Whole
House Audio
Wouldn’t it
be nice to come home, turn on the stereo and hear music throughout the house or
move from room to room and never miss a minute of the big game?
With Whole
House Audio systems becoming an increasingly popular addition to new home projects
and renovations, this integrated home audio system is quickly becoming the next
level in home entertainment.
Setting up
a whole house system can seem daunting at first but with a few helpful tips you
can have a complete home audio system that won’t leave you stressed.
Types of
Home Audio Systems
Single
Source Single Zone
A single source, single zone
set-up is the traditional one amp, 2 speakers system that most of us are used
to. The entire system including the speakers resides in one room which can be
convenient if you’re prone to switching CDs often, or making volume adjusts or
if there are many audio enthusiasts in one house. This system requires little
wires and can still be done with in ceiling/wall speakers by running the wire to
the location of the system in the room.
Drawbacks
of this type of system include limited coverage, one system, one room. Cost if
you want to set-up this system for many rooms in the house, especially since
you cannot share input devices, each room would have to have its own CD player,
satellite radio, etc.
Benefits of
this type of system are that it’s simple. There’s no need for extra volume
controls, speaker selectors, or wire. It’s independent, so if there are
multiple people in the house, each person can listen to their own thing. And it
can be more convenient if you often change CD/DVDs or want full access to the
system at the touch of a button.
This type
of system is best for bedrooms and home entertainment rooms where the system
will often be used separately from the rest of the house.
Single Source Multi Zone
A single
source, multi zone system is similar to what you would hear in an office or
shopping mall. One amp would power multiple rooms with the same sound. This
type of system is great for entertaining or creating ambience music in your
home. You could move around the house without missing a beat.
The
drawbacks of this type of system include lack of choice for inputs, you can
only choose to play one source at a time, and either turn on or off the individual
speakers. Also you still need to go back to the central source to make changes
such as switching tracks, stations, or CDs. However, most systems will allow
you to control the volume with individual volume controls in each room and you
can also add infrared transmitters to gain more access to the system from
remote locations.
The
benefits of this type of system are that it’s still relatively easy to install.
It runs entirely on speaker wire and can still offer separate volume controls
for each pair of speakers. It can be easily expanded so long as the amp
provides enough power. You don’t need to purchase redundant inputs. All
speakers play off of one satellite radio, CD player, etc.
Multi
Source Multi Zone
There are
two types of multi source, multi zone systems. One is a multi channel amp which
is usually a 6 zone (12-channel) amp and is similar to having 6 small amps in
one device. Each pair of speakers can have their own input or draw from the
main input. The second type of multi source, multi zone system is a whole-house
audio system. This type of system is a complete kit that comes with the amp and
keypads for each zone to control the system.
A multi
channel amp is convenient when you are usually playing all the speakers from
one source but may occasionally want to connect a different input or when each
set of speakers usually have a designated input but may occasionally draw from
one input. This type of system is a relatively inexpensive multi source, multi
zone system but it lacks the accessibility of a whole-house audio system. Since
the system does not have keypads, you must return to the main system to switch
inputs.
A
whole-house audio system is more accessible and more flexible by allowing you
to switch between different inputs from the keypads in each zone. However, this
type of system requires more wiring; usually speaker wire from the main unit to
the speakers and Cat-5 wire from the main unit to the keypads. These systems
are also usually harder to expand and cannot be manipulated as easily.
Additional speakers and zones are usually not an option unless you add an
additional system.
Also keep
in mind that a multi-source, multi-zone audio system is great when you have a
big space but only a few people accessing the system but it can get complicated
when you have many people trying to access the system since most systems only
have one CD player, Satellite radio, etc. Two zones can play from the same
input but they will need to listen to the same station or CD on that input. If
many people will be accessing the system at one time you may want to consider
adding more than one of the most popular inputs. Some devices will also allow
you to connect a local input which would be ideal if you like to change CDs
often or want to connect a personal computer or mp3 player.
