Great deal on a 6 channel amp

[sharp_1]

To further describe my settings, I've got the system Master all the way up, and the Winamp volume at like 20% and the rest of my family is complaining that it is too loud. I haven't adjusted any gains on the amp itself.

If I did that my in-wall Klipsch would blow out of the wall...that's how loud it would be if I turned my master volume up to 100% and Winamp to 20%...the settings on my amp must have been modified??? Is there any way to put a voltmeter on the speaker leads to set speaker volume? Oh yeah, I can try the 2nd amp I bought (still in the box) to see if I have the same result...may help with the amp hum I have been having too.

[scottw]

Wow I ordered my X10 stuff late Thursday night and they actually just delivered it, ON A SATURDAY ( with the free shipping option)!!

I had my amp setup on it in minutes. Awesome stuff!!!

I will post back later once I get more into it but it works great for what I bought it for so far.

[Marbles_00]

Marbles_00 wrote:
To further describe my settings, I've got the system Master all the way up, and the Winamp volume at like 20% and the rest of my family is complaining that it is too loud. I haven't adjusted any gains on the amp itself.

If I did that my in-wall Klipsch would blow out of the wall...that's how loud it would be if I turned my master volume up to 100% and Winamp to 20%...the settings on my amp must have been modified???

Not necessarily. If your Klipsch is anything like the R-5650 series, then that speaker sensitivity specification is at 92dB, whereas my R10's I think are around 89dB (if all things being equal...manufacturing testing wise). This means since your speaker is higher by 3dB, it will play much more loudly at the same volume levels. This being because your speakers require less amplifier power to drive those speakers.

This could be a reason that joebob figures you need the best quality amps to play music. His Vandersteens, musically, could be a very beautiful sounding speaker (don't know, I haven't sat down to listen to one), but electrically, it is so unsensitive, you almost need an big amp to actually drive them in order to make them sound nice. I'm not too sure what the specifications are on the Vandersteens as I can't find a website that posts the specifications.

*EDIT* found out some specs on the 2CE Vandersteens, and the site gave a sensitivity rating of 88dB. Pretty much follows to what I figured.

*EDIT*
Scott, that's great to hear that everything went together fine. I figure it will be a week before I get my stuff, and I will have a little more work to do with the CM11. I think if I recall right, Steve integrated the CM15 with Xlobby rather nicely. But its good to know that everything looks very promising.

[Aaron]

It has been a long while since I've done anything with XLobby so forgive me for not reading the last 2 years worth of posts and asking some questions...


[b]Current Setup (to be revamped)[/b]

Homeseer 1.7 (working perfectly) w/ custom ASP pages (http://members.cox.net/ltek/hact.htm)

Many X10 devices

XBOX Media Center - for photos, music, videos, games, etc

Whole House, 6 Zone Audio, single source - only IR controlled


[b]Goals[/b]

Use Homeseer for Home Automation of X10, Insteon, ZWave.

Duplicate of look/feel/functionality that my current Homeseer ASP pages have into an XLobby GUI

Use Vista MCE (due to nice GUI and SideShow capability) to replace XBMC for Photos/Video/etc
* note: SideShow remote allows total media control from anywhere in the home.


[b]Questions[/b]

1) Is there currently a way to have XLobby query Homeseer so that GUI building is a total drag and drop / point n' click solution? IOW, can I simply pick from a list of my Homeseer events/devices and associate an image or set of images... slider buttons and animated images available for light dimming, fan states (on/off), etc?

2) Is XL's multi-zone audio control reliable? Does it allow zone sync?

3) Can XL embed screens into Vista MCE... I thinking mostly for home automation and multi-zone audio controls this would be nice.

I need all of this in the near future, e.g. <6 mo.

I'm not going to buy any more products that never deliver features I need or takes 1+ years to do so. And I no longer have time to script everthing myself so the above needs to be native and have minimal setup time... max of 1 day to fully setup.

Thanks for your input!

[Marbles_00]

Wow, that was a post on its own. I can't really answer all your questions as I don't have Homeseer, nor am I heavy in the home automation (yet). I also don't have Vista, so I can't really direct your there either. Most likely Steven is the only one to answer Vista related questions.

2) Is XL's multi-zone audio control reliable? Does it allow zone sync?

Alot of us are now doing this via CL Audigy/Live cards and the KX Drivers and using output 0/1 to drive multiple outputs. Here's a post that discusses a very basic setup. P3rv has a plugin that can control the KX/Audigy paths, though I have tried to set it up, but got lost in his documentation.

There are a few that are using a multi-output plugin for winamp to perform syncing audio across multiple soundcards. See the post here. I have personally not tried it yet, but from my understanding, it has worked.

A guy nicked Scalt has been successful at using Virtual Audio Cable. He discusses it here, and more on P3rv's KXD post (see above link). Pretty cool way. Maybe one day when I have more time to learn it, I may convert over to it, but right now, the my system is coming along nicely without it.

You should almost create a post on its own with what your asking as this post was pretty much geared for a cheap amp. Most poeple that aren't interested in the amp, won't even look at this post and won't answer you.

Just a thought.

Hope this helps.

[Aaron]

Marbles_00,
thanks for the info... that post was supposed to be a separate thread. Not sure how it got where it did... Maybe a mod can move it to its own thread?

[smata67]

How do you get stereo with only one amp, or do you definitely need two?

