Network and telephone cables?

[Jeff Thies]

Actually I meant low impedance balanced.

You need to use shielded,

For lack of a better plan, just a bunch of DIP TL074's (or whatever audio opamps are common now) running separate transformerless balanced outputs with a volume control on each input. Converting back to unbalanced is unresolved but at least the amp I want to drive the electrostatics has XLR inputs. Don't they have A3F to rca's anymore? A little transformer based adaptor can't be that bad?

Plus very little home

I agree. No intention of doing that. But I don't want to buy a lot of pricey pro audio cable either. Not sure what I do have. Wouldn't even CAT3 work?

Ouch.

Hmmm, 12? I'll look for it.

[jamesgangnc]

Yep, it's 12 gauge fine stranded. Usually has ribs or a square side for polarization. The only difference between it and speaker wire is the insulation is black.

Maybe you ought to look at audio over ip. There's a lot of stuff out there now and some of it is wireless. Plus you can do video the same way and some devices are supporting both. Rip all your audio content to a hard drive on a pc. Lossless if you like.

[Jeff Thies]

Good stuff.

That is in the mix, but I assumed it would be pricey, at least the little bit I've seen was. Wireless would be perfect.

A quick Google search yields a morass. Any products or places to buy?

Plus you can do video the same

What about bandwidth? MP4?

Jeff

Rip all your audio content

[The Daring Dufas]

You can always get an amp with a 70 volt output or get a transformer to take the 8 to 4 ohm output of a mono or two for a stereo and run a 70 volt distribution system throughout the house on small wire and a little

70 volt to 8 ohm transformer for each speaker. The parts to do this are relatively inexpensive and big wire isn't necessary. I probably have the stuff laying around to do it with along with enough left over Cat5.

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

That's why I buy 1000 foot rolls of silver satin flat stranded phone cord. I can make my own phone cords, patch cords and jumpers. :-)

TDD

[George]

Or maybe security systems...

[Jeff Thies]

Thanks, but I'm not thinking of an even audio throughout the house. I'm thinking of a different audio environment in each room. I've got some bad stuff I'd like to put back in use. I've got a monster amp to drive the big electrostats, and I've got an old tube amp to drive some 12" bass reflects. Some old Altec 421 15's and horns I could run outside, if I felt like lugging it out there and had a party on. Just want to have some fun without getting so involved it never happens!

Jeff

[jamesgangnc]

Depends on your level of concern for audio quality. The 70 to 8ohm transformers are not exactly "hifi". Good enough for the mall but not for my home audio. Same reason I'm not a big fan of impedance matching transformers on the input side either. It's rather difficult to make a transformer that has the same characteristics at 20hz and at

20khz.

[jamesgangnc]

You have lots of cd's? Then you definately want to "serve" a central audio repository to each location. Video is the more challenging side as there are so many formats and you need to make sure you have plenty of bandwidth. Audio is a piece of cake.

[The Daring Dufas]

I thought he mentioned that he has some old speakers, etc. For low level background music in the house the 70 volt system with a mishmash of speakers should be OK. I have installed some 70 volt line stuff that had a very good sound in a few restaurants. I think we used 18 to 14 gauge audio distribution cable and several amps for a total of 250 watts. I could crank it up and rattle the windows with no distortion. Tomorrow, I'm going to be on a man lift in a big retail store trying to straighten out their background music and paging system. Some moron got in there and hooked the 70 volt line to the 8 ohm output of the darned amplifier and cranked it wide open. I have to go through the whole thing with my impedance meter and see what that goober damaged. :-(

TDD

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Cat cable wires are small gauge. I'd use at least lamp cord size wire.

[Jeff Thies]

The amp lived?

Jeff

[The Daring Dufas]

A new amp was shipped in from Corporate and the last time I checked it it was hot as a firecracker, our other tech put it back on 70 volt line but every time I find that someone hooked the 70v line to the 8 ohm output of an amp and cranked the darn thing wide open, something cooks. The TOA amplifiers seem to be less tolerant of it than Bogen amps but still, something got burnt. At one of the other stores, some goober set a hundred ceiling speakers on the 5 watt tap and they wondered why amps kept dying. The Corporate technology departments need to have plans and instructions on what the power taps need to be set on at their stores to help eliminate a lot of the problems they have, it's not that difficult. It's going to be raining tomorrow so I can't do a scheduled job outdoors so I guess I'm stuck with the PA system repair. :-(

TDD

[Jeff Thies]

I can't imagine how long that took to fix, seems like days. It's dead simple to do the calculations, it was designed that way, but as a friend of mine says: "What were they thinking? No thinking was used!"

The Corporate technology departments need to have plans and

You would think. I'm a web programmer not an IT guy and definitely not a windows server guy. And yet whenever we set up a site on an inhouse server, the IT department is clueless and I send instructions. Maybe Dilbert is right. Just because it is not hard, doesn't mean it can be done.

Jeff

[The Daring Dufas]

I'm not a programmer but I do a lot of computer hardware and the dumb things I see done in server rooms and racks is beyond bizarre. No thought given to order in the whole structure especially if there are a lot of additions and changes. No matter what sort of system or gear I'm installing, I proceed with consideration of who has to come behind me for maintenance because that person is often ME and if someone else touches it, I'd like it to be in a condition where I can easily repair the damage. I've spent days in telephone equipment rooms in office buildings straightening out rats nests of wiring because I want to be able to easily maintain a customer's system. Sometimes there is 20 or 30 years worth of slap it in and get the hell out of there to fix. A ton of abandoned/obsolete equipment can be in my way and I recycle a lot of it. You should see my modem, switch and router collection. My friend had problems with his DSL at his home and I was able to use one of my salvaged DSL modem/router/switches to replace his 9 year old setup to get him back in service. The phone company would have charged him a lot of money and he can no longer work because of his disability. Recycle!

TDD

[Jeff Thies]

Hey, whenever you can take care of a friend's problem and it doesn't cost anything. That is a good day indeed!

Jeff

[The Daring Dufas]

I have retrieved Netopia DSL modem/wireless router/switches from the trash that were less than 2 years old. The phone company charges $100.00 for the darn things. :-)

TDD

[Jeff Thies]

Hey, that's my modem/router! Good gear and great score. The $100 is actually a good price, they use that here only for business customers, I Ebayed mine.

Jeff

[The Daring Dufas]

I found a Netopia modem/router/switch in my van that's about a third the size of the wireless version. Same color, just no wireless. What I installed for my friend was a Zoom modem/router/switch because none of the others would work. His old Westel and the Netopias would not work because of what I assume was line noise. The Zoom is accessed by going to IP addy 10.0.0.2 instead of the more common 192.168.0.1 or .1.0 and the Zoom has what I believe are superior specs, features and firewall. It was another salvage item. I had three AT&T DSL techs out to his home and all three had different opinions and even different test results. I may try some different modems on his line to see if AT&T resolved the strange problem he was having which was .22mbs down and .25mbs up on a

1.5mbs down .25mbs up DSL service. :-)

TDD