5.1 and inwall - What Rotel do I need

[KRC]

Searching for a little advice. I have a 5.1 system running off a AV receiver and am presently doing some home renovations and thought it would be a great idea to have some B&W in wall speakers in the rest of the house. Thinking one in bathroom, master bedroom, office maybe! I have heard of two zone on a receiver or processor but my brand does not have it. I went to Rotel web site and they have a processor (little screen on front) that does. If I had a two zone processor, would I need two, five channel amps; or get a five channel and and a cheaper two channel amp for speakers in bathroom/master bedroom? How would you wire that? Or is there something I am missing?????? Sorry for the million questions?

Kevin

[KRC]

5.1 and inwall

Searching for a little advice. I have a 5.1 system running off a AV receiver and am presently doing some home renovations and thought it would be a great idea to have some B&W in wall speakers in the rest of the house. Thinking one in bathroom, master bedroom, office maybe! I have heard of two zone on a receiver or processor but my brand does not have it. I went to Rotel web site and they have a processor (little screen on front) that does. If I had a two zone processor, would I need two, five channel amps; or get a five channel and and a cheaper two channel amp for speakers in bathroom/master bedroom? How would you wire that? Or is there something I am missing?????? Sorry for the million questions?

Kevin

[Glenee]

One two-Channel and One five channel AMP should do it. There are several on the market.
Glenee

[WI Rotel]

Searching for a little advice. I have a 5.1 system running off a AV receiver and am presently doing some home renovations and thought it would be a great idea to have some B&W in wall speakers in the rest of the house. Thinking one in bathroom, master bedroom, office maybe! I have heard of two zone on a receiver or processor but my brand does not have it. I went to Rotel web site and they have a processor (little screen on front) that does. If I had a two zone processor, would I need two, five channel amps; or get a five channel and and a cheaper two channel amp for speakers in bathroom/master bedroom? How would you wire that? Or is there something I am missing?????? Sorry for the million questions?

Kevin

I have Jamo speakers all over the house (total of 7, one of the speakers is a single stereo transducer). I run them all from just one stereo amp (old 200 watt carver M1). The carver is connected to my 1068 as the "zone" amp. The speakers came with the house and as such the whole shebang was prewired. I simply took all the wires bundled them up in bannana plugs and connected them to the amp (ergo they are connected in parallel). Each room has a wall mounted volume control and that is it. Its certainly not an ultrahifi arrangement but it makes for a very good "backgound" in wall system. Jamo is a "contactor" grade speaker manufacturer that specializes in in-wall and "recreational" speakers. No, its no BW but its good sound for its purpose, its a high fi alternative to a simple PA system. Jamo makes no bones in telling you they are for "background" music.

http://jamo.com/Default.aspx?ID=5928

I helped a good friend install 2 pairs of custom install BW's in his house they sound very nice indeed and have variable equalization. Of interest, one pair was placed below waist level and to our surprise it sounded pretty darned dull till we flipped it upside down (woofer on top) which quickly brought it to life! The sound from his BW's in certainly better than my "contractor grade" Jamo's but not overwhelmingly so. He runs his in series from a speaker selector box connected to his Creek integrated amp.
Thus, for multi- in-wall whole house systems there is absolutely no need for multiple amplifiers, there are other much cheaper and very satisfying alternatives. Please note that the fact is that in wall systems are going to be worse sounding than decent free standing speakers regardless of how much you spend (unless you have 100K for some signature series :B ).

[Kevin D]

Zone 2 on pretty much every receiver/processor is going to be stereo output only, so just a two channel amp will do.

Pretty straight forward, run all your sources to the unit, run a set of RCA cables to the second zone amp, then run your speaker wires to it.

It will give you separate source and volume for the second area. The RSX-1067 is a nice unit that you can use as a 5ch receiver and then use the remaining 2 built-in channels for the second zone.

Also look at the new RSX-1058. It's a 4 zone unit, 5.1 system plus 3 multi-room outputs. Pair it up with a RSP-1066 (6x60 amp) and you would be set.

Kevin D.

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

I'm going to merge in your B&W thread here too - so you get a single source of discussion... Really your topic is mor about Rotel than B&W

Geoff