Wow, that's cool but it's $30.

This is $8 and accepts up to 14 awg on the screw terminals



[Link: easyadapters.com]

No, he's got a 16-4 speaker wire and a 16-4 shielded wire to the VC location. So he should be just fine.

Pesci, you don't need to use the RJ45 port. Use can use the terminal block. I think you need to use the RJ45 port in order to use RS485. Either way just terminate a 1' piece of cat5 with a RJ45 on one end and use b-caps to splice. Otherwise use the easy adapter that Jim recommended as they work really well.

According to his last email he only has the one 16/4 with ground incoming. and 2 16/2 outgoing.

Only K4's and K3's come with terminal blocks everything else is RJ45's only and he is talking about RK2's

Sorry, not trying to argue but.....


I'm taking this as he has speaker wire and a 16-4 w/shield

Correct 2 16 2's from spkrs down to vc and 5 conductors coming from rack!!! Is there a system where I can get discrete room and sources on and off?? Like grab a remote or kp and hit kitchen tuner, office ipod etc??

Is there only 5 wires including speaker wires back to the rack? Is the 5th wire the ground/shielded wire?

Maybe just convert a couple areas to mono and that opens up 2 conductors plus the shield. Put in K4's or whatever in these areas and have these control the other areas as well. In addition if they don't have an audio matrix put one in for true multi-room
One draw back is no VC in the areas you left as stereo or you could do the whole thing as mono and put in your RK3's or 2's everywhere. Mono is not that bad for background music or areas that the speakers have a lot of separation anyways.
On Video zones you could do zigbee remotes

If you only have 5 wires go with Sonos and give everyone in the house a iTouch.

RTI, you were right. My bad. It wasn't explained very well.

OMG!!!!!! im soooo stumped on this, i talked to rti today and they cant tell me anything. im hoping u guys can help me and teach me how to do a true multizone w rti!!!

the system that is in NOW is old skool original run 16-4 w 1 lil shield cable or ground as some say to the volume control... then the guy ran from the vol control a 16-2 to each spkr in the room. Some rooms have 4 spkrs cuz of the size. Speakers are NOT home runned directly to rack!!

NOW what i wan to do is add some T2C or even a T3 to the closet rack and have discrete source and zone control from a handheld AND use the vol controls.

there is a yammy tuner and pre amp that i can use, but i think what i need to take out is the 2 12 channel amps and the one yamaha 4 channel power amp to a company "maybe" like B&K that has discrete zone control??????? if not i think this guy is fu***ed!!! i would love to have 2 way if possible to have meta data like from a T3 to have XM or IPOD feedback or just plain tuner feedback.

i dont know too much of what else is in the rack for equipment i now they got some other stuff tucked away in back prob for the muting and what not.

i know this can be done, just rti kinda said "your on the right track" and couldnt give me the actual answer. i dont wanna try to sell something and not have it work and be like oh yeah u need to add this, this, and that, $$$. thanks guys

Leave the amps add a matrix, control with RTI
I like knox media flex with volume control built in. However no 2 way on that yet but no biggie.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk but if you are doing a house this big and having to ask on this site how to set up multizone you may want to bring on someone with you that can help you do system design that has experience with bigger systems. Everyone will give a differnt oppinion as to what to use and everyone will be differnt.

Since you don't really have any control wire to speak of for control, I would use hand held remotes with zigby that way you don't need to worry about antenna wire. Most of our larger projects usually only have 2 maybe 3 K4's the rest is individual hand held remotes. some times we use K3's but not always. forget 2 way for this job, Just focus on getting a decent matrix switcher, the Knox mentioned is a good choice, the commands are already in the data base, if the 12 channel amps he has a decent keep them, you have some equalization available with the Knox to make them sound better, if they are crap you can use the B&K or Audio Control or whoever you prefer. As mentioned above it is possible to sum the grounds on a 4 conductor for a pair of speakers, this will leave you with a free conductor and the shield which you can use as Signal for a touch panel, if you can get local power to the touch panels, you may still be able to pull that off. From what have told us, this really does not sound like a very difficult project, because you have to work within your limitations, and the customer has to understand this, If you want to do distributed video, and there is at least available cable at every location then there is a possible solution there as well, since there is a product that encodes up to 255 devices over a single cable run, if your customer is willing to pay for it,then that can be done as well.

No problems only solutions.  don't look at the whole thing as some mountain you have to climb,  break it down into smaller parts. Put it on paper and walk through it step by step, think outside the box and you will succeed

Did you look at Nexus Audio?
You can install a keypad that uses the speaker wire and still sends the audio through to the speakers.
Using this you will have given the client a simple "local" control of his system.
Adding something like RTI for handheld remotes in certain areas can also be done as all you need are the RTI parts to control the audio system from the T2-C or other remotes.

I agree with RTI Installer and/or Sirroundsound.

The Nexus Media would work. The RTI system with a matrix switch will get you covered. personally i would take out the VC's and use a matrix that gives you volume control that way the client can control all the volume from the remotes.

This is really a pretty simple upgrade. Just settle down. It sounds like you haven't done a system like this, but this seems pretty straight forward. You just don't have in-wall controls, no biggie.

Per an email I received last week, Nexus C-6 with Phantom control are disco'd until the new model rolls out in 1st Qtr of 2010.

I like the Sonos idea. Logically group the zones with 2 or 3 ZP90s to feed the 12 channel amps. Set the amps to line level detection. Based upon budget, then add several CR200 remotes, Ipods and/or PC control.