Best Way to Connect Remote Speakers?

[Fried Elliott]

The Newbie Poses Another Duhhh Question...

I am now the proud owner of a Denon AVR-1801 (and eventually some Sony 200+ CD jukebox) which will be at the center of my burgeoning HT setup all in a dedicated media room of the house..

Before I even get the HT setup finished, the lovely Mrs Elliott wants to know if "we" can listen to DVDs/CDs in the living room on the new system. You know --- that all important "background music" when the girls are having their little chats. Me? When I'm listening I'll be front and center in the friggin' HT room with the Klipsch speakers!

There is currently an unused TV video cable running between the two rooms. Otherwise, its a difficult wiring run. I have an Adcom Receiver and 2-channel amp I could press into service and a pair of Paradigm minis.

What should I do? My understanding of the options are:

1. Hook up another pair of speakers to Channel B of the 1801 and figure out how to run approx. 100 feet of speaker cable.

2. Use some "output" (preamp out?) of the 1801 to source a remote amplifier that in turn drives the living room speakers.

3. Get her an inexpensive 5-disc CD player/receiver, hook up the Paradigms, and deal with the complaining resulting from having to move CDs from the jukebox in the HT to the living room system.

Is there a more elegant solution that solves this problem and for other rooms as well?

[sunnysal]

Fried, You pretty much laid it out...run either interconnects from your preamp out to a remote two channel amplifier or speaker wire from output B to a pair of speakers...100 feet is a looooonnnnnngggggg run, you will suffer some attenuation of the highs via speaker wire, I have run 50 feet without any degradation but I am not sure if 100 feet is "past the limit"...and I think it is an impossibility to do this with interconnects (perhaps someone more technically adept will ring in on this point)...so, If you have a reciever and another CD player I would go that route...even a walkwan hooked up to the adcom reciever and those paradigms would do a nice job! so let's see if someone rings in on the speaker wire run...if you can hide it well, it is an option...but with two systems the wife and kids can lsiten to what they want while you listen to you want...christina aguilera versus miles davis? regards, tony

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*1993 K-Horns w/ ALK x-overs

*Marantz 7T preamp

*Dynaco MkIV monoblocks (modded to triode)

*Sony CDP-CX350 and CX-230 CD changers

*MSB link DACIII (96k upsampling)

*MSB silver digital director (switching and jitter reduction)

*Technics M-85 professional Cassette Deck

*SAE MK VIII tuner

*Luxman PD-272 turntable, Grado Red cartridge

*Cardas Crosslink speaker cable

*Monster M550i for all interconnects

*Monster HTS3500 Reference Powercenter Conditioner

[eq_shadimar]

I am not clear on the type of cable running between the rooms but if it is coax give these a try.

http://www.homs-smarthome.com/851101.html

http://www.homs-smarthome.com/851103.html

This site also has neat extenders for infra red remotes etc. so you could control your disc changer remotely. You could also try a wireless solution (also sold at this site) but they generally work in the 30Hz to 17KHz range but if it is not going to be used for "serious" listening that may be your best best. Some of the wireless devices will also transmit video too.

EDIT - Here is a link to the wireless stuff

http://www.homs-smarthome.com/avvidtrns.html

Laters,

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FOR SALE OR TRADE COMPLETE R*3 SYSTEM FOR 3 HERESY'S

Main System -

Cornwalls (L/R main)

RC-3

RS-3's (white)

SVS 20-39CS

Harman Kardon AVR 510

Hafler P505 (running sub)

ProMedia 4.2 v400 for PC

This message has been edited by eq_shadimar on 08-22-2001 at 10:48 AM

[dougdrake2]

Fried - I'd go with option 2, and a second CD player as well. I have two CD players (a 5-disk carousel and a 301-disk mega changer) hooked to my system. The mega changer is hooked to both my main Denon unit (in the HT room) via optical and to an old NAD receiver via analog that I use for the rest of the house. I hooked the 5-cd carousel to the Denon only.

This gives me the ability to pump 8,000,000 hours of music to the rest of the house (for that infamous, yet annoying "background" music -- annoying because it is too loud to be ignored and too quiet to really hear anything), yet play whatever I want in my HT. And while my Denon supports routing a different source out to the NAD than what I am listening to in the HT (which I do for the Denon's tuner), this setup allows me to have music in the house without having the Denon on, and burning up its more expensive circuitry on background noise.