Choosing
A Home Audio System
Before
setting up a whole house audio system there are a few things you should
consider.
1. How
many rooms will have audio?
One of the
most important decisions you need to make before setting up a whole house audio
system is deciding how many rooms will have access to the system and what type
of features you would like in each room.
In a whole
house audio system, each area of sound is considered a zone; however, for most
whole house audio systems each zone is also defined as a pair of speakers.
Consider
how many rooms will be equipped with speakers, keeping in mind that sound is usually
distributed in stereo which means you will need 2 channels (left and right) for
each room. Therefore, each room will have a minimum of 2 speakers or 1 single
stereo speaker (which is one physical speaker but it takes 2 channels, both
left and right using 4-conductor wire or 2 x 2-conductor wire).
If you
would like to play multiple speakers in one zone, for example 6 outdoor
speakers all playing from the same source, you may want to consider setting up
a separate receiver/amplifier for that zone.
* Remember
speakers require power as well as an audio signal so each additional pair of
speakers on a system is also an additional drain on power. Connecting all your
speakers to one system may seem convenient but it may also limit the amount of
power and flexibility to the system.
2. Will
these rooms be playing from the same source, different sources or both?
CD/DVD
players, Satellite Radio, MP3 Players, are all considered audio sources. They
provide the audio signal to the amp/receiver and the amp powers that signal and
sends it to the speakers.
The
simplest whole house audio system plays the same source throughout the house.
So, although it often allows for multiple sources to connect to the system and
multiple speaker zones, it can only play from one source at a time. This type
of system uses an amplifier/receiver with a speaker selector to split the
signal to the different pairs of speakers.
The next
step up is a multi-channel amp system. This system allows each pair of speakers
to be connected to a different source and usually also allows for a master
source. These systems are best for when each room has an assigned source since
they do not offer control options away from the main unit.
A whole
house audio kit on the other hand, provides a multi-channel amp and keypads for
the individual rooms so you can switch between inputs and control volume from
the listening area instead of returning to the main unit.
Each device
has its benefits, limitations, and costs so you should consider which functions
are most important to you before choosing a system.
3. Will
any of these rooms be used for Home Theatre?
Nowadays
most sound runs in stereo, which is a left and right signal. However, home
theatre systems are becoming increasingly popular. Home theatre systems
simulate a movie theatre style sound experience by creating a virtual sound
stage using separate sound signals to each channel (speaker). There are 3 main
types of home theatre systems, a 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 system. Since these systems
run on different signals than a regular left/right stereo system, it is best to
keep the devices separate. Even though all home theatre systems can play in
stereo, and some even allow you to play both stereo and home theatre at the
same time, trying to use it to play a whole house audio system can be complex,
limiting, and expensive.
Setting
up a Whole House Audio System
Once you’ve
asked yourself the questions above it’s time to start planning the system.
Map out
which rooms will have home theatre, how many speakers will be in each room, do
the rooms need volume controls, keypads, or wall plates, will they be connected
to a whole house system or ran independently.
These plans
will help you decide what wire needs to be run in each room and if the rooms
need any boxes or brackets.
Running
Wire
Generally
speaking, speaker wire is always run from the main unit to the speakers or from
the main unit to the volume controls and from the volume controls to the
speakers. Speaker wires should never increase or decrease unless they are run
into a speaker selector. So if you have 8 speakers, you should have 8 speaker
wires running back to the main unit or speaker selector, regardless of volume
controls, etc.
Cat-5 wire
is often used for the keypads in whole house audio kits. This wire runs the
‘control’ signals, such as volume control, IR signals, and input selections.
This wire needs to be run from the keypad location back to the main unit.
Boxes
and Brackets
All volume
controls, keypads, and wall-plates require a gang box. The size of the gang box
will depend on the size of the device you’re putting in it. Most keypads and
volume controls require a single-gang box, where as some wall-plates may
require a double or triple gang box.
