Hello all,
I recently purchased and installed the Lnyc 6 system with DMA-1240 amp advanced system. I pre-wired my home several years ago when it was being built and just now adding this to the home.
I thought I would address a few of the questions that have appeared in the thread.
1. The Lync 6 built in MP3 player must use a memory stick and has a capacity of 8GB according to HTD. I called and asked. I've been using a 4GB tiny stick I purchased on clearance from Staples for $8 and it works well. Have it loaded with a few hundred songs right now about 400MB. But you can only scroll through the list forward or backward one song at a time. I plan on also hooking up a pc and use the audio output into the Lync as one of the sources to have access to the entire music library.
2. I was in the same boat as midblue and when I prewired the home installed mostly single gang boxes thinking they would just be volume controls or simple keypads. And now they came out with this system. So now had to swap out for double gang boxes in a finished home in four out of the six locations. I found a double box at Menards, called the "onebox" which has two screws mounted on the interior of the box for mounting to the stud. They work very well. Better than trying to use the ones with tabs against the drywall. My Rotozip came in handy for enlarging the hole and trimming precisely to fit. Removing the old single box was cumbersome at first until I used tin snips to cut off a portion of the top of the original box which include the mounting nail. I would first outline the front of the Onebox over the existing hole, cut the hole with the Rotozip, allowing me room to free the single box, then I would tilt the box forward so the top would protrude slightly out the hole. Then cut the front half top of the box off with the tin snips. This allowed me to not have to make an oversized hole and have a snug fit for the double-gang box.
3. The Global IR of the Lync is something I have had to overcome. The owner manual states you can control a max of 2 components with a dual emitter from the sngle global output jack. I have three I wanted to control, home theater receiver, Direct TV and Sony 400 disc DVD changer. I already had a wall mounted Decora IR in the family room for my home theater using a Buffalo Electronics block with four inputs. I kept that in the system by connecting six of the eight cat5 wires to the back of the receiving eye Decora wallplate. At the headend, three wires run to the Lync, then I used the other three connected back into the Buffalo Electronics block so they're essentialy joined together as one system sharing the same eye. I have a dual emitter plugged into the Global Output of the Lync to control my Home Theater receiver and Direct TV box. A single emitter is plugged into one the four outputs on the BE block. This allows me to continue using the Decora IR wall plate in the family room to control these components, but also I can control two of these components through the IR of any Lync keypad (the ones with the dual emitter). So, theoritically I could use four dual emitter into the the BE block for a total of 8 components plus the 2 for a dual emitter in the Lync for a total of ten.
4. When I first got the system up and running it all worked Great! The system was working just as it should from all the keypads and adding local sources from the keypads. For example, I plugged into the Direct tv box audio out in my office to the keypad with an Audio Y-cable (1/8" stereo male to dual RCA Male) from Radio Shack and turned on the source and I'm listening to the tv over the ceiling speaker. The MP3 worked as it should and I used a stereo cable connected to a "fixed" zone source on the Lync to an input on the Home Theater receiver, turned on that source and had all the speakers going with both systems.
5. Lync software - this is where the trouble began. Edit - I think I thought the trouble was caused by the software because I hooked up the IR right before or after doing the programming of the keypoads. I used a laptop to change the zone names and label the sources. Played with the memory settings and then somewhere along the lines of messing with it the keypads no longer responded. I could turn the system off or on however I chose and adjust settings, zones, source, etc... But, I could no longer control a keypad at the keypad, to adjust the volume when turned on by the software. Then when I turned them "all off" or individually I couldn't turn them on at the keypad either manually or with the remote. Long story short, HTD is sending me another controller expected to arrive tomorrow (Friday). They don't know what would cause the controller or the software to "lock out" the keypads. I'll be sending the original Lync back with the UPS driver when he arrives. HTD said they will definitely delve into the controller to see what is wrong.
(Update) New controller arrived on Friday, hooked everything back up the way it was and same problem. I called HTD and after some troubleshooting decided they would send me six more keypads. Then Saturday, the IR was no longer working right so I started to fiddle with it. When I unplugged the green IR connector on the back of the Lync I was able to turn on the Lync Pads. Then I discovered when I had the power supply for the connecting block plugged in the Lync Pads didn't work. So, there was the source of the problem. The way I had intially tried to circumvent the limited IR output capabilty of the Global IR. The way I describe above now works since editing my posts. I have everything functioning as it should except for the doorbell mute. Still working on that.
That's all for now, but I think it is a great system and value. I think HTD's speakers and amps are very good products. The six 8" HD round in-ceiling speakers I have had for about 6 years still sound great. The amp I use from HTD to power the in-wall sub works great. The new speakers I purchased for the Lync are five MP-S65 and a pair of HD-W80 rectangulars.
