Powering 3 other Audio Zones in the house? Best Way?

brianlewis

I am trying to find a solution to power the 3 pairs of speakers I have thruout my new house. This includes the Office, Game Room, and the Back Patio. The office and Game Room have Polk RC80i In Ceiling speakers, 8 ohm each that handle 100w/RMS/channel, and the back patio has Polk Atrium 55 which also handle 100w/RMS/channel.
My thinking was to get an amplifier that handles 4 ohms, have it feed off whatever signal it get and send that amplified signal to a Russound SS-4 4 Pair speaker Selector, then off the the 3 pairs of speakers. I would then if I want music in a particular room, or current movie/show on TV, I could simply press the button to have the Russound start piping the signal. What seems nice with this Russound is it will adjust the Ohms so that you never go below the 4 ohm capability of the amp.
Anyone ever done a similiar setup? What did you do? Each room already has a volume control mounted on the wall.
Another idea was to get a 6.1 receiver and use the 6 channels to feed the same signal to all 3 pairs all the time (well it can be turned off when not in use) and use the volume controls to adjust what zone should be on or not.


Samson Servo 170 - Power Amplifier (About $169)
85 watts per channel into 4 ohms
http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=83&brandID=2

Russound SS-4 4 Pair Speaker Selector (About $99)
http://www.russound.com/catalog/item.lasso?item=SS4

MONSTER CABLE SS-4 - 1 x 4 Multi-Speaker Selector $55
http://www.monstercable.com/productPage.asp?pin=1423
(Not sure if this can handle 85watts rms/channel)

mantis

OK,
you need to find out how much power the volume controls can handle before you start pumping an amp.And the brand.

Russound makes nice speaker selector boxes.

This isn't however the best way to get the job done.BUying a multiroom amp is the way to go.Like B&K av1260.It has 6 zones and can be running al the same signal or different signals at the same time per channel.60 watts by 12, very clean and powerfull.

If you must go the speaker box way,Niles makes nice speakers boxes as well.You need not anymore power then 60 watts max.
Most volume controls can only handle 60 watts .

Going the 6.1 receiver route....Denon does it about the best there is for this.Enter the avr3801 or avr3802.And the avr4802/avr5800/avr5803.
Now if the avr5803 is in your world,go there it has built in 2 zones amped and a third zone line level.You can lower the output to match the volume controls and play different sources in all the zones,this is also one of the best ways to do multiroom audio.

If you really want to take it out,look into Elan.They do multirrom verywell.They have many cool features.