I've got to finish a design for an apartment in NYC & I just can't decide the "best" way to do it. So here it is:

Four rooms of audio: foyer entry, kitchen, living room & Master Bedroom. Relatively small space;1300 square feet. The foyer opens into the living room and the kitchen is off to the left of it so they are very close together. The only audio source is a 5 disc changer and an FM/AM tuner that "we are absolutely never going to use"
The living room and master bed are getting 42" plasmas with DVD & HD cable as sources. No home theater at all. The LR & MB speakers need to be for both the video and audio.
Oh, and of course it must be low cost, totally invisible and completely idiot proof.

So this is my current thinking. use the plasma for the AV switching with audio outputs back to a Russound CA4i-LCD. MX800 in the LR & MB to control the AV equipment and the Russound. No room for expansion but it should work. Source 1:LR 2:MB 3:CD 4:FM. I'll have cat5 EVERYWHERE in case the MX800 flubbs up but I did an initial test and I think I'll be OK. I may even rack up both cable boxes and use one DVD for both plasmas. The run is pretty long but there is a good closet behind the LR plasma but nothing good in the MB for equipment.

So what do you guys think? I can think of about twenty ways to do this but the fact that there is no home theater and two out of the four rooms have to share speakers just make it a little strange. I did consider Soncance K2's and the harbor system but I've never worked with one before so I'm not sure how it would work with the MX800 and it just seemed overkill for these people. This is just a crash pad in the city for a few nights a week.

This message was edited by Ted Wetzel on 06/08/04 21:56.

First, tell them it works this way:

A. Totally Invisible
B. Completely Idiot Proof
C. Low Cost

Pick one. If they pick A or B, they cannot have C. Once that is accepted, they can pick A and B if they want to.

My thoughts exactly. They are nice people to work for, always offer money up front, but they can't operate a remote to save their lives.

Low cost is a relative term. Sell them a Niles ZR8630 multizone A/V receiver and rack all the equipment in the same location, including the HD boxes. Make sure you run coax from that location to each plasma to pass your component signal for HD and DVD picture. I've done this many times. It works great. If you program it right, it is idiot proof.

So with the ZR8630 you can't pass component - he'll need switching for component or a whole bunch of component cables for 2 DVDs and 2 HD boxes. Did I miss something?

BTW, I have started playing with a K2 keypad and the software is really nice. Plus, the keypad is REALLY an eye catcher.

I'm going to put together a demo unit in a metal camera case so I can take it to clients and show them a programmed keypad lit up. I think it will sell some systems.

We run 2 CAT5E and 7 RG6QS to all plasma locations. This allows the plasma to do the video switching between the DVD, HD, and standard composite input(BrightHouse in this area requires using the standard input for many of their channels.) The ZR8630 handles every thing else. The 2 x 7 gives you plenty of flexibility.

My 2 cents for cheap. Rack all the equipment together: (2) HD cable boxes, (1) MX-800, (1) MX-700, stereo reciever like Yamaha RX777, CD player, 4 channel switch box OMG!!, (2) auto switching amp like Sonance ASAP1, (2) pr decent in walls, (2) pair in ceiling, 2" Carlon pipe from closet to plasmas, (7) RG59 silver by MIT to each plasma and (4) VC's and viola! Your done for about $3,800 retail in hardware plus your video. Does that sound like what your after??

Sorry - kick another $300 in for (2) DVD players. That will give you a dedicated DVD for each plasma and a dedicated cable box for each plasma. Seems simple. Am I missing the concept?

And Tom - I just installed (3) K2's today are they are cool. Easy to program and nice to look at. My customers definately were diggin them. Hooked 'em straight into an Adcom 3 zone stereo preamp.

Cheap is indeed relative. The Plasmas are Fujitsu & the DVD player is the $1000 Sony. I haven't priced a decent compononet distribution amp but I figure a 1 x 2 will be cheaper than two $1000 Sony's. I haven't looked at Niles in a while but I'll take a look at it.
The reason I originally settled on the Russound was to avoid VC's and auto switching amps. The Russound has discreet codes for input select so I don't have to worry about any A/B switching screwing up and I also don't have to worry about a VC being all the way down when they pick up the MX-800 and want to bring up the volume. The Russound is $2400 with the keypads. It is an older piece and wouldn't work if they needed more control from the wall location but in such a small space with two MX800's they should be OK. My biggest concern is not having a spare input but since the tuner will be rarely used I could always put that on an IR A/B switch.
The only thing that gives me the shivers is using RG6QS for a top end plasma. That stuff is meant for RF not baseband video.

