard" speaker cable throughout the house. As I said earlier, the longer the run of cable you have the heavier/thicker cable you need to control the resistance of the cables. If you've just used bog standard stuff that's sold as speaker cable, it probably won't be thick enough for the distances you've run the cable. I mean, it'll still work, but the cable will impact the audio quality.

It's a nice idea in theory, but I'm afraid I think you should've been asking these questions before you ran the cable, not afterwards!

[DanceswithUnix]

You can use line matching transformers to drive lots of speakers in parallel, and cut down on wiring losses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constan...speaker_system

Probably needs a lot of reading up, and this stuff is used for PA use so again I wouldn't expect good quality sound after the amp output has been through all that.

[driver]

cheers for reply

this is my fist house and when i got the electrician in he said to do it like i have done but now i know he knew f*** all about f*** all

in the big rooms i have run 2 seperate speaker wires and in dmaller rooms just the 1

please could you let me know which/ what the best thing to do is and how to do it please

thanks lee

[driver]

also what amp and speakers, imjust having a read up now danceswithunix