The same music in every room (DIY in general)

Member Name: jubbababy

Product:	DIY in general
Date:	23/03/02 (2355 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Music where ever you go

Disadvantages: You may never get out the bath

How would you like to be able to take a soothing bath with the soft whisper of your favourite relaxing music on in the background, or maybe take a shower first thing in the morning with the Radio one breakfast show pumping out and what about getting ready to go out on a Friday night having some top dance anthems pumping out in your bedroom and all from your PC. This is possible and very simple to do, let me explain what I’ve got in my house and what you can have.
First of all I have 2 speakers in my bedroom (Stereo) 1 speaker (flush ceiling mounted mono) in my en-suite and 1 speaker in the bathroom (flush ceiling mounted mono) also the speakers on my TV in the living room are used.
Ok so what can I do, well from the PC in the spare room I can select which speakers I want to send music to and because I have my HiFi linked in to the PC I can pick MP3 from the PC or Radio/CD/Vinyl or Tape from the HiFi
The first thing you need to do is find where the speakers are plugged into the back of the PC, purchase a 1to2 adapter that will fit into the speaker socket on the PC and then when you refit the PC speaker plug you will still have a spare socket on the 2way adapter.
Run a lead from the two way adapter with the opposite ends terminating in stereo phono points which can be connected into an Audio source selector (stereo not mono).
This is no more than a small box with a rotary dial on it, which allows you to change where you want to send the signal.
So once your cable from the speaker out point on your PC is connected to your source selector you can then run one set of phono leads to your HiFi and plug them into an auxiliary channel (by phono leads I mean the standard leads that inter-connect HiFi components and along with the source selector these can be brought from any good electronics outlet store, if your still not sure with leads you require just ask and explain what you are doing and the assistant should be able to help).
Other outl
ets on the source selector can be used to send the signal down to your TV and if you have a TV card installed on your PC you could also send an S-Video cable down and by connecting both these leads into a scart adaptor you could then have winamp for instance pumping music and the visual effects through your TV at parties ETC.
Anyway back to the speakers, once you have connected your source into your Hifi (this could just be an amp if all your music collection has been converted to MP3) you need to decide what size speakers you can have, in the case of my system it gave me a rating on the back of the amp of no more than 16 Ohms per channel so I fitted two speakers into my bedroom at 8 Ohms each this still gave me 8 Ohms available per channel so on the left channel I fitted an 8 Ohm speaker to the bathroom and did the same to the en-suite but connected it to the right channel. Note that I did not connect all the speaker cables directly into the Amp, I first fitted a 4way speaker selector switch so I could turn individual rooms on and off, if I had spent a bit more money I could have done this with volume controls fitted to each room then left all the speakers in the on position at the Amp and adjusted each room to my taste as I entered and left the room.

So what’s the shopping list and how much did it all cost :
Please understand that all these prices are estimates and the speakers will differ a lot depending how good a quality you go for.

1no 4way source selector £14.99
1no 4way speaker selector £19.99
1no 1to2 stereo jack plug £2.99
1no jack plug to phono lead £5.99
1no phono lead £5.99
100M Speaker cable £20.00
2no flush mounting speakers £60.00
2no box mounted speakers £60.00

This list does not include any additional cables for running to a TV on the ground floor and if this is not required then the source selector could be omitted and a direct connection made from PC to Amp.
As fo
r running the cables around the house, the Amp sits next to the PC in the spare room so all the cables are behind my desk in a piece of 3”X3” cable management trunking, this can be purchased from most electrical wholesalers and has lots of elongated holes in it so you can enter and leave the trunking at anytime with your cables (it does keep everything neat and tidy behind your PC. All the speaker cables go into the loft I ran a piece of mini white trunking up in the corner of the bedroom to keep all the cables together and tidy then once in the roof I could run round to each room and speaker position. Before you go cutting big holes out in your ceiling make sure what is above and if there will be the clearance needed for the depth of any receded speakers, the standard box speakers in the bedroom are easier as you just need to make a small hole and poke the cable down and mount your speaker to the wall (try to get your speaker high up and this way no cable will be on show).
The cables to my TV took a bit more work as they had to go through into my daughters room and then downstairs, I lifted the carpet back in each room and placed the cables just underneath, to get from one room to the next I drilled a 20mm hole in the corner of the floor of each room and fed the cables down one hole and back out the other (you may need two people for this) this way is only possible if the wall is studding and not solid passing from ground to first as you would need to nock a hole through the wall under the boards, or another route would need to be found.
Once I was above the point I needed to be on the floor below I again drilled a 20mm hole in the floorboards and from below drilled a 20mm hole in the ceiling I was then able to pass the cables through the holes to the ground floor. It should be noted that the hole in the ceiling would need to be patched up after. The cables can then ether be cut into the wall and the plaster patched up as I did, this is fine if
you plan to decorate soon otherwise as a temporary or permanent measure mini trunking can be installed to hide the cables (mini trunking can be purchased from all good electrical wholesalers and look for the type with a sticky back as this prevents any drilling needing to be done.

Please note that a certain amount of understanding is needed to do this and a total novice would be advised to get further help and advice before jamming cables into there PC or Amp I’m an electrical engineer and do this sort of thing for a living but I still spent a considerable amount of time working out what I needed and how I wanted it to work. If anyone interested in carrying this project out is in need of more advice then please feel free to email me and I’ll try to help as much as possible.
The end result is worth the effort.

UPDATE : 26.03.2002
Speaker cable, you can buy really expensive (oxygen free and gold plated etc etc)cable and if your budget will stretch to this then fine its your money. To be honest i just brought the standard speaker cable, the same as you have feeding your speakers on your HiFi and that works fine giving satisfactory sound reproduction.

UPDATE : 31.03.2002
You must check the maximum size of your speakers that you can fit to your system, get this wrong and you could do serious damage. My Amp displayed the maximum output per channel on the back of the unit but it can also be found in your users manual in technical section. A channel refers to left or right speaker and it will be measured in Ohms, don't assume that if your Amp says 60W per channel you can put to 30W speakers on each channel. If your still not sure ring the manufacture up and enquire.

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