Whole Home Audio Wiring Goof!

[johnnynine]

I apparently wasn't thinking or just didn't know any better when I had my home wired for whole home audio...

The good:

I have all must in-ceiling speaker wire running to my home theater, which is good for me since that's where the source material currently is.

Currently this is just a single home theater receiver w/radio tuner connected to a squeezebox, radio, dvd, tv, etc.

The goof:

I ran cat-5 from all my in-room volume controls to my structured wiring cans. That has my elk-m1, cable modem, router, etc. I should have ran them to my home theater instead. I currently have mechanical volume controls in each room inline with the speaker wire,but I ran cat5 to them thinking I would upgrade to something more complicated with source buttons, etc.

I do have 3 unused coax cables between the structured wiring can and the home theater that I could use to transfer audio between the two if necessary.

The intent:

Ideally I would want all my sources and a new whole home audio distribution system in the home theater. But since the wiring is goofed I'm not sure that's doable.

Unfortunately I don't have anywhere to place an amplifier and source hardware near the structured wiring cans... WAF would be low if I rigged something up as well.

Does anyone know of a system that uses in wall controllers that I could hub together somehow in the structured wiring can and then pass to the home theater over a single cat5 or coax cable?

Thanks,
Johnny

 

[fcwilt]

What audio source is in your HT that you want to use? My WHA equipment is totally separate from my HT equipment.

 

[Brightan]

The Nuvo systems (at least the Concerto) use a single Cat5 to a hub type device that then goes to each of the individual keypads. Is that what you are after?

 

[Ranger Digital]

do you have ANY cat5s run from your HT to your can? If you have two, looks like on-q's lyrix would work. i would have to think it thru though.

Course the DOWNSIDE to on-q is doesnt easily integrate with any HA. the best part though its SO simple I hear even democrats can use it, hahahahahaha. just kiddin! (sorta) LOL

 

[sic0048]

Is there any way to add more wires from the wiring cans to the home theater receiver? Then you could simply patch the cables together.

 

[johnnynine]

do you have ANY cat5s run from your HT to your can? If you have two, looks like on-q's lyrix would work. i would have to think it thru though.

Course the DOWNSIDE to on-q is doesnt easily integrate with any HA. the best part though its SO simple I hear even democrats can use it, hahahahahaha. just kiddin! (sorta) LOL

Thanks for the responses guys.

Sometimes we like to have the current movie/tv audio playing over the whole home audio speakers, so ideally I would just use the entire receiver as 1 source component, plus one or two squeezeboxes, and a computer.

I should have mentioned that I have a lot of radio frequency interference in my home, so I am extremely reluctant to use any solution that carries line level audio over unshielded cat5... I think the abus and nuvo simplese systems do this?

The Concerto would be out of my budget range.

The Russound CAS44 system would be idea but it requires speaker wire and keypad wires to the same point.

I do have 3 cat5 runs between the two locations, they are all currently being used, but I could free up one of them (maybe 2 if I ran telephone and Ethernet over the same wire... that only requires 6 conductors but I'm not sure if the EMI would be an issue).

Thanks

 

[politics123]

Does anyone know of a system that uses in wall controllers that I could hub together somehow in the structured wiring can and then pass to the home theater over a single cat5 or coax cable?

Yeah, its called thinnet... it used to be how we ran networks before UTP became the standard. I wonder if anyone still makes a thinnet to UTP (cat5e) adapter... but since you only have 3 free coax cables, the most you could support would be 3 UTP runs.

My ABUS system is pretty compact:
http://www.smarthomeusa.com/ShopByManufact.../Item/AB-414ES/

I have two of these, so technically, I can have "two sources/8 zones" in my house. A little creativity with the local input allows either of two sources to be funneled into each ABUS distribution panel. My downstairs is an open floor-plan, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to listen to different sources down there, and upstairs isn't a problem --> the kid is too small to listen to music on his own, and by the time he's ready, I'm sure he'll insist on blasting crappy music from the latest 4TB nano projection HDTV ipod... and wanting nothing to do with Dad's whole house audio system

 

[twilo123]

probably not what you want to hear, especially with the RF issues, but i'll throw it out anyways:

Sonos. lose the cat5 need if you use the wifi otherwise hardwire via ethernet ports on the back of each zone player to a switch in the can. for wifi you change channels to minimize interference. coming out with 802.11n soon supposedly for more rf frequency seperation.
grab a wifi controller and zp80 for the HT/receiver setup as well as zp100 for remote zones.

 

[johnnynine]

Yeah, its called thinnet... it used to be how we ran networks before UTP became the standard. I wonder if anyone still makes a thinnet to UTP (cat5e) adapter... but since you only have 3 free coax cables, the most you could support would be 3 UTP runs.

I remember thinnet/10BASE2, but that's for an actual ethernet network, none of the keypads that I have seen interface with any kind of ethernet protocol. But that would be great if they did.. I'd just plug them right into my home network.

 

[johnnynine]

So it looks like these are my options:

I think #7 may be my best bet.

1. Rewire from controls to home theater.

Can't do that - too many holes in walls.

2. Add new cat5 between wiring cans and home theater.

This is also probably not possible since it would require lots of holes in the walls and ceiling.

3. Use 1 spare cat5 cable (of 3 total) for use with 1 control pad. (bridge wiring cans and home theater with the 1 extra run)

That doesn't do me much good.

4. Use ABUS/Nuvo Simplese line level audio over cat5 solutions.

This would work, but I would prefer using the speaker wire, and RFI is an issue in my home. Maybe the audio signal is balanced and RFI won't be an issue???

This would also require me to put most source equipment at the wiring cans location.

5. Nuvo Concerto seems to have some kind of network bridge run that might work between the two locations?

However this is way out of my price range.

6. Sonos See #7

This is doable, but it doesn't support multi source very well.

7. No in wall controllers

As a last resort I could just not use any advanced in wall controllers, stick with the mechanical volume controllers, and add a system that uses RF remote controls instead. If an RF remote is an issue, I could replace the volume controls with ones that have an IR sensor, and connect the IR sensors into an IR blaster network.

This could be Sonos, but I don't think it supports multi source very well.

Does anyone know of any other options in this category? I think I may actually prefer this anyways.


Thanks,
Johnny

[sub]edit: added #7[/sub]