Some
in-ceiling speakers also offer a back box. This is an optional addition and may
add to sound quality of high-end speakers but should be installed in the
pre-construction stage.
Mounting
brackets are also available for pre-construction installation. These brackets
are optional for most home installations; however, they may be necessary if the
ceiling or wall material is not strong enough to support the weight of the
speaker. Some drop ceiling applications may consider using pre-construction
brackets. Brackets can also be used as pre-construction place holders on large
projects to mark speaker position.
Installing
In-Ceiling/In-Wall Speakers
All
in-ceiling and in-wall speakers come with dog-ears that clamp onto the dry wall
for easy installation. Simply use the template provided to cut the cut-out
size, remove the grill on the speakers, connect the speaker wires to the
speaker, place the speaker in the cut-out with dog-ears facing out, screw in
the screws on the front side, and replace grill on the speaker.
Connecting
Wires
Speaker
wires, themselves, actually have no designation to them. The key is to match
the connection on one end to the other. So if you connect the left positive to
red on one end then you want to connect the left positive to red on the other
end. This is usually very straight forward when looking at red/black wire
connections. However, 4-conductor wire, which is used for 2 positive, 2
negative connections, can be a bit trickier since there is no standard
designation for white or green wires. The safest bet is to just check the
connection on one end and match it to the other.
Usually you want to strip the wire
about a ¼ of an inch, exposing just enough wire to fit in the connection without
leaving any bare wire exposed outside the connection to prevent shorting
Choose
Speakers
Setting
multi-room whole house audio system is not as difficult as you thought. We
highly recommend you design and layout the wires during the construction of
your house. If you want to add music system to your current house, it is
very easy to consult local audio/video installer or at least you can
contract the electrician to run the speaker wire for you. Buy the equipment
yourself so you have better control of the quality and price. The following
is a general guideline that can help you design the multi-room whose house
audio system.
Which rooms do you want music in?
The first step in designing your own multi-room audio system is to
take a close look at how you live in each room of your home. Make a list of
the rooms where you spend the most time. Then try to classify the type of
listening you'll do in each room.
-
Critical Listening
— In which rooms will you (at least occasionally) sit in one spot, facing
the speakers, and really concentrate on the music? The family room? The
home theater room? In critical listening rooms, you orient the speakers
toward the prime listening seats.
-
Entertainment
Listening — Think of all the rooms in which you and your family or
guests gather to read, talk, work, cook or play. In most of these
situations, you play music at low volumes, but you may want to turn it up
occasionally. You don't sit in one spot, nor do your guests. The speakers
go where they can best spread the stereo sound throughout the room.
-
Background Listening
— Classify rooms you just pass through or spend small amounts of time in —
such as hallways, bathrooms and the laundry room — as background listening
rooms.
What type of speakers should you use?
As you read about the different types of speakers, keep in mind that
there's no reason you need to stick with the same speaker design throughout
your home. You can select speakers for each room or area individually, to
best match the layout, décor, and type of listening you'll be doing there.
Adding a power subwoofer is a great idea to achieve deep bass in rooms where
you're installing small flush-mount, bracket-mount, or bookshelf speakers —
particularly in areas where you'll be doing critical listening. As part of a
multi-room system, a powered subwoofer should have speaker-level inputs.
These simplify volume control, since the same wall-mount knob controls the
volume of the speakers and the subwoofer.
Speaker placement for critical listening
Place
the left and right speakers an equal distance from your prime listening
seat, so that the tweeters are at ear level while seated or adjust the
tweeter toward to your listening position. If you're installing speakers in
a wall that's 10 feet from your chair, place them no more than 10 feet apart
from each other and no less than 5 feet apart. If the speakers are placed
too close together or too far apart from one another, you will not hear a
proper stereo effect.
