Remote speaker options

[irfanh]

I am in the process of retrofittng a large home with an Elk M1. i have been able to get a speaker for voice annoucements and chime in the master bedroom (it was easily accessible from the basement). However I wan to add more speakers, one in the kitchen and one on the second floor. Hardwiring will be an effort. Both these rooms have Wifi coverage with local extra ethernet ports and a computer each.
Is it possible in anyway to connect the speaker output from the Elk to a network device, pc or standalone that can transmit the audio over ip (like voip) that can be picked up either by an "ip speaker" connected directly to the ethernet switch or via the computers speakers via a client software. PC or Mac either would be okay. This would save me a lot or rewiring.
i did google ip speaker but did not come up with any practical home devices.
Any ideas?

 

[Steve]

It looks like IP speakers are still a bit off. Here are some references to ideas and work in that area:

http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~vp/EthernetSpeaker/
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix05/tech...rner/turner.pdf
http://www.templetons.com/brad/ideal-av.html

One possible idea would maybe be to use a wireless audio sender/receiver unit. Didn't see any audio only ones but you could use something like the Terk Leapfrog (there are several brands available). You could convert the M1 audio output to line level, connect it to the wireless sender then have a wireless receiver in each room. In the room you could either pipe it into the pc and run speaker off it, or use a small amp (like a T amp or Elk amp) and connect speaker to it.

I admittedly am no expert in this area and you will probably get much better ideas.