[MikeB1973]

Recently moved into my new house. I purchased the house before the drywall was up, so was able to get in and pre-wire for as much as I could think of (in a short period of time).


I ran Cat 5e and 14 ga speaker wire from a central location (basement) to each room for control pads. I then ran 14 ga speaker wire from the control pad location to the speaker locations in the ceiling.


I'm looking to put together a very basic audio system for right now. I have PCs in several locations through the house that I'd like to use to control what's playing (playlists, etc.). The only think I want to control from the control pads for right now is the volume. I don't currently see the need for more than one zone. Tunable FM radio would be nice as well, but I'm not sure how I'd integrate that yet. (any suggestions welcome!)


There are currently 5 rooms wired with 2 speakers each, but I'd like to add a pair on the deck for the summer for a total of 6 pairs. Probably no more than 2 or 3 locations playing simultaneously except on rare locations.


I'm thinking of the following:


- dedicated PC in the basement running WinAmp

- location PCs running BrowseAmp to control what's playing



My questions I guess are what to use for speakers, what to use for a distribution box, what to use for control pads, and what to use for an amp.


Speakers:

I'm not interested in spending tons of money here because this is primarily for background music and not critical listening. I want something decent, but certainly not top of the line. Anyone have any recommendations on budget ceiling speakers that aren't total garbage?


Distribution Box:

This product from Niles looks like it would do the trick:
http://www.nilesaudio.com/products/sdh.html

VCS HUB 8


Control Pads:

Again, looking for something very basic for now. I'm thinking these control pads are fine:
http://www.nilesaudio.com/products/hpsvc.html

VCS 100R


Amp:

I currently have an old Onkyo 80w per channel at 8 ohms stereo receiver just gathering dust and I'm wondering if I can use that. I have no idea if that's enough power for what I want, or if I should use a seperate amp, or what... I also have a Parasound HCA-1000 amp kicking around that I could use if needed.


Please keep in mind that I'm new to this. I've been reading threads and learning as I go, but if anyone has any recommendations as far as brands, or my method of configuring this, I would appreciate it. I'm not overly familiar with Niles, but they seem be fairly large in this business which is why I picked products from their site.


Thanks in advance for any help!


Mike

 

[TreyS]

Some people here use the Russound Multi-room systems:

http://www.russound.com/multizone.htm


Oh and where did you get your speaker wire from? I'm building at the moment and need to get wire for the speaker runs.


Thanks.

 

[robertmee]

Mike,


Can't speak for the speaker selection, but in my limited experience, for ambient listening, almost any mid priced speaker will suffice. Look at parts express or e-bay for some good deals. Something like speakercraft or the lower priced sonance.


Your speaker breakout is a good choice. However since it contains impedance matching capability, you don't need the volume controls to be impedance matching as well. It won't hurt anything as you'll set them to 1X, but it's really more expense that you don't need.


80W should be more than enough for your 5 rooms of indoor music. I would use a second cheap receiver for the outdoors. To hook them in parallel, you could use RCA Y connectors from the PC to each amp, or you could use the Tape Out on your Onkyo to connect to the 'CD' (eg) input on your second receiver. You would then wire your speakers for the deck through a volume control and then straight to the second receiver. All the other speakers would go through their volume controls and then to your Niles breakout.


What's funny is as I'm typing this, I've been setting up a PC to run winamp and browseamp. What I'm finding is that my old Pentium 133 w/ 96MB ram might not be up to snuff. Winamp 2.8 (Winamp 5 is a hog and not needed for this application) runs fine with about 15% process. As soon as I download the Browseamp plug-in and hit it with a remote PC, it jumps to 95% usage. I've been playing around with some of the TCP pluggins instead of the webserver. After all, unless you plan on hitting it from the internet, you don't really need the webserver, although it does offer the nicety of not having to run a client app.


Netamp is a simple little plugin that gives you control of the existing playlist, but no playlist adding/subtracting itself. And no scroll window either. I haven't found anything decent yet that lets you manage the playlist itself without sucking up Processor usage on my lowly Pentium.


If anyone has an old PIII ATX mobo with 128MB ram they want to donate to the cause, lemme know


Hope this helps and I'd be happy to talk further on this winamp solution.


Robert

 

[Varick]

Sounds to me like you're on the right track. I agree with using a seperate amp to the patio if you do more than read a book out there.


