Receiver Suggestion? Or is it an amp I need? Or something else?

John New member Username: Raps95 Post Number: 1 Registered: Feb-10	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 17:18 GMT Hi there, As you can guess from the thread title, I'm a 100% newcomer to the audio field so I apologize in advance if this should be posted in another forum, and also for any uninformed questions. My Question My situation is that I have a new home (very old, actually, but new to me) that has four speakers in the ceiling spread throughout the main floor, and I have no idea though what I should be hooking them into. The wires for them have been run behind the walls and come out of a box in the wall a little above ground level with a pair of wires for each speaker. Background Some facts that, hopefully, may help guide any suggestions you might make: I don't have a huge amount of space to work with here (tiny house) so if it was possible to go with something a little smaller than the traditional size of a receiver that would be a positive My ideal world would be a device that would allow me to control each speaker individually, though I just want the exact same audio coming out of every speaker. The idea here would be that if my wife is in the kitchen and wants to hear some music, that speaker could be turned up, but the ones by me in the living room could be turned down. The desire for the same sound from every speaker has caused me to assume that my existing 5.1 HTIB receiver wouldn't be an acceptable solution here since, to my new-to-audio-equipment mind, I don't have 4 identical audio channels coming out of it that I want. Please feel free to correct me if there is some way to make it work. It's a Sony HTIB from, roughly, five or so years ago. In terms of what I want to play though it, I would say radio, mp3's, CD's, and streaming internet radio. No "home theatre" of any kind here. CD's would be a low priority, and something that I would willingly give up since it's easy enough to get the CD's we have into Mp3 format. Internet streaming is something I don't even know is possible, I just mention it here in case it is since I do quite enjoy streaming the variety of stations I can get through my ipod touch, and if it could somehow be done through this device so that I didn't need the ipod to be around that would be great too. Since both my wife and I have ipod/iphone devices though, if it had an Ipod dock that would be a positive. That said, I also have an old Cowon D2 mp3 player that is more than good enough to just spit out mp3 output from its headphone jack into an input on this proposed device if necessary, so the ipod connectivity isn't a necessity either. In terms of sound quality, I think the last statement about just running audio from a headphone jack into this device probably says all that needs to be said about my requirements in this area. I want to be able to play whichever one of those audio streams I choose, I want to be able to "turn it up" on occasion, and that's pretty much it. As a further illustration of my "taste", at present, I have zero issues with my five year old Sony HTIB system, that was mid-range, at best, when I bought it. Which leads to budget. I'd say the upper end of what I'd be looking to spend would be about $300. The "room" for this is actually the main floor of my house which is about 40' long and has no walls of any significance from back to front so it's, essentially, just a long 15x40 room. The speakers are in the ceiling starting at the front of the house and then one every 8-10' or so. Burying the lead here, I would imagine one of the questions you would have would be what the speakers are that this device will hook into, but, unfortunately, I can't say right now. They're up in the ceiling with no visible markings on them, and I've been hesitant to try and take them out to look at them. I'm hopeful that a generic recommendation can be made that wouldn't require that, but, if it's imperative to have this info I will. If you do suggest that, would you mind also giving an idea of how I should go about doing it? Again, I'm a newbie, so the idea of just grabbing hold of one and pulling it down is a little off-putting. If a bunch of anonymous people on an internet message board tell me it's okay though, I'll do it And that's all I can think of right now. My apologies for making it a little long, but I figured it would make sense to try and answer as many questions as possible up front to save back and forth later. My sincere thanks for any assistance that can be provided.
Jim Bay Gold Member Username: Jrbay Livonia [Detroit area], Michigan USA Post Number: 1077 Registered: Feb-08	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 19:12 GMT Greetings John, Two questions for you: Are the speakers set up in stereo pairs or are they so far apart that they would need monular signals? Are there volume controls mounted in the wall near each speaker location?
