Hi,
So I'm in the final stages of completing my house. It's been wired to provide audio using the xantech digi-5 system seen below. The house has 4 rooms I would like audio in with a pair of speakers already installed (by me) in each of these rooms.
http://www.tselectronic.com/shop/pro...ion-System/149
Each room right now has 1 cat5 cable and 1 16/2 speaker wire going to each keypad location in each room from the basement, and then 2 16/2 speaker wire going from the keypad location to the 2 speakers in the room. At this point it is too late to change any of the wiring in the house. I have yet to purchase the actual system as I want to perhaps explore a different option.
My initial thinking was to buy 1 sonos zoneplayer and have that distributed to each of the 4 rooms, and if I need another I would buy another. But I've since realized that it might make more sense to just buy 4 sonos zoneplayers and control all the rooms straight from the sonos iOS controller. The advantage of this becomes I can independently or all together control each individual room and wouldn't have to deal with physically going to the keypad to turn on/off each room. If I were to go this route I was thinking of running each zoneplayer off a very small efficient amplifier, like the Lepai seen here:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/psho...10-300&scqty=2
My questions are these:
1. All my speakers are 8 ohm, thus from what I understand, by connecting my 2 speakers in each room to the 1 16/2 speaker wire that goes into the basement I am creating a 4 ohm load and going from stereo sound to mono sound. Is this correct? Would the Lepai be able to handle this or should I look into something more powerful? I have bought 1 and hooked it up and it provides more than enough power for even my largest room right now, but I don't know how it would handle a 4 ohm load. Can anyone recommend an amp that might be better?
2. Is there some limitation in connecting the 16/2 cable to 2 16/2 speaker cables that I should know about?
3. Finally, should I just go with the original system and abandon the Sonos plan as I am losing stereo sound (which granted, I probably won't even notice) and it's not what I initially wired the house for.
Thanks A LOT for any input
David
So I'm in the final stages of completing my house. It's been wired to provide audio using the xantech digi-5 system seen below. The house has 4 rooms I would like audio in with a pair of speakers already installed (by me) in each of these rooms.
http://www.tselectronic.com/shop/pro...ion-System/149
Each room right now has 1 cat5 cable and 1 16/2 speaker wire going to each keypad location in each room from the basement, and then 2 16/2 speaker wire going from the keypad location to the 2 speakers in the room. At this point it is too late to change any of the wiring in the house. I have yet to purchase the actual system as I want to perhaps explore a different option.
My initial thinking was to buy 1 sonos zoneplayer and have that distributed to each of the 4 rooms, and if I need another I would buy another. But I've since realized that it might make more sense to just buy 4 sonos zoneplayers and control all the rooms straight from the sonos iOS controller. The advantage of this becomes I can independently or all together control each individual room and wouldn't have to deal with physically going to the keypad to turn on/off each room. If I were to go this route I was thinking of running each zoneplayer off a very small efficient amplifier, like the Lepai seen here:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/psho...10-300&scqty=2
My questions are these:
1. All my speakers are 8 ohm, thus from what I understand, by connecting my 2 speakers in each room to the 1 16/2 speaker wire that goes into the basement I am creating a 4 ohm load and going from stereo sound to mono sound. Is this correct? Would the Lepai be able to handle this or should I look into something more powerful? I have bought 1 and hooked it up and it provides more than enough power for even my largest room right now, but I don't know how it would handle a 4 ohm load. Can anyone recommend an amp that might be better?
2. Is there some limitation in connecting the 16/2 cable to 2 16/2 speaker cables that I should know about?
3. Finally, should I just go with the original system and abandon the Sonos plan as I am losing stereo sound (which granted, I probably won't even notice) and it's not what I initially wired the house for.
Thanks A LOT for any input
David
