Connecting Second Zone to Receiver Using CAT6 or RG6
smallean -- Mon, 01/21/2008 - 14:56
Thanks in advance for any help as this issue has been causing me grief. I have structured cabling in my home with 2 CAT6, 2 RG6 and 2 optical cables. They all terminate in my closet. I have Speakercraft AIM8 speakers in every room where the structured caballing terminates. I have a receiver (Onkyo TX-SR605) in one room that can output stereo audio to a second zone. I want to be able to send the audio from the receiver to another room but I do not have a speaker wires between the rooms. All I have is the cables I listed above.
It appears that I can use a balun to take the preamp signal from the receiver, send it over CAT6 to the other room and use a local amplifier to output it to the speakers. However, I would prefer not to have any amplifier in that room as it is our dining room and my wife doesn’t like the idea of having an amplifier in that room. Is there any way I can use CAT6 or RG6 cable to send the audio from the speakers outputs on the receiver for zone 2 to the other room? If not, can I use the balun setup I described and would the audio be out of sync if I used that setup?
Basically, I am looking for as way to get the zone 2 audio from the receiver in one room to the other room and to have playback synchronized since the rooms are very close. I am fine using the amplifier if necessary but I thought there should be a way to extender speaker wire of CAT6. For instance, are there baluns that have speaker outputs versus RCA outputs.
Thanks
Do you know the electrical specs of CAT 6? This might be weird, but I'm wondering if you can't use one CAT 6 line as a stereo high-level pair? You'd have to make your own connectors, but that should be pretty easy.
That is a great idea and one I thought may work because, as you said, making the connectors should be easy. However, I did some research online and I was not able to determine if the CAT6 would work as a speaker wire because of the high gauge. The online articles I found related to using LAN cable as speaker wire discussed having to use up to four cables to create a speaker cable. Ideally, I would just like hook up two pairs (left and right) on the receiver zone 2 speaker output and then connect the other end to the speakers in the other room. I just don't have the expertise to know if that would work or somehow cause damage to the cable. Here are the CAT6 specs I found on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable
Sean H Mallean
22 to 24 gauge wire is not ideal, but mostly because it will tend to bump up the bass a bit (the dc resistance of the wire creates a voltage divider with the speaker and this has less loss at the high impedance normally found in the bass of speakers). To get around this a bit, you could do as you say, which is to use 2 CAT 6 lines for hot and 2 for ground. But the big advantage of this approach is that it should cost about $10 to try and a small amount of time.
Are your remote speakers for background music?
Thanks for the input. Yes, they are for background only. I have an open floor plan with my living room (where the receiver is located) is separated from my dining room by the kitchen. The speakers in question are in the dining room and will be used to hear the music without having to blast the living room volume. Quality is not an issue as it is for background but the sound output needs to be synchronized with the living room or it will sound weird. Therefore, if I could impose on you again, could you answer the following questions:
(1) Do you believe I will have a delay in the dining room (the end point) if I use the CAT6 as speaker wire? The distance is about 100 feet (maybe as much as 200) as it has to go to my closet from the living room and then back to the dining room.
(2) Since I am not an expert at such wiring could you confirm how to use the CAT6 for speaker cable? Would I simply attach a banana plug or spade to the two pairs for the hot and a banana plug or spade to the other two pairs for ground on each side or is there something else I need to do.
(3) Do you know if I did use a balun to connect the preamp from the receiver to a local amp in the dining room whether there would be a delay causing the living room and dining room to be out of sync? I know that people do use local amps for other zones but I wasn't sure if they care out the music being synchronized or just being able to hear it in the second zone.
Thanks again for all of your help. My expertise is more in the data side and I would love to look like a hero getting this working so we can listen to background music in the dining room during dinner parties. My neighbors will also thank me because I won’t have to blast the music in the living room. Thanks again.
Sean H Mallean
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