[Marbles_00]

Not sure if I understand your question smata? If your talking about these little BSG amps, they are actually 6 channel amps. If using them in conjuction with the included AIP module, then two channel stereo goes into the AIP. It then distributes the audio, via the mini-DIN connector to the amps 6 channels. Now from what I can gather from reading the documentation, the AIP distributes full audio to channels 1 to 4 and low frequency to channels 5 and 6. Now whether it combines the audio, or considers 1/3/5 as left, 2/4/6 as right, I'm not too sure.

Now if you want, you can leave off the AIP module altogether. By tapping into the mini-DIN harness, by either snipping off one end and terminating it with 6 RCA, or 3x 3.5mm stereo plugs or even with the type of connector I specified further up in this thread, or in your other thread, this will give you six individual channels to amplify...or three stereo pairs. Using two amps on their own will allow up to 6 stereo pairs or 12 individual channels. The term "stereo" is derived back at your source...whether it be your computer or CD player...etc. All the amps are doing are amplifing the source.

Just looking at the amps (without the AIP), just take it as 6in-6out. Just remember that if you pair channels 1 and 2 as a left/right stereo pair on the mini-DIN input side, then make sure that you connect your stereo speakers to channels 1 and 2 terminals.

The only other thing you have to realize is that all the channels share a common return on the input side...which is the shield of the DIN connector. If you are bringing all the channels back to one source...meaning to your computer, then you only need to worry about one wire connected for return as all the returns are common in the computer. In a way this is good as it will help eleveate possible ground loops and the sort, but in other ways it sucks as your not using the shield for its true intent...shielding the signal from possible outside interferance.

In case your misplaced the little instruction manual that came with the amp, the DIN harness is defined as:

Code: Select all

Pin 1 (channel 1) - red
Pin 2 (channel 2) - yellow
Pin 3 (channel 3) - blue
Pin 4 (channel 4) - black
Pin 5 (channel 5) - white
Pin 6 (channel 6) - black
Shield - bare return

Looking at the one end of the mini-DIN harness, the pinout orientation will be this.

Hope this helps.

[summerall]

A couple quick questions for anyone that has bought this amp.

1. How did you connect this to your pc's sound card?
Did you use a 1/8" audio Y splitter to RCA left & right? Similiar to this one?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search


2. How does the control head connect to the amp peice?

[Marbles_00]

Summerall,

1. How did you connect this to your pc's sound card?
Did you use a 1/8" audio Y splitter to RCA left & right? Similiar to this one?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search

You could use that Y-splitter, though I wouldn't pay that "Monster" price . Yeah, that was pretty sad, but I would never purchase Monster brand stuff, unless it was way...way marked down. You can get just as good or better, for less.

2. How does the control head connect to the amp peice?

The AIP attaches to the amp via the mini-DIN harness. Or look at my previous thread (or even ones on the first few pages) for ideas on bypassing the use of the AIP.

Hope this helps.

[smata67]

Thanks for your reply Marbles, but I'm still confused. I do not have the unit setup on a computer. The unit is free standing with a portable CD player on top. I come out of the headphone port with a Y splitter to phono plugs. These go into red and white phono plugs on the preamp. From there, what happens? Where is L and R on the speaker outputs? I have a single speaker connected to channel 1. Per instructions I'm getting 30w. I popped out the negative speaker lead and plugged into the neg for channel 2. Per the instructions I'm getting 60w. Probably true, the speaker is now louder, but where is STEREO? Where do I connect my second speaker to get the other channel? What I'm guessing is that the amp is mono. It takes whatever and shoots it out every channel. You daisy chain speakers on channel 1 and get mono out of every speaker. You can also do the same on channel 2, 3, 4 and so on. There is no "L output" and "R output" as you see on a stereo amp. If you get two of these, you can send the L channel out of the CD player into one and connect one speaker to it and send the R channel to another and connect another speaker to it, voila! you have stereo. I don't see how stereo is achieved with a single amp, I'm guessing (but may very well be wrong!) that this amp was designed for stores, restaurants, etc where they are driving a ton of speakers in mono.

[rembetis]

Where do I connect my second speaker to get the other channel?

Well, if you want to continue biamping, you do the same for your other speaker on channels 3 and 4. Otherwise, channels 1 & 2 are a stereo pair, channels 3 & 4 are another pair, and channels 5 & 6 yet another but the AIP/preamp has a crossover that makes 5 & 6 only appropriate for subwoofers. Bypassing the AIP gets you 6 full range channels.

p.s. I can guarantee you all 6 six channels are not the same, as I had one of these amps hooked up to a 5.1 soundcard via a diy DIN cable and got perfect dolby digital sound (i.e. 6 discrete channels).

[smata67]

I'll give it a try. I currently only have one speaker to test it with, otherwise I would have xperimented myself.

[smata67]

Maybe I should read the manual, it says what you allude to here: ch 1: hi pass L ch 2: hi pass R ch 3: hi pass L ch 4: hi pass R ch 5: mono low out ch 5: mono low out. According to this then, channels 1-4 are high pass, I read somewhere complaining that the bass output was lower (not my experience), I wonder how you would make it so you get the full range into a pair of speakers in other words, combine the ch 5 and ch 6 into the ch 1 and 2 signal or bypass whatever crossover is splitting the signal?

[samgreco]

I thought that the crossover was part of the preamp? If that's the case, going directly into the power amp should give full range on all channels.

I hope so. I bought 4 of these and haven't had any time to pay with them yet.