Frugal Multi Zone Audio
Jeff Thies
online.
What I would like is a tuner preamp combo that would have a remote so
that I can set each room's volume independently. I'd also like to change
sources and stations remotely.
Where to look for something reasonable? There must be something that
is not high dollar.
Jeff
Michael Black
> I have some old audio amps and speakers and I'd like to put them back
> online.
>
Go to garage sales and buy tuners to go with them. No remote, but they
tend to be cheap, like five dollars. One could even buy up portable
cassette players with radios intended for headphones or just small radios
intended for headphones. I bought one of the latter for five dollars a
few months ago. Some portable CD players also include am/fm tuners,
though maybe not enough to make them easy to find; portable CD players are
$3.00 items at garage sales now, nobody wants them since they have to
carry a bunch of CDs around.
For that matter, many MP3 players have FM tuners built in, and enough time
has passed, and enough change has happened, that the earliest are now
obsolete due to too little memory space, so they may start appearing at
garage sales.
No remotes, but when you can cheaply add a radio function to existing
amplifiers, one doesn't have to have a central tuner for the project.
Michael
Gordon
@news.albasani.net:
Well, I did a Google search of "IR Remote Extender" (also "IR
Remote repeater") and found Several hits for devices and
DIY plans for devices that will take a IR remote signal and
send it to another room. So that part can be done pretty
easily. The rest comes down to running the audio from the
central receiver to the remote amps. That can be done by
stringing audio cables.
FWIW: I did this in a house I owned about 20 years ago. I
had full access to the basement and attic so stringing
audio cables was not a problem. I used a bunch of amps that
i picked up on the surplus market. They had a three input
selector. So I ran two audio busses throughtout the house
and wired the amps so they could select either of the
busses, or a local input.
Bob F
I have a FM transmitter that transmits from my receiver tape outputs to whatever
I am listening to. So, I can tune any system in my house to the correct
frequency and hear my main source. The one I have was made by U.S Robotics, and
is not available anymore I suspect. It is possible some of the better iPod FM
transmitters made for cars could be adapted for this use, but you'd want one of
the ones with a stronger signal. Standard remote IR extenders do great for the
channel changing.