n_maher

This! Disclaimer - I must admit that at least for me I'm hoping the first time was the charm.

The wiring is done, the speakers are in, I've got an HT receiver that I'll donate to the cause, and the amplification side has been solved for around $400. So yes, if he had to start over the Sonos would be cheaper but it'd be a whole lot more to switch over to that now.

He's not. I just can't stand the idea of only getting the information from one channel to the rooms. That's absurd. Agreed. No issue with mono really. I am totally comfortable listening to my UE Boom while cooking and activities like that. It's probably important to note that in addition to not being an audiophile this friend is also not a technophile. No Raspberry Pi solutions or stuff like that, the minute something went wrong any benefit would be negated. The solution needs to be as plug and play as possible. And while the suggestions to scrap the entire thing are the best solution there isn't the budget to redo it all. In the long run I expect that's what he'll do so this is about getting something "acceptable" up and running utilizing as much of what he's already got as possible.

The existing wires would never work as pulls. Anything run through the walls as an original installation is going to be secured in the wall. Wireless is probably the way to go in the long run but there isn't budget at this point to scrap the whole thing and all the speakers are passive in-wall units so amplification would be required in every room even if we found a better way to get signal there. What would you suggest for a wireless solution, Doug?

So a friend just built a new house, had the contractor wire up multiple rooms for whole-house audio and unfortunately the guy (electrician) walked off the job right at the end, leaving him with somewhat of a turd to deal with. I'm trying to help him take the lemons and turn them into a palatable drink and thankfully this guy isn't an audio nut. I'd be losing my goddamn mind right now if it was me. The situation - the front end lives in one room and the only thing that exits is speaker wire. The worst part, the electrician only ran one pair of wires to each of the seven rooms that are to get distribution from the hub. Yes, you heard that right, it's wired for mono. FML point one. Two, it seems like there's a short somewhere. I'm confident that it's at a termination point as the system sort of runs but is tripping amps into protect mode. This happened to me once before and it was just one strand from one pair that had crossed/shorted the system and wasn't always an issue. There's another possibility and I'll get to that now. In each of the seven rooms the single pair of wires goes to an in-wall mounted autoformer volume control. This is supposed to allow for not only localized volume control but also impedance matching in the system. The module has a selectable impedance switch on it which sounds good, till you realize that on the input side there's only one channel and on the output there's two (a pair of speakers in each room). So with these speakers in parallel the impedance is halved, which to my mind is not great but I don't think there's anything to be done about that. But that's one reason to bring this to people much smarter than myself. Lastly, the system was installed with a single 150w/ch stereo amp driving the whole business with a passive signal splitting device sitting on the output of the amp. That seems insane to me. My suggestion is to replace the stereo amp with an HT front end (amp or preamp will do) and tell the unit to only use the center channel, thereby at least capturing the entire stereo input and simulating stereo on the output. Run the line-level signal through the multi-channel splitting device (this is a maybe) and feed it to a stack of monoblocks with each one feeding one of the seven rooms. We'd keep the autoformers in play and split the amplified signal there so that both speakers are used. Yes, I admit, it's a bastardized far less than ideal setup but I think it'll accomplish my friends ultimate goal (sound in many rooms for ambient purposes) and be far better than just replacing the undersized single amp with a larger, single amp that would only feed the left or right output to the rooms and for some recordings be missing a huge amount of information. Investment threshold is very low and I've thankfully found a solution on the amplification side that'll help but I'm open to suggestions if someone can think of something simple and elegant that'd allow us to get an actual stereo signal to the rooms. I've thought on it a lot and can't see how. Rewiring is a complete non-starter as the wiring is all in-wall and in-attic (complete with R60 insulation which isn't coming out). Apologies for the Larry-esque TLDR and thanks in advance for any help/suggestions offered.

Ah, the good old Cardas Smurph cable. That takes me back.

Solid advice, Dan.

Ermahgah! Too. Much. Cute.

Happy Birthday!

Finally found (Friday) a connector that leads directly from my local trails to my backyard. I am happy. Not that riding the 3/4's of a mile to the trailhead on the road was an imposition compared to having to drive but it's nice to be able to jump on the bike and hit the woods instantly.

Happy Birthday! (is now a bad time to admit that I secretly refer to you as Yalanda?)

Correct, the output coupling capacitors were indeed motor-run caps (about the size of a can of coke) and were paralleled to address your first point, lowering the overall output impedance of the amp to give it some potential to play nicer with lower impedance headphones. I'll try to take a look at the schematic relative to the second question raised about C4 and C5 later.

Happy belated!

Happy belated!

Happy belated!

Major bummer, Ti.

Did you try 4.39mm?

Digikey appears to have some promising results when I searched for 3.5mm 5 conductor, 5 contact jacks. I'll leave it to you to look into it further.

From the linked article: The picture appears to be of the 4.4mm pentacon plug.

I greatly prefer Mexican Chorizo. Me: Took the kids out for burgers and fries (shakes for them, beer for me) while Maura had to do parent/teacher conferences. Chili Fries for me / Truffle fries for the kids in the background Urban Cowboy Burger (burger, bacon, cheddar, onion rings, bbq sauce, chimichurri)

Might be worth buying a cheap brake if you think you're going to do it even infrequently and have the space. Otherwise you can turn just about any table into a brake if you're willing to fasten something down to it and do the bending with your hands. Or do this - http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Sheet-Metal-Brake-No-Welding/.

RIP Bill, that's a tragic way to go.

Wow.

This. Those pics are straight out of something like the Walking Dead.

CJ, If the wall is already made of wood you don't need blocking to support the TV. Just use a stud finder (cue Steve) and go from there. Every wall mount I've seen allows for the variable spacing of wall studs. As far as in-wall/ceiling is concerned I wouldn't worry about Atmos but I'd make sure you've got full 7.1/2 if you can. Wiring is a huge pain, but worth the effort if you can. My rather meager setup in the new living room (Polk Audio in-wall and ceiling, Yamaha receiver) is totally adequate as far as my expectations go. Sir Stretchy also did in-wall in his new digs but opted to go big L/R and simulated center based on the advice of folks likely a lot smarter than me. Lastly, yes, definitely use boxes for the speakers. Or at least I did based on my research.