How about them Chargers? OK, OK, so it wasn’t two touchdowns…
I have a technical question for the JesusH community.
We’ve got two TVs on the ground floor of the house, and connected to each TV I’ve got a stereo system, complete with amplifiers and speakers and whatnot. What I want to do is give them the ability to use each other as an audio source, and play the same thing simultaneously. In other words, when I play a CD in the DVD player connected to Stereo A, I’d like to be able to get that line output sent to Stereo B so I can hear the music in the other room from the other set of speakers (and vice versa).
It’d be simple to connect some RCA cables from each stereo’s line out jack to an input on the other stereo; I’d then just have to set input on Stereo B appropriately to hear whatever Stereo A is playing. But unlike my old house, I don’t have a crawlspace or an attic to run wires, and I don’t have a carpet to stick speaker wire under either. Running a pair of stereo audio wire between the stereos is certainly possible, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass.
So I need to either use the existing house wiring or go wireless. I see there’s an outfit called Devolo that has a product that appears to send an audio signal through powerline. That’s a clever solution that would meet my needs, as I obviously have power near both stereos. But the product line isn’t exactly established, and they’re 220V in any case, so they’re not going to work in the good old USA.
Wireless is the only other idea I have. I know some wireless house audio systems like Sonos have been getting written up in major newspapers and periodicals, and I could probably get them to do what I want and then some, but that’d be like swatting a fly with an axe–and considering these jagoffs are charging four figures just to get into the game, it’d have to be a totally blinged-out axe at that. I don’t want a wireless controller for my music. I don’t want to control my music at all.
There’s a lot of consternation about wireless rear speakers in home theatre setups, which seems kind of like the problem I want to solve. Here’s a recent blog post from the always-interesting Bob Cringely about the absence of wireless audo in today’s whiz-bang HDTVs, for example. But I think most of the problem there is that you’ve still got to get power to the rear speakers to get any output, and until someone solves that problem you’ll still have a power wire going to those speakers even if you have them get their audio signal wirelessly, so it’s generally kind of dumb to not just wire audio as well. The true solution for wireless satellite speakers probably involves some nifty engineering on the part of the radiant power geeks, but I don’t need to wait on that. I’ve got power at both locations, and don’t need it from whatever the solution to my problem is.
I guess I could use something like the idiotically-branded RocketFish™ rear speaker wireless kit, but that’s over $100, it’s unidirectional, and it looks like I’d have to do some goofy bare-wire-to-RCA hacking on both ends to get it sorted.
All I want is to take a stereo signal at Stereo A and transmit it to Stereo B, across about twenty feet and through one wall. It seems like in 2009, when I can see about a dozen access points from my computer’s wireless network dialog box and buy a wireless router for twenty bucks, this should be dirt-cheap and easy, but I’ve been looking around and so far I’m not seeing much. Any ideas?
It doesn’t seem like you’re going to be able to make this setup work without making what I would consider some pretty ugly compromises. After doing some poking around, it seems like your best bet is probably something like this transmitter and receiver bundle available on Amazon, but the pair is still $100 (although the comments say that they have appeared on woot at some point) and I am a little bit concerned that the performance will suck in either the sound quality or signal reliability fronts – if you have concerns about any of these issues though, the solution is a $3 length of wire hooked up ghetto-fabulous style.
I’m sort of skeptical about the need to to connect stereo A as an input to stereo B AND stereo B as an input to stereo A – just pick whichever system has the more diverse audio sources and call that the master for when you want to listen to the same junk in both rooms. I have to say though that if you DO manage to hook both systems up as each others sources, I’d be totally interested in seeing what happens if you set them to be each others sources at the same time with the volumes at normal levels – I anticipate a low oscillating whooshing noise that eventually builds until either your amps or all of your speakers explode.
Redneck solution: Run your wires from location to location around the ceiling borders, then camouflage the wires with strings of christmas lights!
Optional: Change the light bulb colors to match the nearest pending holiday! (red/white/blue for 4th, orange for Halloween, red for valentine’s…)
I bought the Soundcast system that Jeff linked when it appeared on Woot for $49.99. I only use it to play Internet radio over my stereo, but I think it will do exactly what you want – you’re welcome to borrow it and try it out.
My father offers this advice:
He should ignore the amplifier and just deal with the speakers, making each the secondary (B) channel of the amplifier in the other room. That takes wires. He dismisses wires because he can’t go under carpet or through the ceiling, but there are other means: flat wires that are paintable and blend with the wall, digging a shallow channel in the drywall and patching it, running under the baseboards, etc. Compromise and don’t use Monster cable. Some solutions are not perfect. Each speaker then would have two sources. But if only one is live, no special methods are needed: that one would drive the speaker. It might be useful to ensure that the signal is not propagated back along the other wire – I can’t remember what that component is called, the one that ensures one way traffic for electricity.
As far as wiring to individual speakers goes, I have anywhere from ten (at present) to thirteen (if I get the surround set up on Stereo A) speakers running.
I actually have some of that flat paintable speaker wire, and it’s pretty neat stuff. I’m so lazy I don’t even want to paint, but if I weren’t I’d just run that between the two amps.
I guess I don’t *have* to have both stereos talk to each other. I’d definitely do it that way if I was running cable, though.
Thanks, Dre, that sounds lovely.
I destroyed my speakers by accidentally putting the output of the stereo into the line in and switching on at normal volume. Beware.