Splitting audio output to different areas
Discussion
I have a 5.1 setup in the lounge. I also have speakers in the semi outdoor dining area and outdoor on the patio for BBQ's.
I'd like to be able to play music throughout the lounge, then add in one or both of the extra areas depending on the situation. They'd all be playing the same thing, so can I add an in line switch of some sorts?
I have an old Denon 1910, which I was hoping to reuse.
I believe I have a zone A and zone B, so hopefully the external speakers can be zone B, I just need to then be able to split it further. Ideally I need a Zone C without the cost of a top of the range reciever.
Foot note: in Australia so not a crammed in housing estate before the council thread links appear!
I'd like to be able to play music throughout the lounge, then add in one or both of the extra areas depending on the situation. They'd all be playing the same thing, so can I add an in line switch of some sorts?
I have an old Denon 1910, which I was hoping to reuse.
I believe I have a zone A and zone B, so hopefully the external speakers can be zone B, I just need to then be able to split it further. Ideally I need a Zone C without the cost of a top of the range reciever.
Foot note: in Australia so not a crammed in housing estate before the council thread links appear!
Edited by Gingerbread Man on Saturday 12th November 23:06
I take the 'tape out' phono's of the lounge amp and feed them to a stereo amp in the kitchen,
There are many variations of doing this sort of thing, depending on what you want to achieve.
Used to just run a second pair of speakers in the kitchen, but now a second amp gives separate volume control out there.
Beyond that, I don't really buy into the premise of wanting the same music everywhere.
There are many variations of doing this sort of thing, depending on what you want to achieve.
Used to just run a second pair of speakers in the kitchen, but now a second amp gives separate volume control out there.
Beyond that, I don't really buy into the premise of wanting the same music everywhere.
It's only because the kitchen/ open plan lounge, patio and alfresco dining areas are all next to each other, so more one area of the house that I want music to play through when people around having a BBQ or similar.
I have found speaker switches, but I'd like one with a remote control, although this seems rarer.
I have found speaker switches, but I'd like one with a remote control, although this seems rarer.
You could spend thousands on various room amps, you could use any of the wireless systems.
In our case it's fairly easy to run some wires where they're needed, so slaving a small amp from the lounge HiFi gives volume control in the kitchen, also the option to switch to a different source. For background music you may find some of the cheap 'digital' Class D amps are OK, and some offer a bluetooth receiver built in, so you can feed them from a phone or ipad.
Comes down to how loud you need it, what quality you're happy to pay for, and how hard it is to get wires in place.
Many houses, it looks like running the wires is not really feasible.
You can just connect multiple speakers in series or parallel or combinations, but it can ask a lot of the amplifier.
If you've got a nice big amp with a second pair of speakers on a switch, that works.
I've seen someone put two small pairs of speakers in series, then parallel that with the main speakers.
But that was a big old amp that didn't care what it drove.
If you're thinking of going this route, please check out the impedances and what the amp will drive.
If you want to control the volume of a pair of speakers with some sort of attenuator between the amp and the speakers, that's a seriously watty expensive variable resistor/rheostat if the amp is at all powerful.
In our case it's fairly easy to run some wires where they're needed, so slaving a small amp from the lounge HiFi gives volume control in the kitchen, also the option to switch to a different source. For background music you may find some of the cheap 'digital' Class D amps are OK, and some offer a bluetooth receiver built in, so you can feed them from a phone or ipad.
Comes down to how loud you need it, what quality you're happy to pay for, and how hard it is to get wires in place.
Many houses, it looks like running the wires is not really feasible.
You can just connect multiple speakers in series or parallel or combinations, but it can ask a lot of the amplifier.
If you've got a nice big amp with a second pair of speakers on a switch, that works.
I've seen someone put two small pairs of speakers in series, then parallel that with the main speakers.
But that was a big old amp that didn't care what it drove.
If you're thinking of going this route, please check out the impedances and what the amp will drive.
If you want to control the volume of a pair of speakers with some sort of attenuator between the amp and the speakers, that's a seriously watty expensive variable resistor/rheostat if the amp is at all powerful.
Speakers A / Speakers B isn't the right solution. It doesn't work in the same way as a pure stereo amp.
The Denon has 7 channels of amplification. Five of those are dedicated to 5.1 surround. The remaining pair can be assigned by the amp menus to be one of 4 choices. These are:
First, really long speaker cables are a pretty good way to lose amp power, and if you really want to screw things up then make them thin too. You'll have your amp cooking itself quite nicely in no time. Speaking of cooking, you'll also need to pay attention to the Ohms rating of any speakers. Lower Ohms doesn't mean an easier load on the amp. It's going to suck more current from the amp, and it's current flow that get things hot and kablooey. This is where everything is going great and then in a fraction of a second it all goes very very quiet. If you're unlucky this will be accompanied by the amp emitting a small smoke signal of utter surrender. This is the magic smoke. Once it leaves then the amp needs either a trip to amplifier hospital or the morgue. Fortunately your Denon is equipped with the 'Cat's 9 lives' feature of 'protection mode', but it'll only take so much abuse before you need to call the ambulance or hearse.
