Ok, I've got a question. I've thought about it, and the most I will ever be doing is watching TV in my HT which is driven by my existing receiver, and someone may be listening to music from another source throughout the house. What I was thinking, is there an amp with 1 source/one zone that I could drive all those speakers with. I could run the "zone 2 pre-out" from my receiver into the amplifier, and use the sub-room setting on my receiver to select the source for my whole house. My system doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles that a mult zone multi source amp can give, I just need the power to drive the speakers, and volume controls to turn down the ones I don't want to listen to. I really just don't want to dump thousands of $$$$ into a multi zone/source amp that I wouldn't use that much.

Thanks,
Mark

Jesus, guys. Just run the zone 2 preout of the HT receiver into a beefy twelve zone amp, such as a, Seakercraft BB1235 or 65. Bus the input to all twelve channels, double up the speaker pairs, two per channel. Throw some volume controls in the rooms and you are done.

That's what I was talking about digitlife...no need to use the lord's name in vain.

I would take a look at using 2 Xantech PA1235 amplifiers. They even have IR control of volume for each zone.

Dawn

Either two Russound CA-6.4il would be the BEST fit for this application, or two Niles "Gloria".

Total source control from each individual location since IR is built in.

Simpler installation for the "average Joe", since all it takes is a single cat5 to the volume control, and a home run 16x4, or 14x4 for the speakers.

Go ahead, flame me all you want. But you know that I'm right.

Never an issue with blowing a speaker pair if someone inadvertently has only one pair of speakers on, and the volume is at full on upon start up (yes, it does happen).

No inherent loses from speaker selectors and volume controls. You get the full wattage to the speakers.

There is a right way to do a multi-room system, and using a bunch of impedance matching volume controls, or a speaker selector ISN'T it. Besides, when you add in the needed IR control (hardwired, I presume) you'll spend nearly as much for a really clunky, single zone, nightmare of the audio world anyway. So why do something half-a**ed?

Has a real budget been discussed at all? I went back through the posts and couldnt find any mention anywhere other than "I really just don't want to dump thousands of $$$$ into a multi zone/source amp that I wouldn't use that much."

Maybe I missed it...........


Either way, A Speakercraft Easy6 w/ Keypad controller might be a better investment to go along with 2 BB1235's You can break the system up into just 6 zones then (Since Multi-zone doesnt seem to be the biggest concern) and still maintain the better amplification... ANd still be under the price of a pair of Glorias/6.4's

You're kidding ...right?

Pretty much...

Hey, I just wanted to thank you all for helping me with this project. I appreciate the time you spent with me on it.

Thanks,
Mark

Are you confused yet?

Mark,

Another option would be the Russound A-Bus system, if you don't want to spend the $$$ that a multi-source system costs ... Rotary/slide/etc. volume controls and speaker selectors are out of date solutions in my opinion ... especially in a case like yours where you have 11 zones ... plus they don't give you any equipment control options ... where are you located in SC? ... I'm out of Greenville, if you wanted to talk to someone one-on-one ...

I use Russound CAV6.6 this will switch 6X6 audio and video. If you run your video you can share your DVD and vcr through the house, maybe cameras? You can daisy chain 4 of these I think. Think they sell it as a kit with keypads. It will accept 12 volt trigger from your home theater amp to keep your sources on when the theater is off. You can also do 6 zones with 4 additional Abus zones hung on it. You will have to buy the Abus pads and extra power supply for it. The thing about the abus that is bad it you cannot turn the system on from them they are mostly just volume controls that run on cat 5. Russound also has a pretty cool tuner that feeds back station info to the keypads. This system is a little tough to program without the software, but my customers are always happy with them.

Ok, tell me if what I did is ok. I bought a Russound 8 Channel/4 Source PR-4Z Pre-amp. I figure this has enough source inputs for my system, and I can buy a multi zone amp, or individual amps for each zone for this PR-4Z to feed. What does everyone think? Am I going the right way or not?

Thanks,
Mark

maybe what has been missed by all the responces has been multi speaker system 101. If you have an amp, any amp either in a receiver or just an amp. It has a rating. Most good amps will handle 2 ohms. Most receivers will do 4 ohms. That said. If you have one pair of 8 ohm speakers on a channel of an amp it sees it as 8 ohms. If you have 2 speakers on one channel of an amp the amp sees 4 ohms. That is the max for most receivers. A and B at 8 ohms together makes 4 ohms resistance. Now if you add a third pair of 8 ohm speakers you have brought the load to your amp to 2 ohms. A good am will do this just fine. Now if you add the fourth pair of speakers to this am your load is now 0 ohms. The amp sees this as a dead short. It will do one of three things. Blow the fuse or go into safety mode and shut down or just burn out. Now you can run your whole house out of 4 stereo zones but you have to do the math as far as distributing the power. Since you bought just a pre amp. You still need to amp your zones. If you break it down into 4 stereo amps at this point. Zone 1 may be 3 rooms that create a 2 ohm load to that amp. And zone two may be the same. etc

That's what I was hoping to do Rudi. Or I may buy 3 ap-48's or something similar and loop the main source through the 3 amps.

Thanks,
Mark