We just bought a house with existing in-ceiling speakers in multiple rooms, and I'm a newbie to multi-room.
Downstairs has speakers installed in the living room (4), office (2), master bedroom (2), garage (2), and back patio (2). Upstairs has speakers in the 2nd living (4). The wiring is 4-conductor 16ga (not labeled for rooms, arghhhh), and each room has it's own volume control.
I have a Pioneer Elite VSX-21THX and an Onkyo TX-DS474. The two living areas will be the main A/V sources and the only places at this time with TVs. Where do I get started to wiring for sound controllable in each room/zone?
Search here for a ton of threads on "Whole House Audio" (WHA) systems. Look at the educational FAQ's / videos at HTD.com, too...
Short answer is that once you get to more than 3 zones, a AVR is no longer a good solution. It can be done, but has significant limitations and usability issues that a 'real' WHA system avoids.
Is there any cat5e wiring run to those volume control locations along with the speaker wire? That will open up a lot of other potential solutions.
If there are speakers installed in those areas, identifying the wiring is simple - just touch a 9V battery to the bare wires with someone else walking around the rooms - you'll hear a scratching sound coming from the speakers...
You need to remove a volume control and look up the specs online to determine if the VC is 'impedance matching'. If it is, you're set. You'll wire the speakers in parallel to zone 2 of one of your AVRs.
Look for another cable behind the VC; your house may have been wired with a category cable to the VC location. This category cable could be used for keypad control of the system.
If the VCs are not impedance matching, you'll need to use an 'impedance matching speaker selector box' between the AVR and the speakers. This box is not used to select speakers; you never touch it.
If you want more than 1 source to play at once, through the distributed audio whole-house speakers, then you'll need to do more research. As jautor said, search for 'whole house audio' and 'distributed audio'.
The system was originally installed in 1999. There is Cat 5 in the house (not sure if it's 5e). I'll take off one of the control switches to see what's going on behind it.
There are 6 zones, and I know we'll eventually run into a situation of using at least 2 sources simultaneously. I'd like to accomplish as much as possible with the equipment I currently have, but I have a feeling there will need to be some additions to get everything running smoothly.
I'll do some searching on all of the above. Thanks again!
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