Then, I spent many hours in the attic pulling 12 ga speaker wire all around the place. We now have 6 pairs of speakers scattered around the house outside the HT, driven off that NAD receiver and it works just fine.

DD

[Fried Elliott]

You guys are geniuses, just stinkin' geniuses! The winning solution may be a combo of eq_'s cool coax adapters and Doug's version of option #2.

I had just about decided on a Denon DVM-1800 in combo with some version of a Sony jukebox and if I toss my Adcom gear into the mix I will have everything to go with Doug's setup, which sounds like just what I need.

Our two teenagers are long gone but during their occupation we naturally just HAD to have a cable television setup in every bedroom, every family room, the kitchen, and the pool deck (hey, its Plano). I think the only rooms without a coax drop are the bathrooms (we're Eastside, not Westside). When they left for college they took all the televisions with them (natch) leaving all the cable behind; all of which are A/B runs! By repurposing the approx. 3,923 miles of coax in my house, surely I can hook up a few speakers.

The truly coolio aspect of eq_ and Doug's suggestion is that all these now unused cables "drop" into my garage attic, which is less than 15 feet away from the HT setup and easily accessible. I can install the second amp in the garage (air conditioned, but that's another story), run the Sony's analog from the HT to the garage adcom stack (<15 feet), hook up the coax from the various rooms to the amp using some of eq_'s converters, and I am done!

All I need now is a remotely controlled master speaker switch? Or should I do that at each speaker location, perhaps with some cheesy volume control rheostat? Oh yeah, and some cooler weather to get up there in the attic!

BTW Tony, it would probably be Leann Rimes versus Herbie Hancock but you were pretty close to the mark!

EDIT ---

Better idea... Sell the Adcom gear, get a cheaper receiver for the garage (background girl music, remember?) and put the balance into the RB-5 KLIPSCH speaker fund for my office!!! (Shhh!! she'll never know...)

This message has been edited by Fried Elliott on 08-22-2001 at 03:15 PM

[eq_shadimar]

At your service tada volume controls :-) I am telling ya this is the best site for all this sort of stuff hehe. I spend lots of time dreaming/drooling here.

http://www.homs-smarthome.com/avvlmctrl.html

And if ya want to spend tons of money check out these professional disrtubution amps and stuff (prob won't be able to get those RB5's then)

http://www.homs-smarthome.com/audiodist.html

bu bye

------------------

FOR SALE OR TRADE COMPLETE R*3 SYSTEM FOR 3 HERESY'S

Main System -

Cornwalls (L/R main)

RC-3

RS-3's (white)

SVS 20-39CS

Harman Kardon AVR 510

Hafler P505 (running sub)

ProMedia 4.2 v400 for PC

This message has been edited by eq_shadimar on 08-22-2001 at 05:28 PM

[Fried Elliott]

Yeah, you're right about drooling all over that site! The best one is the combo cat scratching post and feeder!!! Or maybe it was the electromagnetic lock cat door!

I just found a NAD 716AVR 5-channel receiver on eBay for a "Buy It Now" price of $125. The CFO better get home pretty quick!

I have also been using some X10 stuff as part of our bag of tricks for managing remote server/network installations. We plug a X10 controller into the back of our UPS and from there segment everything into two different plug strips on two different X10 channels; a "routine" reboot and a POGFOJ reboot (a POGFOJ reboot is the one you start with the words, "Pray Oh God, Father of Jesus..."). Then we call the main controller and cycle power to one plug strip or the other depending on the situation. We can be anywhere and call in to the X10 controller from a cell phone, which is very handy and looks like FM to someone at the other end!

This message has been edited by Fried Elliott on 08-22-2001 at 08:40 PM

[Marvel]

Most preamp outputs for consumer gear are all high impedance and unbalanced. This causes the high end to pretty much short to ground due to the cable capacitance in a long cable run. For example, microphones use balanced lines, a ground with pos/neg voltage leads. You can run them hundreds of feet with no degradation in signal quality. Plus, emf and such that hits the cable run (for instance, crossing 60Hz AC wiring), gets cancelled out because of the two out of phase lines picking up the same signal. You could pick up some audio transformers and make the preamp have balanced outs, and reverse it on the other end, but good ones cost a bit of money. If you are using large gauge speaker cable, a long run isn't really too bad.