Edited - I just double checked everything and the plasma doesn't have pre outs, just speaker level :(
I was sure it had pre-outs.

This message was edited by Ted Wetzel on 06/10/04 17:02.

and two out of the four rooms have to share speakers just make it a little strange

I don't get this.

The CA4.4iL is a four zone controller, so you'd have four separate speaker zones with no sharing, other than the four possible sources.

Am I missing something?

Additionally, the CA has IR built in, so using RF isn't really required. No?

Also thinking you might not understand how the CA works, since what you'd really be doing is sharing the source components through the four zones.

Ergo, source 1 would go to any speaker pair, rather than just a specific room. Same with all source components, so if you route the DVD audio to source 1, the MBR HD box audio to source 2, the LR HD box audio to source 3, that only leaves source 4 vacant for use with either the CD, or the Tuner (one or the other).

That way, any room can listen to the audio from any of the four source components, as well as have IR control over them (given the proper remote).

From the looks of it, the Russound ABus A-MK401 with a A-LC2 local input module might actually be a better alternative, since you can do four zone, four source, AND you can very easily have a local input (MBR HD Box), which alleviates the "over" source situation you have.

With the Abus system, you could have a local input for the MBR HD box, which frees up space for the tuner.

It's cheaper, less wire intensive and would be easier to operate for the end user.

Anyone else?

I have used the CA4.4iL before. By a little strange I just meant that I usually don't end up with two out of four rooms sharing speakers between the whole house audio and TV. You might have an A/B switch in one area out of eight. Not two out of four and no HT at all.

If I didn't make it clear I was intending to have the CD & Tuner as two sources and the two video areas as the other two using the plasma to do the A/V switching.

I plan on racking all of the equipment in one area so the MX-800 will be nice for direct control & IR routing capability without going through the keypads. With the way the CA series strips the IR it can cause problems with a few pieces of gear. Also I'm concerned that the keypad will not be direct line of site from the Master Bed. The MX-800 gives me a way around that problem.

I'm taking a another look at the Abus right now but I've never been overly impressed with the sound of them. The CA series sounds better.

I've decided to pitch the key digital 8 x 3 component matrix switch with the system. The matrix switch can handle the A/V switching for both plasmas and gives me a back up for extra sources.

I've reread your original post and latter comments. A $1,000 DVD on a "low cost " job. Get real. If 2 of the rooms are close together - which you had indicated, how about an Adcom 3 zone preamp. Its a discontinued model but its real nice. Mate it with a 6 channel amp or 3 separate stereo amps. It mates up with K2's without connecting blocks or anything. Has 2 internal tuners. Also has enough inputs to have 2 cable boxes, 2 dvds, and a cd player. Also has IR out for each of the 3 zones so you can have 2 identical cable boxes and dvds. The K2s have ir input too so mx-700s might just work for you.
Personally, I'd take 2 $400 DVDs than a $1,000 DVD ran thru a switch. This isn't what I'd call a 'cost conscience job' though.

By a little strange



Not really so unusual. Although 2 out of 4 is more than usual.

Quite often on a "budget" system I've had a pair of inwalls for use with the local TV source, shared witht the whole house audio system. It at least beats using the typical TV speakers. And I think a pair of inwalls are better than in ceiling for a MBR.

Wondering, is the $1,000 DVD a file system?

Let me just make one point here. My sentence that included low cost was a mild joke. This is the kind of client that is ALWAYS going to say it must be cheap & then turn around and drop $50K on floor tile. I thought it was kind of obvious when I mentioned NYC & two Plasmas that it wasn't a $1500 job. What they don't want is $2500 in-walls, Crestron, ADA, four zones of Escient & four tuners in an apartment they spend about six waking hours a week.

The DVD is the the DVP-N999ES. If the switch is designed properly and the proper cables are used the loss should be minimal. I pitched a Native Rate to go on each plasma but they didn't want to go quite that far. Two $500 dolloar DVD players would certainly change things but I still would need a larger pre. What I really like about a matrix switch over just a switch is the routing ability. If you start a pay-view movie in one area you can easily route it to both or switch it.

I appreciate ALL of your suggestions and I do look at the products suggested. It's a lot easier for the stuff I allready have price sheets on. The stuff I don't takes a little more digging to figure out the price point it puts me at.