Find the best options for powering speakers throughout your home
A well-designed multi-room audio system allows music to flow throughout your home. You can power ceiling speakers, floor speakers, bookshelf speakers, and outdoor speakers all through the same wired system.
Wired multi-room audio systems can range from simple two-room, single-receiver setups to more advanced multi-zone systems. We'll start with the basics and work our way up to more complex scenarios.
Sound in two rooms using one receiver
A stereo receiver with A and B speaker outputs allows you to play the same sound source in two rooms. The volume control shown in Zone 2 is optional.
Most home theater receivers with seven or more channels have a set of Zone 2 speaker outputs for a pair of stereo speakers in a second room. With a dual-zone/dual-source receiver, you can hear different audio sources in each zone.
You will need at least five channels for surround sound in Zone 1. Use two of the remaining channels for Zone 2. The in-wall volume control shown in Zone 2 is optional.
Multiband home theater receivers have seven, nine, or eleven power channels. Sometimes they have more speaker connections than channels. A receiver with nine sets of speaker outputs, for example, may only be able to power seven speakers at a time.
Let's say you have a nine-channel receiver with 11 speaker outputs. You can connect a full nine-channel surround sound system, as well as stereo speakers in another room.
What is the trap?
When listening to music in Zone 2, two of the rear channels are dropped from the surround mix. This leaves you with 7 surround sound channels in Zone 1. When you turn off Zone 2 music, surround sound returns to 9 channels.
Sound in three rooms using one receiver
Some multi-channel receivers have speaker outputs for audio in two additional bands. (Again, volume controls are optional.)
The easiest way to get three-room audio with one receiver is to find a 9- or 11-channel receiver with speaker outputs, powered for Zone 2 and Zone 3. These models often support 3-zone/source audio (3- zone/3-source audio) so you can hear something different in all three zones.
Some receivers offer powered speaker outputs for Zone 2 and preamplifier or line-level outputs for Zone 3.
Using preamp outputs means you will need a second receiver or amplifier for Zone 3. This is a great option if you have an old receiver that you want to put to good use.
More than three rooms
Want your sound system to extend beyond three rooms? The first thing you'll want to do is talk to an experienced audio technician.
There are many factors to consider when choosing your equipment and setting everything up. How big are your rooms? How loud will you play your music in each room? Want to be able to play different music in different zones at the same time?
Your technician can select the right multi-channel amplifier for your needs. It will also show you how to set it up so you end up with an easy-to-use system that does what you want.
To give you an idea of what's involved, we'll look at a fairly standard three-zone, five-room system.
A multi-channel amplifier can distribute sound throughout your home.
Zone 1
Let's say you have a floor plan with no walls separating the kitchen, dining room, and den.
You'll need multiple speakers to spread the sound evenly across this large, open area. In our example, we go with five.
We need six amplifier channels to power the five speakers in Zone 1.
Channels 1 and 2 are for the left and right speakers in the large room.
Channels 3 and 4 go to a stereo input speaker in the kitchen.
Channels 5 and 6 go to the left and right speakers in the dining room.
The music player for Zone 1 is connected to the amplifier's “bus” input (sometimes called the “global” input). The input switch for each channel pair is set to “bus” so that the Zone 1 music player will play through all five speakers.
Zone 2
The music player for Zone 2 is connected to the “local” line input for channels 7 and 8. The input switch is set to the “line in” position.
Zone 2 is simple, with a single pair of speakers. We will use two amplifier channels to power the left and right speakers.
Zone 3
For the Zone 3 music player, we will connect the left output to the left (mono) input for channels 9 and 10 on the amplifier. The right output goes to the left (mono) input of the amplifier for channels 11 and 12.
Zone 3 is different. There is only one pair of external speakers, but they need more power than the internal speakers. To get them playing at decent volume levels, we "bridge" (combine) four amplifier channels into two.
If you need a multi-room system for your space, do not hesitate to contact us