Sometimes the layout of a room (or the positioning of artwork or furniture
within it) makes it impossible to place in-wall, on-wall or floor-standing
speakers for critical listening. In such cases, choose a high-grade set of
in-ceiling speakers including the LCR critical home theatre design, Ideally,
these speakers should have pivoting tweeters, which allow you to direct the
relatively unidirectional high frequencies toward your prime listening seats
for optimal sound.
Another consideration: When a speaker is placed in a corner, its bass output
is reinforced by your room acoustics. You hear more bass, but not
necessarily good, tight bass. This so-called "boundary effect" can make the
bass sound "loose" or "boomy." Always place your speakers at least one foot
away from a corner or a wall/ceiling boundary.
Speaker placement for entertainment listening
In rooms you move around in or frequently entertain in, speaker
placement designed for critical listening won't work well. The music will be
too loud in one area and too soft in another. By employing three or four
speakers in a room, or by judiciously using a combination of direct and
reflected sound, you create a sound field that is relatively even. You'll
hear some degree of stereo effect regardless of where you are in the room.
Ceiling speakers are a great choice for entertainment listening, because
they provide the most even dispersion of sound throughout a room. However,
should the wall offer an easier installation or a better match with your
décor, place the speakers at least 6 feet off the floor. Both in-wall and
in-ceiling speakers should also be placed at least 2 feet away from corners
to keep the reflected sound in balance with the direct sound.
When a room is long and narrow, L-shaped, or larger than 300 square feet,
consider using more than two speakers. They should be wired in alternating
channels, to provide a decent stereo effect in as many areas as possible.
When your décor or budget will not allow more than two speakers in a large
or irregular room, try to place left and right stereo speakers near opposite
corners of the room. Another option, particularly suitable for long, narrow
rooms, is to place two dual voice coil single stereo ceiling speakers in the
middle of the room's opposite ends. Each stereo-input speaker plays both the
left and right channels of stereo music via one woofer and two angled
tweeters, conveying some of the spaciousness of true stereo sound.
-
Ceiling speaker placement:
-
Diagonal
placement, gives good coverage in a typical rectangular room of 300
square feet or less.
-
Use of three or
more speakers in a large or L-shaped room.
-
In a narrow room,
place the speakers in the middle at either end. In this example,
stereo-input speakers would be a good choice.
Speaker placement for outdoor entertainment
listening
To bring music to your patio or deck, a wide range of
weather-resistant speakers are available. Because the sound from such
speakers is not bottled up like it is indoors, more power is needed to
adequately fill an outdoor space with music. Placing speakers way out in the
yard, and expecting them to blanket an acre with sound, is asking too much
from a typical receiver or amplifier.
Try to place outdoor speakers within 15 feet of the listening area. The
practical way to cover your patio or deck is from the side of the house. The
speakers can be tucked into the eaves, which puts the sound behind you as
you face the yard.
Speaker placement for background listening
Are you tired of having to crank up your sound system to
ear-splitting levels in your main listening room just so you can hear your
music while you're in the laundry or the bathroom? Background speakers make
your entire house play music for you, and at appropriate volume levels for
each listening area.
Typically, the most effective way to bring background music to small rooms
is to utilize dual voice coil single stereo in-ceiling speaker. In a
bathroom, laundry room or dressing room, a single stereo-input speaker can
provide good background sound inexpensively and effectively from the center
of the room. In large rooms, the more speakers you use, the more pervasive
the soundfield will be. Since the volume will never be high in your
background-listening areas, you don't have to worry about the negative
effects of too much reflected sound.
By creatively placing speakers to reflect their sound off of furniture,
walls and ceilings, you can provide pervasive sound without any visible
speakers. For example, you might try placing a set of bookshelf speakers out
of sight on top of your kitchen cabinets, pointed at the ceiling. The sound
reflects off the ceiling, and down into the kitchen, providing good
background music coverage throughout the room.
Powering your speakers
After you've decided which rooms you'd like to put speakers in, and
what type(s) of speakers you'll be using, the next decision you'll need to
make is how to power them all.
