Whole House Audio Amps?

[jpkishere]

Wondering if these would work as part of a whole house audio system for the amplifier portion?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Accurian-HomePlug-Digi...0QQcmdZViewItem

Rumor is you can hack them to change it to be audio out so you could use them as cheap 25x2 channel amps..

Question is - they have volume controls on them - so if you by something like the Xantech ZPR68 (or something similiar) - could that be used to control the volume instead of using the controls on the actual amp?

 

[IVB]

The ZPR does have volume control, but the issue with using most cheap amps in concert with it is that you need a means to turn the amps on/off. Best way is to get an amp with a 12V trigger or signal-sensing for on/off.

Obviously you could manually turn on/off, but most folks wouldn't want to do that for whole-house audio.

 

[mustangcoupe]

what about putting these on a appliance module and turning power on/off through that?

 

[IVB]

Well, I don't know from those as I don't use PLC protocols. Can you tell whether it's on or off through those? Also, depends on if your appliance module can handle the wattage. Could be a plan, though. I had to get a 12V Russound trigger for my Rotel as it was old and didn't have one.

I'm still a little skittish about a $10 amp; can't imagine it sounds good. But, it's not that big a risk, so I'd go ahead and try it.

 

[jpkishere]

The ZPR does have volume control, but the issue with using most cheap amps in concert with it is that you need a means to turn the amps on/off. Best way is to get an amp with a 12V trigger or signal-sensing for on/off.

Obviously you could manually turn on/off, but most folks wouldn't want to do that for whole-house audio.

Could you not just leave the amp on all the time? Not sure of what the power draw is but...

As for the $10 price, originally these were from radioshack and around $150/ea.. although they were used for distributing audio over powerlines..

I'll swing by and pick up some if my local shack has them..

 

[IVB]

yes, you could leave on all the time, as long as you're willing to accept the power & heat ramifications.

For me, with 6 amps for various rooms, some of which are 4ch & 6ch amps, that's too much for me.

 

[TonyNo]

I saw this thread and picked up a set to try (I use something similar now, but over phone lines).

There are both speaker connections and line-level outputs on the receiver. I will continue playing, but very often the signal gets modulated or gated as if someone is spinning the volume control back and forth very quickly. B) When this is not happening, it sounds fine.

 

[jpkishere]

I saw this thread and picked up a set to try (I use something similar now, but over phone lines).

There are both speaker connections and line-level outputs on the receiver. I will continue playing, but very often the signal gets modulated or gated as if someone is spinning the volume control back and forth very quickly. B) When this is not happening, it sounds fine.

TonyNo,

Are you using the receiver and the amp together to deliver the music through the powerlines?

I tried go to radioshack this afternoon, but the one closest to me is gone and someone said that a bunch of them closed..

 

[TonyNo]

Are you using the receiver and the amp together to deliver the music through the powerlines?

For testing, I used the line out from the receiver and run that into the line in on the amp that drives the speakers.