Where to put speakers for M1

[AnotherOne]

I'm getting an M1 soon and I'm trying to decided where speakers should go. Do they need to be near the keypads (I'm assuming the keypads don't have voice enabled speakers just beeping speakers), so you can have voice confirmation of things or should I just put them where I would put a siren?

Thanks.

 

[IVB]

Are you getting just 1, or more?

I got 4 of them, put them around the house. I needed an Elk-800 amp as the onboard can only power 2. I have them near places I'd need to hear the announcements, 2 of which happen to be near keypads, 2 of which aren't.

Plus, using relays, i have the ability to turn each one on/off independently.

 

[mustangcoupe]

I also found it nice to have one by the M1 itself. I originally was connecting to the rs232 port to make changes but have now purchases the ethernet interface.... I have 2 others 1 in the master BR, 1 in Living room and I still have 2 that Im not sure what Im doing with them yet.

 

[IncrdblHulk9]

I think there was talk of being able to add a voice speaker behind the KP2. Not sure what ever happened to that - maybe it has not been released yet.

 

[wuench]

Yeah. The SP102. There was some postings from Spanky that they were in, but AO didn't have any info on them...

Is it really true you can only connect 2 speakers to the M1, I thought you could connect more as long as you series/parallel them based on some of the other threads here.

 

[IVB]

I thought you could connect more as long as you series/parallel them based on some of the other threads here.

All that ohm stuff confuses me, but I've found that the volume dropped considerably connecting just 2, even with the volume setting cranked all the way up. I could be wrong, but I'd think there just wouldn't be enough juice to drive more than 2.

 

[mustangcoupe]

I have 3 connected 2 series paralled with a 3rd. Spanky recently posted that the main thing to watch out for is to keep it above 4 Ohms. Their documentation says 4-8 Ohms. You can series/paralled them to keep it there but you do loose volume.

 

[mustangcoupe]

All that ohm stuff confuses me, but I've found that the volume dropped considerably connecting just 2, even with the volume setting cranked all the way up. I could be wrong, but I'd think there just wouldn't be enough juice to drive more than 2.

IVB I was thinking about this thread...and your comments. I dont have any problems hearing my 3 I have connected... even outside the house it is muffled but I can hear them. There was a thread over the weekend talking about the multiple speakers... incase you didnt see it ELK 73 Speakers

and here is a diagram that posted showing elks recomended wireing of speakers.

 

[IVB]

It's not that I have an issue hearing them, it's that whereas 1 speaker was so loud I couldn't use it at max volume, it's now soft and I need to keep at max, and I can still barely hear it 2 rooms away. I can tell there's sound, but I can't quite make out the words.

Now that I think about it and type this out, I wonder if i'm mucking with it too much. I ran them in parallel as I needed to put relays on each one so I could turn them on/off at will, plus I needed to add a 6800Ohm resistor on each run so that I could add the Elk-124 recordable voice module and have each speaker play either M1-mainboard or Elk-124 announcements.

 

[mustangcoupe]

Where/why did you put a 600 Ohm resistor? It looks like you can just put a 8 Ohm speaker across the Elk-124 terminals also. Im a bit confused... if you use a form c relay (it has a NC and NO contact) you could switch between from one to another before the audio plays then switch back. And only switch the one you want in. I guess I am still confused over the additional resistor.

 

[elcano]

See here:
http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showto...t=0&#entry13722

You can go down to 2 Ohms as long as you dont raise the volume too far.

 

[IVB]

I can't find the elk guide now, but I needed the 6800 Ohm resistor as I wanted to have 2 different sources (Elk M1 and Elk-124) both playing sounds through the same speaker. That's how you can prevent feedback from one source to another source.