While in-wall and in-ceiling speakers have been used for decades in
commercial applications, in recent years a handful of manufacturers have
developed models which can accurately reproduce music and soundtracks at
home.
In-wall and in-ceiling speakers work in the same way as regular speakers,
but they are mounted in a frame and set into the wall (or ceiling). Instead
of a separate speaker cabinet, they use the wall itself as the cabinet.
(Though most in-wall speakers are full-range, you may want to add a powered
subwoofer to your system for bass reinforcement, especially for home
theater.)
With proper installation, these speakers sound great and can blend
seamlessly into your room's decor (they even have paintable grilles!). Plus,
you don't fill up your floor space with speakers. But keep in mind,
installation is more involved than setting up traditional speakers. And you
will, of course, need to run your speaker wires behind the walls
Start with is an existing Stereo System. If it has at least 50 watts per
channel of output power, and provisions for 2 pair or more of speakers
(outputs on the back for "A" and "B" speakers) it should be suitable as the
heart of an entire residential or small scale business music system.
Speaker cabinets already
exist everywhere in your building. Of course, you have probably been
thinking of them as Walls and Ceilings, but due to the nature
of their construction, they are ideal speaker cabinets. A typical 8 foot
tall wall with 16" stud centers has nearly 3 cubic feet of interior space.
That is equivalent to a speaker cabinet 1 foot wide, 1 foot deep and 3 feet
tall. You know speakers need cabinets to develop bass response, that is why
speakers in big cabinets are capable of great bass.
When you buy and install
In-Wall Mounted speaker systems you are only paying for the Woofers,
Tweeter & Frames, it's the cabinets that make up the bulk of the
expense, not only in materials and labor to construct the enclosures but in
the excess packing materials, added freight, handling and warehousing
(space) expenses that large - heavy items dictate.
The walls & ceilings
which make up the building serve as terrific speaker enclosures, at no
additional expense and furthermore allow you to place the sound sources
unobtrusively almost anywhere you wish.
Step 1
Determine which rooms or
areas you wish to provide sound, keeping any outdoor areas in mind. This
will determine whether you select a 4, 6, or pair speaker selector
Visualize where the
furniture and fixtures will be placed in order to identify optimum speaker
and decorator jack plate locations. Generally, in areas where there isn't a
centralized seating or listening/viewing position, ceiling speakers are
best.
If there is a defined
listening/viewing position such as a sofa, the speakers should be wall
mounted facing the defined listening/viewing position. In Home Theater
applications you can incorporate 4, 6, even as many as 8 speakers for
ultimate surround sound systems.
Step 2
Decide in which room the
Stereo System (Receiver/Amp, CD, Cassette, etc.), will be located. This will
be the Home Run location to which all of the remote speaker wiring
will be run.
In the wall area here
(behind the stereo equipment), you can optionally mount the Banana Jack
Plates or Binding Post Plates. These terminate the wiring from
the in wall/ceiling speakers to one main location.
Step 3
In each room determine
where to position the volume control . It is necessary to install one
volume control for each pair of speakers. The maximum volume for the entire
building will be set from your centralized receiver/amplifier. Each room's
relative volume level is controlled by its own localized volume control.
Step 4
While doing your wire
runs, remember, to meet Building Codes in most municipalities, you must
use CLASS 2 or CLASS 3 rated Plenum wire. While there are many types of wire
that are of a heavy enough gauge to carry the audio signal, if they are not
CLASS 2 or CLASS 3 Rated they will likely not be approved in the electrical
inspection process.
The common practice is to run 4 conductor wire from the location of the
speaker switcher to each volume control. Then, from each volume control to
each of the two associated speakers, a 2 conductor wire should be run. Each
speaker requires a "+" and a "-" wire. Use at least 16 gauge wire, and if
the "runs" exceed 100 feet, use 14 gauge wire. Wire of 18 or smaller gauge
can cause overheating of your amplifier or in extreme conditions may even
damage the amplifier.
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