Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio Home Audio Question....

Quick question for anyone who knows anything about home audio...

I am building a house and am putting speakers in about 6 rooms. I had all of the speakers wired to the spot where my entertainment center is going to be. I have it wired for 2 speakers in each room. All I want is to be able to play the radio or a cd to the rooms, and really don't even care if each room is independant from the others. I have seen the systems at places like www.partsexpress.com where each room has its own volume control and such, but those systems can get pricey. Is there a cheaper way to wire this up? Any help would be great.

depends, you could do it very cheap with a simple multi-speaker switch.
but you would run into two problems:
1)ohm loads if you tried to run all the speakers at once.
2)you would have to go back to the switch every time you wanted to change the music to a different room.

The cheapest way would be to get a switch....Monster Cable used to make a really nice one that Best Buy carries/carried. If you did want to power several rooms at a time you might want to get a stand alone amp....I know that's how a lot of high end A/V installers do it. By the way, what kind of speakers are you using and what kind of receiver?

I don't have the speakers or the receiver yet. I have a brother who works at best buy, and he is probably going to get me decent in wall speakers for a good price.

I wouldn't get them from Best Buy.....I work there and I can tell you that they really don't carry any great in wall speakers (but I haven't decked to see if they carry any new kinds since the last time I worked there a couple years ago). Then again.....I could be wrong. I'll check to see what we sell next time I work. You certainly can't beat the employee discount though since we get stuff at 5% over cost and there is a ton of markup on speakers.

I can get you MTX or JBL, and probably a couple others