Installed a ' whole-house ' system...my thoughts

[Keith from Canada]

I recently purchased a system for a friend of the family who wanted to have music in two rooms (kitchen and living room) and a home theater in a third (family room). After some auditioning, we went with Paradigm Atom for the front and rear channels of the home theater, along with the matching Paradigm center speaker and the 10" Paradigm sub. For the living room, she added two additional Atoms and for the kitchen, she went with the stereo in-ceiling speaker mounted on her wall. The center-piece of the system was a Denon AVR-1603 receiver. The total cost of this system (including speaker wire, stands, and the volume switches for the two non-HT rooms) came to just under $2k Canadian.

In terms of installation, we ran the kitchen in-wall (1) and living room Atoms (2) off of the receivers B-channel and used some Paradigm wall switches (with impedence control) for volume control in the those rooms. We ran the theater speakers off of the A channel.

Much to my surprise, each of the rooms ran wonderfully! Even with both the in-wall and living room speakers running at the same time, the tiny Denon provided more than enough power to drive them to very loud levels. Run together, the entire main floor of the house was filled with music. In the HT room, the results were just as good. The tiny Atoms did a great job with both music and movies. In fact, my long-standing allegiance to PSB may have just switched over to Paradigm. I've built numerous HT systems using similar PSB speakers and have yet to be as happy with the results as I was with the Paradigms.

On a similar note, most of the systems I've built had Yamaha's as the receiver of choice (based almost solely on the cost difference between Yammy and Denon in Canada) however, since the Denon was being cleared out, it was actually cheaper than the Yammie this time. I must say that this particular Denon is superior to the Yamaha's that I've used in the past (all at similar price-points). It is easier to use (by far -- Yamaha has some of the worst remotes EVER made!) and the sound quality exceeds (to my ears at least) any of the previous Yamaha - PSB systems that I've built in the past.

[markw]

Glad to hear it. It's reassuring to see that satisfying results can be obtained without spending a king's ransom.

In particular, it's nice to see a Denon unit praised here. With all the pro-Yamaha talk here, non-Yamaha owners have good cause to feel like outcasts here. It's nice to see that someone other than myself can own and appreciate a Denon.

This is not to be misconstrued as saying that Yamaha isn't good, but simply that there are other good units out there.

[Tarheel_]

Keith,
First, great post. Second, did you follow directions from a website or just used past experience? Reason I'm asking, i have a HK AVR 525 and want to add speakers in a bathroom. The receiver has an A-BUS output and they ( HK ) sell the matching wall pad but, i have more questions and just can't find good information on this technology. Thanks...

[Keith from Canada]

Well Tarheel, I must say that I am completely unfamiliar with "A-BUS". As I said in my original post, the two rooms outside of the home theater room were wired into the B-speaker of the receiver. Paradigm has a very easy to use volume controller for the wall that controls the impedence level when more than one set of speakers is running and it was very easy to use (they have dip-switches on the back that allow you to select how many sets of speakers you will run off of the feed). I would imagine that you could download the specs of these controllers from Paradigm's web site if you needed more info.

[mufj]

Hi I am trying to do somthing similar. I want to have sub satillite set up in my den for the home theater and run the B speaker to a switch to two bedrooms where I have two sets of PSB bookshelf speakers. I am currently using a sony prologic reciever but am planing to buy either a Yamaha rxv640 or the Denon1604. I would like to be capable of playing music in all three room at the same time. Any opinion which reviever will handle this best or are they about the same. Thanks