I use RemoteAmp on a wireless pocketpc to control playlists and volume/transport on the server PC, so I can't speak to that part of it. If you're planning a wifi network though, it sure is slick. It will control multiple winamps on multiple PCs too, giving you some options you might not be considering. In other words, you have as many zones as you have PCs, all controllable from a wifi ipaq.


Just a thought...

 

[video321]

Glad I looked in this thread...I've never heard of RemoteAmp! I'm still in the process of getting a pocketpc, but will definitely bookmark that site.



For the OP....you can buy an FM tuner for your computer and if this one computer is running WindowsXP, then all other clients can use RDP to tune radio stations. Then again, if you're only interested in a single sesssion of Winamp you wouldn't need BrowseAmp either? If you don't have/want XP, there are other remote desktop programs available. Just a though to integrate that FM tuner with control.


Best of luck!

 

[aeblank]

I've been looking at PC based players to provide mp3 audio to my whole house stereo as well. I find it kind of sad th at winamp with a tcp/ip remote control seems to be the best thing going. Admittedly though, I have yet to actually try it.


One thing that I'm looking at is Meedio. Just a thought.....


Does anybody know of an IR program that allows the use of an OLD laptop's IR port? All the programs I've found seem to talk about a RS232 (serial) or USB unit, but I want to use the one built into an old laptop I have (thus giving IR control to winamp with remoteamp). Do they all support it and just don't say?

 

[MikeB1973]

Thanks for the great replies!

Quote:

Oh and where did you get your speaker wire from? I'm building at the moment and need to get wire for the speaker runs.

I purchased it from a local place called 'You Do It Electronics'. Home Depot also has some if you're in a bind. I don't have much experience buying cable over the net, but you could try www.partsexpress.com.

Quote:

I would use a second cheap receiver for the outdoors.

Could I use the Parasound HCA-1000 amp that I have for this? From the TAPE OUT on my Onkyo to the inputs on the Parasound amp, then out to the deck?

Quote:

What's funny is as I'm typing this, I've been setting up a PC to run winamp and browseamp.

Even funnier, I stole the idea from one of your posts!

Quote:

If you're planning a wifi network though, it sure is slick.

That does sound cool. I do have a 802.11g wireless network setup, but for now control from a PC is fine.

Quote:

you can buy an FM tuner for your computer and if this one computer is running WindowsXP, then all other clients can use RDP to tune radio stations. Then again, if you're only interested in a single sesssion of Winamp you wouldn't need BrowseAmp either? If you don't have/want XP, there are other remote desktop programs available.

I hadn't thought of the PC FM tuner - that's a great idea... The reasoning for not just using a remote desktop is that I want to make it as streamlined and wife-proof as possible.


I'm currently using Media Center 2005 on my PCs that I would be controlling the music from, and don't want to make it much more complicated than that. I think I could get away with BrowseAmp, but launching a remote desktop session might be a little pushing it and be confusing for the less computer literate.


I wonder if there's anything other than Winamp that would allow me to directly control it remotely plus provide an interface to an FM radio card?

Quote:

One thing that I'm looking at is Meedio. Just a thought.....

Any comments so far?

 

[Varick]

aeblank, I'm way out of my league here on the laptop IR port, but my guess is that it's a FIR port, not a CIR port. FIR= fast IR, CIR= consumer IR. I don't think you could use an off the shelf universal remote (CIR) to interface with a FIR port on a laptop, but I could be wrong and take anyone else's advice over mine.


I don't believe RemoteAmp works over IR if that's what you meant, it's strictly WiFi unless there's some feature I've yet to unlock due to lack of necessity.


Mike, I had the same plan in place as you until we got wireless ipaqs through work and blamo, an elegant solution presented itself with RemoteAmp. As for your amping question, I'm not familiar with the Parasound unit, but the tape-out on your Onkyo will duplicate whatever's playing on a seperate bus which you route to the Parasound, just as you stated. On some models you will need to run a return to the unit, since often the tape-outs double as the graphic equalizer loop. Your mileage may vary, a proof-of-concept trial run might be a good idea.

 

[robertmee]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mike Boulanger Could I use the Parasound HCA-1000 amp that I have for this? From the TAPE OUT on my Onkyo to the inputs on the Parasound amp, then out to the deck?

Yep