I have three locations where I have a Receiver/Stereo set up: Front room, Bed Room, Garage. What I'd like to do is find a way to have all my receivers play the same source wether it's the CD, Ipod, computer, etc. from any of these locations.

Since I have a receiver & speakers at the locations that I want, I thought I'd use the Tape loop feature to send/receiver the signal from the other locations.
I figured I'd run an RCA to 1/8" cable into a wall jack, then 3 conductor cable to the other locations.

In my head, the theory sounds okay for two locations (send/receive). How do I modify it to have the capabilty to send a source from any location to the others. For example, I'd be doing some work in the garage, hook up the Ipod and start the music, then in my front room, switch to the tape loop and "monitor" what the garage is doing.

At any given time, I would only be sending one source to one or both other locations. What I am trying to accomplish is having one location to set up the source to listen to when I'm working around the house.

The other thing that ran across my head is signal strength since the distance between sources is approximately 75-100feet. Do I need to look at a distribution amp or something?

While it may make more sense to install a Whole house system, that is not in my budget currently.

Yes, this is a serious answer, even though it may look ludicrous.

first, the cheapest possible approach. Might not work, might be noisy, but the other approach would build from it.

Run a piece of CAT5 from one location to the other to the other. DO NOT go parallel to any power wires AT ALL. Be sure to think about what could be in the wall or ceiling when you plan the run and put it in.

Carefully note which wires you are using for what, and add RCA connectors to two pairs of the wires. You MUST use the same conductor....what the heck, I'll make a list:

blue wire left channel hot
white wire with blue trace left channel ground
orange wire right channel hot
white wire with orange trace left channel ground
other four conductors connect to ground..

and connect the left and right grounds together.

Now, at each receiver, connect a stereo jack to this mess in such a way that you can connect the ipod cable to it. Remember which connectors are the hots.

Plug all the RCAs into all three receiver/amps. Turn it all on. Plug in your ipod and go to town.

It might work. If it does, you are done. If it doesn't, and hums, I'll give you the fix below. If it does anything else other than hum, you have made a wiring mistake.

OR one of the receivers is not turned on and is messing up the sound on the line. If the sound id distorted, be sure all amps are on and check again.

If you have hum, then you will have to go to the next step, which is to buy transformers (or maybe just one or two -- that will stretch the budget) to actually correctly adapt audio line level signals to CAT5, and you will have to move the ipod jacks off of the CAT5 and onto the line cable side. Maybe. I would first try leaving the jacks on the CAT5 side. Like I said, it COULD work.

By the way, I recommended CAT5 because it is cheap and available, and pretty good at rejecting hum. If you have shielded wire, it might be better. It might not.

I just hooked up a two-zone audio system to another system located 200 feet of CAT5 away with wonderful success, but also with a transformer at each end.

Thanks for the suggestion... I guess I can give that a shot.

Let me know how it works. I have fooled around with this stuff since I was a kid and had zero budget, and I have run into most of the unapproved ways that things will work. And, along the way, gained a lot of understanding of why the others did not work.

Doesn't anyone use stereo line-level cable? I use it all of the time. It consists of two twisted pairs, each individually shielded, with a separate ground wire. I can usually run line level over a hundred feet with minimal interference.

A step up would be mircophone cable. It is very well shielded and also features a twisted pair. You would need two of them for stereo. It's a little expensive though.

Solder RCA connectors on to both ends of the cable, utilizing one twisted pair as the left and the other as the right chan. On each twisted pair, use one conductor as the signal and the other conductor as the ground. Solder the shield or drain wire to one of the other wires that are used for ground.

If interference is a problem, use a balanced line sender and receiver pair. Sonance, RDL, and other companies make them. They utilize differencial amplifiers and also boost the signal beyond the normal voltage. You will get virtually no hum even under poor conditions. If you use these devices, you would need a second balanced line receiver for the third location. One sender will take care of both receivers.
With balanced-line senders and receivers you will not have to solder on RCA connectors. The devices will take advantage of all four conductors, plus the shield in line-level cable.

If you don't convert to balanced line, you will need a distribution amplifier to feed two receivers. Take the source (CD, tape, DVD, VCR) and feed it into the distribution amp. The outputs of the distr. amp are then fed to three receivers. If you want to use a stereo receiver as the source, then feed the record out of the receiver to the distr. amp, then to each of the secondary receivers. There are several distribution amplifiers out there at a reasonable cost. Xantech AV-61 is one example, with six audio/video outputs for about $63.00. CE Labs has a 4-output A/V distribution amp (AV-400) for about $48.00.

The distribution amp has two purposes. The first purpose is to keep the output level the same with the extra load of the additional receivers. The second is to eliminate distortion. If any of the three receivers is not on, it will likely cause distortion in the ones that are being used. If all three are on at the same time, the distortion will not be obvious.
The distortion is caused by chips or transistors in the unpowered receivers acting like diodes shorted to ground when they are not powered. It is more obvious with CD or signals with more amplitude.

There are also several products out there that convert the signal to something that can use Cat 5. They work okay, but are usually not my first choice. The only advantage that I see to them is that the wire is dirt cheap and readily available. Look in MCM Electronics ([Link: mcminone.com] audio or A/V balums. The Muxlab stereo balum (part #33-9625) will do the job. You will need one at each end. They cost about $45.00 each. There may be some out there for even less.

Did you notice that almost all distribution devices are for audio and video? You might want to take advantage of the video distribution feature. If so, run RG-59 with 95% copper braid (commonly used for CCTV). Do not use RG-6 or RG-59 with an aluminum braid. Over longer distances, it will cause ghosting. I also wouldn't recommend either of these two cables for audio. It will work, but with some sacrifice to quality.

Thanks for the additional input..'

My original thought was to make/buy a couple RCA to 1/8" cables to run from the receivers to the wall. Then use something like a quickport 1/8" mini jack as a wall jack, then the suggested Stero Line Level cable to the other locations. Of course... now I can't find the 1/8" quickports... so maybe I'll go back with the RCA connectors.

As for the wire... Liberty Cable has a product.. 22-2P-CMP-SIAMEZ.

I found the Balance line senders/recievers on Sonace's web site... now I need to contact a dealer to find the price and see which way I'd tackle it.

Thanks!

I chose the CAT5 approach for a couple of reasons --
the adaptors are isolation transformers, so ground loops are unlikely to be a problem; if he can get away with not spending the money on the transformers, so much the better;

|Solder the shield or

For best noise rejection, i.e. if you are going to bother AT ALL with two conductor shielded, the ground should be connected at the source end. Since he wants to be able to plug the source in at different locations, there is no constant "source end."


The CAT5 - audio device is a balanced to unbalanced adaptor. (Bal to Un = balun). Passive ones are available, probablt at lower cost than the active ones you recommend.



I got no hum when I used the adaptors, and I have also had success just using CAT5.


Weren't there three places he wanted to have amps, where he could plug his player in at each one? So either he plugs into the balanced line somehow, or he has three senders and three receivers, all in parallel...will this load the line and, for instance, kill the highs?



A distribution amp assumes you have one source location and other receiving locations. Look at his email again -- his approach would need a distribution amp for each location, a run from each location to the other two, and switching to be able to select...and he would have to flip switches at all three units to have them all work.




Absolutely true and technically worth knowing. I have only found this to be a problem with amps and receivers that are at least ten years old, though. But in a parallel setup, I DID get an AM radio station through a five-year old powered-down Yamaha RX-V870 the other day!


Even the CAT5 ones. In fact, they started as video products, then added one channel of audio, then two.