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Hi
How would you implement low cost home ambient system? I want to have
the same sound in each room of my home, and the sound should be
gentle, quiet. For that reason the solution should be based on
multiple loudspeakers, placed in each room. Right?
I remember that in one of hotels that I used, I had a radio placed in
corner of my room. It was the most extreme position of whole hotel
space. I observed that I was able to play ambient music and gently
hear it
in all lodgings from that one radio. So maybe the position of audio
source is important?

Regards,
Adam

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sun, 3 May 2009 14:17:44 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Hi
How would you implement low cost home ambient system? I want to have
the same sound in each room of my home, and the sound should be
gentle, quiet. For that reason the solution should be based on
multiple loudspeakers, placed in each room. Right?
I remember that in one of hotels that I used, I had a radio placed in
corner of my room. It was the most extreme position of whole hotel
space. I observed that I was able to play ambient music and gently
hear it
in all lodgings from that one radio. So maybe the position of audio
source is important?

What a strange thing to want! Like being in a department store or one
of those bars that pride themselves in leaving no corner free of
Muzak!

Depends on the acoustics of your house. Very likely you'll have to
install one of those "lifestyle" systems - overpriced but cheap
speakers in the walls of every room. Bose are ready to take your
money.

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
How would you implement low cost home ambient system? I want to have
the same sound in each room of my home, and the sound should be
gentle, quiet. For that reason the solution should be based on
multiple loudspeakers, placed in each room. Right?

Yes, and you need enough loudspeakers in the right places that the
coverage is very even in the room... there should not be loud places
or quiet places. This also means speakers with very even dispersion
if possible.

Also, you need to run a system like this in mono.

I remember that in one of hotels that I used, I had a radio placed in
corner of my room. It was the most extreme position of whole hotel
space. I observed that I was able to play ambient music and gently
hear it
in all lodgings from that one radio. So maybe the position of audio
source is important?

Yes, it is critical. Also, the speakers that are designed for this
sort of thing have very wide dispersion.... you can look at the
Tannoy CMS-series speakers for expensive versions of this sort of
thing.

You can go with a cheap 8-inch full-range driver... Speco, Quam,
Atlas, and those installed sound guys all sell them. BUT, if you
do this, because they speakers tend to be more irregular in their
pattern, you will wind up having to use more of them to get good
coverage. In the end, the cheaper speakers can wind up costing
more for the system.

Also, normally you distribute audio for these systems using 70-volt
constant power networks. This means a transformer at the amp and
a transformer at each speaker. This also means you can have independent
level control on each speaker without interfering with others. The
Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook has a good introduction to this.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

X10 used to sell a radio-based sound-distribution system. You could use as
many receivers as you like. Each receiver had a small amp that could drive
small speakers.

I can't find it on their site, but perhaps someone else makes such a system.
There might also be systems that use the power line.

[LAB]

Listen to a Tivoli Audio Model One radio. I think you'll like that
sound. It's expensive, but you can win an auction at a good price on Ebay.
It's AM/FM (Stereo on the earphones and rec out's!) with a AUX input. If you
find a free FM frequency you could use a little FM stereo transmitter to
send music to all the radios.

--
Gianluca

[Eeyore]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Also, normally you distribute audio for these systems using 70-volt
constant power networks. This means a transformer at the amp and
a transformer at each speaker. This also means you can have independent
level control on each speaker without interfering with others. The
Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook has a good introduction to this.

It's a shame 16 ohm loudspeakers are rare these days. You could run up to 8
of those in parallel from some amps.

Graham