Second, the source signals for Zone 2 must be analogue only. Nothing via coaxial or optical or HDMI. Even if you're listening to a digital source in the main room, you still can't get a stereo version of that to go to Z2. There's only one digital signal decoder in the amp, and that's permanently assigned to run 5.1/7.1
Now some good stuff. You can think of Z2 as an amp within an amp. This means that Zone 1 doesn't need to be switched on to get sound from Z2. The two zones can operate entirely independently, or together, any time you choose. You'll be able to switch on, change analogue source, alter the volume and switch off all without affecting Z1.
The radio tuner can be used as a Z2 source. Again, entirely independently of anything going on in Z1
Lots of source devices still include analogue outputs as well as digital. There's no problem hooking up both so that Z1 and Z2 both get the same signal.
"Why not use a switch?"
Unless the switch is specifically designed for the task, then most A/B/A+B switches simply wire the two additional speakers in parallel for A+B mode. That's bad for the Ohms rating. Two pairs of 8 Ohm speakers in parallel will look- and operate- like a 4 Ohm load on the amp. In very simple terms, they'll suck twice the amount of current. Since sucking lots of current = amp gets hot then kablooey, then this isn't something you want to risk unless you like buying new amps.
There are impedance matching speaker switches. These have some internal circuitry and a transformer passively balance the load. This means it maintains the appearance of a stable 8 Ohm speaker load as far as the amp is concerned. That's a good thing. The closest thing I can find is this on Amazon Recoil VC-R100. This will take multiple sets of speakers, so two pairs of 8 Ohm speakers is fine. The reverse side of the circuit board has movable jumpers to set the left and right channel speaker number - 1 / 2 / 4 or 8 per channel. You will need to check though that the impedance the amp sees with the control inline is 8 Ohms or more.
"Any other solutions?"
The 1910 has a Zone 2 Line Out feature. Send the signal to some sort of external amp which can drive two pairs of speakers. A used stereo Hi-Fi amp with speakers A+B would do fine if you can find the space for it. Alternatively some of the better Class D amps from China might work once you change the crappy wall wart transformer they supply to something with proper balls.
"Anything else to think about?"
Yes; controlling the gear. You might be lucky and have direct line of sight from the patio to the amp, but if not then you're going to need a way of getting IR back to the Denon amp and any sources.
Here you can kill two birds with one stone if you're going the second-amplifier route. Instead of running long stereo cables fro the Denon to the other amp, then having to buy a product to route IR, yo can combine both functions in one. Here's a 'stereo audio + IR all over Cat5e cable' solution. Other suppliers will have something similar for your home market.
Farnel AV18768
This isn't an exhaustive list for solution, but it's something that will work with a fairly minimal spend. You could look at certain wireless speakers, and particularly those with a line out feature but the complexity goes up a little as does how it will be controlled.
VC-R100: https://www.amazon.com/Impedance-Matching-Dedicate...
https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg03186/av-ove...
The Denon has 7 channels of amplification. Five of those are dedicated to 5.1 surround. The remaining pair can be assigned by the amp menus to be one of 4 choices. These are:
- the rear surround speakers in a 7.1 setup. Use Dolby Pro-Logic IIx mode to either read or create the additional rear channel info. (The 'Surr Back / Amp Assign' output go live. 'Speakers B' gets no power. That output remains dormant)
- the additional front height surround speakers in a 7.1 setup - 5x ground channels + 2x front height. Use Dolby Pro-Logic IIx mode to create the extra height channel info. (The 'Surr Back / Amp Assign' output go live. 'Speakers B' gets no power. That output remains dormant)
- bi-amp mode - The idea here is that Speakers A and B both output the front channel sound of a 5.1 mix. You'd have speakers with 4x connection terminals and the little bridging links between them: HF and LF. The links get removed so that the amp drives the tweeter part of the crossover and the woofer part of the crossover in parallel. You'd have to run an extra set of speaker cables to the front speakers to use this. The signals for A and B are the same. The speaker crossover filters the frequencies accordingly. (The 'Speakers B' output goes live. The 'Surr Back / Amp Assign' gets no power. That output remains dormant)
- and finally... the one you're interested in.... Zone 2.
