Re: Audio signal distribution.

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

> Basically I would suggest that if you're just wanting to pipe voice
> announcements or so on through the house then CAT5 would be more than
> sufficient but anything with any degree of quality should use far
heftier
> wiring - hell, even bell wire would be better (much as I hate the
stuff
and
> would never have it in my house other than to the doorbell)!
>
> Myself, I was looking at using a couple of the 6 channel Rotel power
amps
to
> provide individually controlled outputs in each room ... I couldn't
stand
it
> if switching in or out other rooms affected volumes elsewhere. As it
is I
> just ended up buying decent micro systems (TEAC Reference and Denon)
for
the
> kitchen and bedrooms.

Thats basically the approach we have opted for too.

I remember having lots of uummms and ahhhs about how to get audio around
the
house. the way I looked at it was:

Data Level:
As 95% of our audio comes from an MP3 Server at Node Zero, i thought I
could
stick a PC at each point (a DDAR would have filled this nicely) and run it
all over Ethernet

Signal Level:
Given that crosstalk in Cat-5 seems to increase as power levels increase
(and we had bad previous experience of  speakers over CAT5) I figured that
running sound over cat-5 and having a small amp/speakers at each room would
be a fair solution, also independant volume control in a "set it and
forget
it" way seemed a big plus

Speaker level:
As I say, I found *horrible* problems running speaker connections over
Cat-5: the crosstalk was really quite bad, add to that, that I was trying
to
run Composite Video over another cable in the same run at the same time,
and
you could *see* the sound on the Tv picture, I knocked this as a bad idea.

What we opted for was a mix of all three: we installed M*****'s 21-way
SCART
Cable £2 a metre, unless you have some stuff to return, and a staff
discount
card to use (I used to work at Maplin, and one of my contacts still does)

So we route video and audio over SCART cabling and have an amp/speakers in
each location where there isn't a PC "anyway".

The only speaker level run I im even considering putting in place is under
the living room floor from the front of the room to the back, for the
surrounds. I will probably be using somehting the same as I use for that at
the moment: Gale XL189.

Ian.






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