[molson cdn]

i've been lurking for quite a long time.the time is right for me too start my automation.

PLAN THE WORK-WORK THE PLAN

i want to start my home automation by purchasing a niles, russond, etc...question is so simple its embarrassing.

when someone states "it controls 4 zones". does this mean 4 pairs of speakers?

presently i have 3 pairs of speakers in my living room-does this make up 1 zone or 3 zones?

hopefully this message is clear

 

[IVB]

a zone is simply an area where you'll listen to the same music. A room could have 1 speaker or 10, you'll still call that 1 zone.


in addition, your dining room may be right next to your l/r, and you may decide that you'd never listen to different music at the same time in those two rooms. You could group those into a zone as well.


In your world, your 3 prs of L/R speakers would be 1 zone.

 

[molson cdn]

thankyou IVB for replying.


your on-going thread is amazing, informative and gives me the courage to venture into home automation. I salute you.

I've been "seriously" thinking about your product (CQS) for a while- from what i see on this forum, everyone gives it a thumbs up- and i have a couple of more questions.

Is it better to start with the CQS system and then hook up everything esle, or can i play with my audio system first and then buy CQS? Whats your opinion.


Since you are an authority on the CQS system, could i hook it up so that if someone pushes the door button outside, i could communicate via video/audio with this person? as well, when a visitor pushes the door bell,instead of having a chime ring i would like to have music/tones/patterns play on my speakers. Is this possible with CQS.


Additionally, for example, i buy a russond cam6.6 (which has a 20 watts/chl) , and i set it up so that 1 zone has audio to 2 speakers . these 2 speakers would receive the full 20 watts. if i hook up 3 pairs of speakers to one zone, the maximum volume per speaker would decrease. is this comment correct?

 

[Sokoloff]

The product in question is not IVB's (though it does seem that way sometimes...

) It's CQC from Charmed Quark.


As for your last audio distribution question, technically yes, but as a practical matter, you rarely use near the full rated power of an amplifier. So long as you match the impedances correctly, running 3 pair of speakers in place of 1 pair will work better than you are thinking it will. It will require you to drive the amplifier harder than 1 pair would for the same per-speaker-volume, but I'd try it first before concluding you need more amplifier power for that zone. I'm not familiar with russound, but there's almost surely a way to add additional amplification should that be needed. Try it without first...

 

[IVB]



Quote:
Originally Posted by molson cdn /forum/post/0


thankyou IVB for replying.


your on-going thread is amazing, informative and gives me the courage to venture into home automation. I salute you.

I've been "seriously" thinking about your product (CQS) for a while- from what i see on this forum, everyone gives it a thumbs up- and i have a couple of more questions.

Yep, not affiliated with CQC, just an end-user who's a little bit of a fan

Quote:
Is it better to start with the CQS system and then hook up everything esle, or can i play with my audio system first and then buy CQS? Whats your opinion.

Well, CQC is fairly useless unless you actually *have* something to control. I'd say to pay for wiring everything correctly first, then buy the audio system, finally get CQC to control it.

Quote:
Since you are an authority on the CQS system, could i hook it up so that if someone pushes the door button outside, i could communicate via video/audio with this person? as well, when a visitor pushes the door bell,instead of having a chime ring i would like to have music/tones/patterns play on my speakers. Is this possible with CQS.

I just hooked up my doorbell this weekend so that it plays a custom .WAV file instead of a regular doorchime. I no longer have a regular doorchime.


I haven't gotten to the video bit or intercom bit yet, but I do have a CCTV there that I hope to pull up automatically when it rings. At this point it's still a manual button push to see that camera (inside CQC though). I.E.

Quote:
Additionally, for example, i buy a russond cam6.6 (which has a 20 watts/chl) , and i set it up so that 1 zone has audio to 2 speakers . these 2 speakers would receive the full 20 watts. if i hook up 3 pairs of speakers to one zone, the maximum volume per speaker would decrease. is this comment correct?

sokoloff got that one, just be careful of the impedance issues when putting the speakers in.

 

[molson cdn]

hopefully no one is getting irritated with my lack of knowledge

i know you guys are the experts- i have 3 more questions;

1. does CQC work with all media servers/amps or with specific ones?

2. everyone talks about speaker impedance/ohm matching. what happens when the speakers don't match, ie the have different impedances in a zone ?

3 can you have , for example , zone 1 with 2 speakers with 8 ohms and zone 2 with 2 speakers with 4 ohms? thanks

 

[IVB]



Quote:
Originally Posted by molson cdn /forum/post/0


hopefully no one is getting irritated with my lack of knowledge

i know you guys are the experts- i have 3 more questions;

1. does CQC work with all media servers/amps or with specific ones?

If you mean whole-house receivers like Nuvo/Russound/etc, CQC can work with anything over IR, and has RS232 drivers for far more than any other package around. In addition to the list up on the Learn.Supported Devices section of the charmedquark.com site, this thread has a list of the "Drivers in Progress" .

Quote:
2. everyone talks about speaker impedance/ohm matching. what happens when the speakers don't match, ie the have different impedances in a zone ?

3 can you have , for example , zone 1 with 2 speakers with 8 ohms and zone 2 with 2 speakers with 4 ohms? thanks

Point #1) Your amp will typically only be able to handle a small range of total impedance. Research that, i'll get into more details but it's not entirely relevant to your question here.

Point #2) If you have different impedance speakers in the *same* zone, then speaker set #1 will have a different volume level than speaker set #2.

Point #3) If you have zone#1 with 8Ohm speakers and zone#2 with 4Ohm speakers, then you're ok but you'll have to set the volume level differently on the amp in order to get the same volume sound out of the speaker. Basically a corollary to point#2.

 

[AI Limited]



Quote:
Originally Posted by molson cdn /forum/post/0


hopefully no one is getting irritated with my lack of knowledge

i know you guys are the experts- i have 3 more questions;

1. does CQC work with all media servers/amps or with specific ones?

2. everyone talks about speaker impedance/ohm matching. what happens when the speakers don't match, ie the have different impedances in a zone ?

3 can you have , for example , zone 1 with 2 speakers with 8 ohms and zone 2 with 2 speakers with 4 ohms? thanks

Not that I'm irritated, but you certainly seem like a candidate for "hiring a pro", which is often the mantra on another, un-named website... if you want to DIY, you have a long way to go before I'd suggest attempting it...


With regard to your impedance matching question... speakers will act as a load on the amplifier... if you have two 8 ohm speakers wired in stereo, each channel of the amp (left and right) will see an 8 ohm load.


If you have 4 speakers run off of those same two channels, it will depend how you wire them. If wired in parallel, they will present a 4 ohm load to the amp, if wired in series, a 16 ohm load. Do a google search for "Ohm's Law" and make sure you understand it completely before attempting any wiring.


Good luck.

 

[molson cdn]

THANK YOU FOR THE EXPLAINATIONS.


Ai- it appears that i'm spaced out. in fact, i have some knowledge of speaker characteristics. but i thought i would throw these questions out (to the pros) instead of asking the local tv/audio salesman for his rendition.

one more thing-- i have always learned things the hard way- whether its good/bad experiences. so you may be absolutely right, i may need to hire a pro. but for now, i thought i would give it a shot. i'm sure you understand


again thankyou