|
Charlie Unregistered guest | I recently purchased a new construction condo that was pre-wired for whole house audio (and surround sound in two rooms) covering five pairs of speakers. My goal is to stream MP3's throughout the house for grilling outside, romantic evenings, parties, tunes while I am in the shower, etc. and I trying to piece together an appropriate audio system. I am planning to use my existing 12 year old Luxman R-341 receiver (2 x 35W) for power but am resigned to the fact that I will need MORE power and am not sure what direction go. Allow me to present my set-up so far: 1. Speakers --For the four inside rooms I bought four pair of in-ceiling speakers --> JBL SP6C which are 80 watts at 8 ohms. I got them for $140/pr online. I hope these will serve my purpose. --I still need to buy a pair for outside. I have a small (300 sq. ft.) private outdoor terrace that is partially below grade, and therefore is partially enclosed with concrete walls. I am considering a pair of "fake rock" speakers or wall mounted. (my fiancee thinks the rock speakers are "cute". Who knew? She did agree to marry me however, so I guess it makes sense.) All of the speakers are pre-wired with 14 gauge "bundled" wire (a single white plastic wire), with no run longer than 30 to 35 ft. All five pair home-run to an a/v closet. 2. Computer/Digital Audio Receiver --I picked up a Sony Vaio desktop at Best Buy that has 160 gig hard drive and hold all my MP3's. I have a linksys 801/G wireless router thingy. --I also grabbed a Creative Soundblaster wireless digital audio receiver that will pick up (wirelessly) the streaming audio MP3 files from the computer/jukebox. This cool little device lets me access ALL of my mp3 library from anywhere in the house/outside via a RF remote that has a cool-looking LCD display. Got it for $200 online. It will plug it into the Luxman as if it were a CD player. 3. Amplifier/Receiver (here is my Question!) --My Luxman receiver is over 12 years old and has low power. But it SO clean sounding! I had it hooked up to some large Kef speakers and it powered them flawlessly. I was not disappointed. I had the best sounding system in my fraternity. Anyway, as this will be a distributed audio system, I thought I could recycle this older amp by adding a power amp and then adding an impedance matching speaker selector ( I was looking at a Sonance or a Niles six-speaker unit). Therefore, going this route, I will need to add more power via a new power amp and a speaker selector. --I saw somewhere a review of a Niles SI-1230 12 channel amplifier and I thought that maybe I need one of these babies. I would not need a speaker selector and would be able to selectively give more power to the outside pair of speakers. Excellent solution. There is only one problem, it is like $1,800 So, any thoughts on how to best power my five pair of speakers? Keeping in mind: -I am playing mostly lower quality music (MP3's) -5 pair of speakers, (4 inside, 1 outside) -I would like to re-use the Luxman |
|
J. Vigne Unregistered guest | How do you intend to feed power from the Lux to the new amp? What output/input combination have you planned to use? |
|
Charlie Unregistered guest | I am not sure. Am rather a novice in this regard. I guess I was assuming that I could take the signal from the Lux to the new amp then to an impedance matching selector, then to the five pair of speakers. Cumbersome? Other options? I am just brainstorming here and am open to suggestions. Aside from the 4 pr of in-ceiling speakers, the Luxman, the wireless DAR and the pre-wiring, I have yet to configure the power setup. (LOL, you can tell I do not know what I am talking about!) Thanks for your interest! --Charlie |
|
J. Vigne Unregistered guest | My question was how are you getting the signal from the Lux. Does it have pre amp outputs? If not there are not many good options to do what you are trying to accomplish. |
|
Charlie Unregistered guest | Oh, sorry. Yes, this Luxman model was designed to function as both a stand alone receiver and as a pre-amp. So it does has pre-amp outputs. |
|
J. Vigne Unregistered guest | I don't do specific product recommendations since I have no idea what you have access to in your local dealers. I would urge you to contact a local dealer who will be willing to help you out if problems arise. A brief look through these threads and you will see too many people who wanted to save a few dollars and went to a mail order house only to have problems and no one to help solve them. Your request is simple in terms of the equipment you will need. If you are satisfied with one source feeding all the selected speakers you can purchase any number of decent amplifiers without spending a large sum of money. Your sources don't require the very best sound so look for an amp that will allow expansion if you decide to add more speakers. With a multi channel amp you won't need a selector but you want to have some capacity to control volume in the various locations so look for an amp that has trim pots that are easily accessible or buy a ganged volume control (unless you already have VC's in the various rooms or want to cut holes and run wires to the VC's from your speaker wires in each location). If you would like to have different sources playing in different areas then you are best to put the Lux in a bedroom and buy a new amp with that option. If dollars are tight I would suggest you try the used market. Start at www.audioclassics.com and go from there. If you are looking for a specific product recommendation and don't want to go to a dealer I would guess there are several respondents that will be able to provide those names and numbers to you on this forum. I simply feel you should support your local dealer in a situation like this. Good luck. |