Re: A-Bus and Futuresmart panel

["Mark Thomas" <mrt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Davec wrote:
> Well, it is a big house and counting patios, there are in fact 16 pairs
> of speakers. What is wrong with that?

So, every time you want to turn on audio throughout the house, or
fiddle with whole-house volume, you want to run to 16 keypads? Imagine
you're rocking to some tunes in the kitchen, and get a phone call. It's
an important call, and the person on the other end is hard to hear. You
turn down the kitchen speakers, but then the speakers in the nook,
hallway, and sunroom are still loud and interfering with your call.
You'll have to run around to each of these and do the same thing. Or
just run from your house :)

Typically, and especially in a large house or an open floorplan, you
want zones to consist of multiple pairs of speakers. You can put volume
controls in for each pair to set a good balance, but then you don't
have to fiddle with them very much because you can use the zone keypad
to, for example, turn down the volume in an entire living area, rather
than a single pair of speakers.

It requires a little extra expense, because you'll need external amps
and impedance-matching volume controls. But I think you'll find having
more speakers than zones is much more convenient. Otherwise you'll be a
slave to your audio system.