John New member Username: Raps95 Toronto Post Number: 2 Registered: Feb-10	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 19:37 GMT Hi Jim, Thanks for your response. My answers to your questions are as follows: Are the speakers set up in stereo pairs or are they so far apart that they would need monular signals? >> I don't really know as I never heard the system in use. Honestly, we didn't even notice these speakers were there until after we took possession. If I understand your question correctly though, I can give my opinion that I think I don't want any stereo effect on these speakers since I do want the option (if possible) of turning three of them off (like in my kitchen example) and leaving just one of them on, while still having both left and right channels of whatever audio is playing coming out of that one speaker. Are there volume controls mounted in the wall near each speaker location? >> Nope. Whatever I end up putting in here will have to provide the volume controls I'm looking for.
Jim Bay Gold Member Username: Jrbay Livonia [Detroit area], Michigan USA Post Number: 1080 Registered: Feb-08	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 20:22 GMT The problem is that most inexpensive (and readily available) whole house audio systems are run to stereo speaker pairs. One idea might be to contact the previous owners if possible and find out what they were using and either buy it from them or find a similar unit on ebay. If none of that is possible then I suppose the best and cheapest way to get this done is a simple stereo receiver with a mono switch, A and B speaker outputs and a balance control. http://cgi.ebay.com/PIONEER-SX-550-HOME-STEREO-RECEIVER-SX550-RECEIVER_W0QQitemZ 150416707445QQcmdZViewItemQQptZReceivers_Tuners?hash=item230588cf75 You would then need a 3.5mm headphone jack to RCA cable: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021804 &p_id=5598&seq=1&format=2 for your iPods and MP3 players.
John New member Username: Raps95 Toronto Post Number: 3 Registered: Feb-10	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 21:51 GMT Thanks for the information Jim. One problem though. While I would, personally, be thrilled to be able to do this on a budget in line with the receiver you included the link to, my wife would absolutely not allow me to go ahead with something like that. She doesn't muck around in the technical end of things, and would never question my plan from a technical level, but she is, as would be expected, the style police. So, anything that is going to make its way into our new living room, especially when our space is so small, is going to have to pass her style test. Which I'm pretty sure this wouldn't. Judging from the information I get from clicking on your user name, you obviously have a tremendous amount of a/v experience. What do you think of my "plan" to try and have each of the speakers operate independently? Am I trying to reinvent the wheel, only to wind up replacing it with an oval? In other words, if you think that this is a questionable idea feel free to say so. I'm thinking it might be an odd idea, because in just a few minutes of internet searching (spurred by your use of the word "switch") I've been able to come up with a number of different speaker switching solutions, but they all appear to be based on "pairs" of speakers, not individual ones. If I gave up my desire for individual control of four speakers, and backed down to controlling two pairs of speakers, would the following item meet my needs if hooked my speakers into it, it into my existing Sony receiver, and set the output to be 2ch Stereo on the receiver? http://tiny.cc/hRzqd If it would, do you mind me asking if you know what it is I would be hooking into this device? Would I be running speaker wire from the speaker outputs on my receiver into the inputs on this device? It would seem like it, but that's a bit different for me since I'm used to using rca cables or somesuch when transferring the output of one device to the input of another. Also, if this does seem like a viable solution, do I need to have any concerns about not knowing the details about what my speakers are before I hook them into this setup? Thanks very much again for all of your assistance.
John New member Username: Raps95 Toronto Post Number: 4 Registered: Feb-10	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 22:13 GMT Actually, upon even further research, it looks like I could, possibly, just go with this receiver all on its own and not have to worry about two devices. http://tiny.cc/4CXYF Something that you're probably going to suggest to me once you read my above message giving up on the four individual controls If you have a better alternative to that Sony system though, please feel free to suggest it.
Jim Bay Gold Member Username: Jrbay Livonia [Detroit area], Michigan USA Post Number: 1083 Registered: Feb-08	Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 22:19 GMT I am not a big fan of Sony but a stereo receiver is what I had in mind in my last post. I would look for features on it, as stated, like a mono switch so that you can then operate each speaker individually.

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