i just moved into a house that has the bose acoustimass10 system in our living room (only 4 cubes are attached), two array(???) speakers in our dining room and two connections to speakers in our bedroom. i strongly believe they are all going to the acoustimass10 system in our living room.
here's are the questions: does this even make sense? that is, am i wrong in assuming all my speakers installed in the various rooms are going into my living room?
from what i understand the acoustimass10 system supporst only 5.1. is the subwoofer basically a router from which the speakers go into, after which they go into a receiver?
can i get any 5.1 receiver or does it have to be bose?
That series of Bose will run with most regular amplifiers. They are rated at 8 Ohms.
It would be wrong to call a subwoofer a router as in network terms. It's job is to take over the sound waves usually below 80hz and then allow the little cubes to deliver the frequencies above that. However in that particular model it seems that the speaker wires go through the subwoofer.
Am I correct in that you have basically 6 cubes (4 in one room and 2 in the other) and no other pieces? No subwoofer? or is there just 4 cubes and the rest are just wires? Are the wires really thin?
Room 1: 4 cubes setup, 5th just chillen out (not sure if it's busted or not) Room 2: 2 bose speakers Room 3: 2 connections for speakers (not hooked up)
these all run to the room with the subwoofer (where the 5 speakers are) and the a receiver.
i would need to have 3 zones (??? not sure if that's technically accurate) on this receiver as well as 5.1 surround (or more???). I would conceivably be able to listen to all three rooms at once, or turn them on/off with a "zone switch."
hope that clears it up. thanks so much for helping. i really really appreciate it, as i'm half literate about this stuff.
If you have the subwoofer and the receiver why don't you just test it? I don't know what the receiver is so I can't comment on whether it can do 3 zones. (most mid priced receivers are not 3 zones)
i don't have a receiver, that's what i'm trying to determine. also, i don't need multi-zone, i need multi-room. is the same true about mid-priced receivers for multi-room?
You can certainly use a multi-zone, but if you don't that's fine. All 7.1 receivers will give you 7 speaker although some will have as many as 9 speaker outlets. For the extra speakers you can split the wire into a pair where it makes sense.
Now for the bad news. I would not spend too much money on a high end receiver. These diminutive speakers don't need too much power and can't handle them anyway. If you have the money I would start by getting better speakers. If not you may want to start with a lower end receiver from Panasonic or Kenwood and see how you like the sound. If it works keep it for now until you want to upgrade.
There is probably a reason why the previous owners left them there.
the reason i don't want multi-zone is because i don't want any additional equipment other than the receiver (i.e. preamp, amp to power the other rooms).
thanks for the bit on the receiver. i want a mid-range. i don't need amazing, but i certainly don't want shitty. i'll keep looking for multi-room receivers... it's quite a task narrowing one down.
You don't need additional equipment. Any Denon receiver about 2805 for instance has 2 zones and the higher ones have 3. Marantz has 2 zones in most of their amps. So do lower end manufacturers like kenwood and Panasonic and Yamaha. It's one receiver with 2 or more zones. So you can watch 5.1 in one room and someone else can listen to a CD in the other as Jan has been explaining to you in the other forum.
multi-zone requires additional equipment. all i want to get is a receiver. i'll have to read up somewhere on how to split wires to acheive multi-room as i thought it would easier than that. i had a receiver in the past where i had A/B settings. I am looking for one with A/B/C settings so i can just wire pairs of speakers into B&C and turn them on/off whenever i want. where A would be 5.1.
i don't really want to have different sources in different rooms. one source is good enough for all rooms.