Can Elk Audio be output to Russound Compoint?

[Sacedog]

I just ordered my Elk M1, and all of the accessories this week from AO! I can't wait to get it, so that I can start a bench install (we aren't breaking ground on the new home until September ). I plan on installing a Russound CAV and ComPoint intercom, and was wondering if there is anyway to output the Elk audio to the Compoint?

I saw the instructions on the Elk site, on how to output the Elk audio to a PA system or Amp, which converts the leads to a single audio RCA jack; but there is I do not see a place to input audio to the Compoint ISH1.

I would rather not have Elk speakers around the house, as I don't find them all that attractive, and I will have a houseful of ceiling speakers anyway.

I thought about hooking up the Elk audio to the CAV, and driving the audio with HA software, but the CAV would need to be powered on first before the audio was heard through the speakers, which seems like it wont work well (i.e. audio will have already played by the time the amp is turned on).

Has anyone integrated the Elk audio with a Compoint? If not, what are some suggestions on descrete distribution of the Elk audio throughtout the house (e.g. I saw that someone installed a speaker behing their keypad in the wall)?

 

[pkoslow]

There's no provision for line-level input into the Russound ComPoint intercom system, so I don't know of a way to connect the M1 to it.

If you follow the instructions you found on Elk's website to convert the audio out to line level, this can easily be connected to the audio paging input on the Russound CAV6.6. When audio is sensed on this paging input, it will automatically power on any zones that are off and play the announcement. Once the announcement is complete, the zones that were off, will turn back off again.

For zones that are already on, the music will be interrupted during the announcement and then revert back to the music once complete.

This works well because there is a separate "Paging" volume that you can select for each zone (room). With this configured, the Elk announcement will always be at the same volume and not be too loud or too soft as they're not based on the music volume.

The dowsides to using the CAV6.6. audio paging input is that the page will be played in all zones (with the exception of zones that are set to DND)... no way to direct announcements to certain areas. The audio page also takes about .5 secs to get the zones turned on, so you can loose the first word in an announcement. An easy way around this with the Elk is to insert a tone at the beginning of each announcement which will trigger paging, but not be heard.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Sacedog]

Very good to know Paul. Thanks for the great tip on both the paging input on the CAV, and the tone in front of the announcement to give the amp time to turn on.

If you had HA software, could you control the CAV via Rnet to only announce the page through certain zones?

 

[pkoslow]

You can't really control by RNET as this is actually the proprietary interface Russound uses for communications between their devices.

What you can do is control this gear serially using the RS-232 port and software or a controller that can send (and receive if you want 2-way) serial commands.

HomeSeer, Cinemar & CQC I think all have drivers for the CAV6.6. now. It's theoretically possible to do this and I've toyed around with it some, but not been too successful.

If you connect a TTS audio output from a PC based automation system to the CAV audio paging input, you should be able send serial commands to enable/disable DND which would in effect only send the announcement to zones with DND disabled. You could also connect your TTS output to one of the six source inputs and then switch to this input for announcement and then revert back to the previous source once complete. To me this is much more complex as you have to query all the zones to see if they are on/off and what source they are playing, then ensure the power is on in the zone(s) where you want to announce, make the announcement, and then revert everything back to how it was. This also doesn't take into account the volume as you'd probably want to query this as well, then set to a predetermined "Announcement" volume, and then revert back to the previous volume???

As you can see... sounds pretty easy in theory, but becomes quite complex in practice. Because of the reasons above, I think the Audio Page input is much more desirable to use than consuming a source input.

Someone with better scripting skills can probably get this working, but my couple hours of testing with the HomeSeer/Russound plug-in left me with inconsistent results.

I don't think you'll ever be able to zone announcements from the Elk as I don't know how you'd queue them while you did the serial magic to switch things around?

Cheers,
Paul

 

[sharby]

You can't really control by RNET as this is actually the proprietary interface Russound uses for communications between their devices.

What you can do is control this gear serially using the RS-232 port and software or a controller that can send (and receive if you want 2-way) serial commands.

HomeSeer, Cinemar & CQC I think all have drivers for the CAV6.6. now. It's theoretically possible to do this and I've toyed around with it some, but not been too successful.

If you connect a TTS audio output from a PC based automation system to the CAV audio paging input, you should be able send serial commands to enable/disable DND which would in effect only send the announcement to zones with DND disabled. You could also connect your TTS output to one of the six source inputs and then switch to this input for announcement and then revert back to the previous source once complete. To me this is much more complex as you have to query all the zones to see if they are on/off and what source they are playing, then ensure the power is on in the zone(s) where you want to announce, make the announcement, and then revert everything back to how it was. This also doesn't take into account the volume as you'd probably want to query this as well, then set to a predetermined "Announcement" volume, and then revert back to the previous volume???

As you can see... sounds pretty easy in theory, but becomes quite complex in practice. Because of the reasons above, I think the Audio Page input is much more desirable to use than consuming a source input.

Someone with better scripting skills can probably get this working, but my couple hours of testing with the HomeSeer/Russound plug-in left me with inconsistent results.

I don't think you'll ever be able to zone announcements from the Elk as I don't know how you'd queue them while you did the serial magic to switch things around?

Cheers,
Paul

Guys,

This stuff sounds great. The Russound driver is on the "to do" list with Power Home for controlling Russound zones automatically in a macro. PowerHome can easily verify zones "on/off" status and make announcements as you've described. Are we primary focusing on Russound specificially due to the ELK RM support with Russound?

-=*Sharby*=-