First, really long speaker cables are a pretty good way to lose amp power, and if you really want to screw things up then make them thin too. You'll have your amp cooking itself quite nicely in no time. Speaking of cooking, you'll also need to pay attention to the Ohms rating of any speakers. Lower Ohms doesn't mean an easier load on the amp. It's going to suck more current from the amp, and it's current flow that get things hot and kablooey. This is where everything is going great and then in a fraction of a second it all goes very very quiet. If you're unlucky this will be accompanied by the amp emitting a small smoke signal of utter surrender. This is the magic smoke. Once it leaves then the amp needs either a trip to amplifier hospital or the morgue. Fortunately your Denon is equipped with the 'Cat's 9 lives' feature of 'protection mode', but it'll only take so much abuse before you need to call the ambulance or hearse.
Second, the source signals for Zone 2 must be analogue only. Nothing via coaxial or optical or HDMI. Even if you're listening to a digital source in the main room, you still can't get a stereo version of that to go to Z2. There's only one digital signal decoder in the amp, and that's permanently assigned to run 5.1/7.1
Now some good stuff. You can think of Z2 as an amp within an amp. This means that Zone 1 doesn't need to be switched on to get sound from Z2. The two zones can operate entirely independently, or together, any time you choose. You'll be able to switch on, change analogue source, alter the volume and switch off all without affecting Z1.
The radio tuner can be used as a Z2 source. Again, entirely independently of anything going on in Z1
Lots of source devices still include analogue outputs as well as digital. There's no problem hooking up both so that Z1 and Z2 both get the same signal.
"Why not use a switch?"
Unless the switch is specifically designed for the task, then most A/B/A+B switches simply wire the two additional speakers in parallel for A+B mode. That's bad for the Ohms rating. Two pairs of 8 Ohm speakers in parallel will look- and operate- like a 4 Ohm load on the amp. In very simple terms, they'll suck twice the amount of current. Since sucking lots of current = amp gets hot then kablooey, then this isn't something you want to risk unless you like buying new amps.
There are impedance matching speaker switches. These have some internal circuitry and a transformer passively balance the load. This means it maintains the appearance of a stable 8 Ohm speaker load as far as the amp is concerned. That's a good thing. The closest thing I can find is this on Amazon Recoil VC-R100. This will take multiple sets of speakers, so two pairs of 8 Ohm speakers is fine. The reverse side of the circuit board has movable jumpers to set the left and right channel speaker number - 1 / 2 / 4 or 8 per channel. You will need to check though that the impedance the amp sees with the control inline is 8 Ohms or more.
"Any other solutions?"
The 1910 has a Zone 2 Line Out feature. Send the signal to some sort of external amp which can drive two pairs of speakers. A used stereo Hi-Fi amp with speakers A+B would do fine if you can find the space for it. Alternatively some of the better Class D amps from China might work once you change the crappy wall wart transformer they supply to something with proper balls.
"Anything else to think about?"
Yes; controlling the gear. You might be lucky and have direct line of sight from the patio to the amp, but if not then you're going to need a way of getting IR back to the Denon amp and any sources.
Here you can kill two birds with one stone if you're going the second-amplifier route. Instead of running long stereo cables fro the Denon to the other amp, then having to buy a product to route IR, yo can combine both functions in one. Here's a 'stereo audio + IR all over Cat5e cable' solution. Other suppliers will have something similar for your home market.
Farnel AV18768
This isn't an exhaustive list for solution, but it's something that will work with a fairly minimal spend. You could look at certain wireless speakers, and particularly those with a line out feature but the complexity goes up a little as does how it will be controlled.
VC-R100: https://www.amazon.com/Impedance-Matching-Dedicate...
https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg03186/av-ove...
Edited by Lucid_AV on Sunday 13th November 11:25
Gingerbread Man said:
Thanks for that detailed reply. I have only run 12 gauge cable from the amp to the two spots. That's all I allowed for when the walls were open!
I'll look into the options you mentioned when home from work
12 gauge is a reasonable size. In metric, it's 2mm diameter or roughly 3mm cross-sectional area. For 50ft / 15m run you'll only lose around 4% of the amp power. That's acceptable. In that situation I'd look at a used or new stereo amp with standard A+B speaker outputs and use the Z2 Line Out on the 1910. Try to get something with IR volume control. Line Out on the Denon is fixed level, so you'll need the other amp to be controllable if you want to be out on the patio adjusting the volume, Avoid another Denon so that the remote codes don't clash. I'll look into the options you mentioned when home from work
As you’ve already run the speaker cable I’d look at either running two more remote control amps connected to the tape out of the denon or have two other non-remote amps and control the speakers from something like this - a speaker-level volume control attached to each set of speakers near the speakers- not as slick but will do the job.
Alternatively,
As this is PH - demolish your house and rebuild it having throughly planned the a/v requirements.
Alternatively,
As this is PH - demolish your house and rebuild it having throughly planned the a/v requirements.
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