Whole House Audio - Question

Although I might be considered a "techie", there is one thing that I know absolutely nothing about. (OK, there are other things I don't know anything about too ) Anyway, I have seen in high end mags and audio stores those "whole house" control deals where you can put volume and other controls throughout a house in single gang boxes like light switches. Then, supposedly, you can select sources and adjust volume in "any room in the house". I understand that these devices attach to a control unit of some type, but I am not sure how this unit interfaces to an amp/receiver. It this an RS-232 deal? Does it transmit remote control codes?

I seem to be missing some critical information here. Does anyone have one of these things set up and running? If so, How do you like it?

Thanks

:-jon

 

Usually it's a dedicated switch unit that all the keypads tie into. It will have inputs for the various sources that will be accessed throughout out the house and often will have separate zone outputs for the various rooms. From there you can hook up any amps you might have for whatever rooms you have. These amps can be located in the actual rooms or in a central locations. Of course if in a central locations, you have to run speaker cable throughout the house and it has losses. Some of these systems will use special multi amplifier units to simplify matters, but these usually are somewhat low powered.

These systems generally use ir codes to transmit control data. In the central area ir emitters can be stuck on various pieces of equipment that needs to be controlled, or they might be able to input ir from a rear jack on the component. Then, either a remote control unit or a keypad in a remote room can initiate the commands. Often one can use either. In other words, you can walk up to the bedroom unit and push cd, then play, or you can lay in bed and point a remote at the keypad and run the central components that way. Some of these keypads have intelligence and put out ir codes directly, usually over a 3 conductor wire. Others use a multi conductor cable and just hook up as remote switches which interface with the central units. Some use ir repeaters such as Extra Link. And some systems now use cat5 cable.

And before the days of whole house system components, I use to hodgepodge existing components to do similar functions. Any preamp which has separate play and record circuitry can usually be made to work for multi zone whole house systems. There are various companies that have been making remote control ir products for quite some time now, such as Xantech, Crestron, and AMS. You can go as simple or elaborate as you want these days. With a little practice, one can design all kinds of ir control systems with all the little widgets that these companies make.

And of course we now have a new class of remote control systems using digital audio, video, and ip based media servers.

 

Thanks for the DETAILED response! I currently have a Channel Plus whole house video distribution system that puts the IR control through the house over the coax and uses the IR targets and little transmitters on the equipment, so I am familiar with that.

I just never got into the audio control like the new stuff!

'ppreciate that!

:-jon