Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nate B.]

I'm a FOH/recording tech at a rock club, not an electrical engineer

We want to install a three zone playback system that would be fed by a single stereo source. Each zone would be controled from a central mixer as well as passive volume pots in each zone.

We would desire good sound quality at fairly loud (shout-over not dance club) volume.

My original proposal used traditional stereo power amps.

I know nothing about 70-volt audio distribution systems or if one would be appropriate for this application.

We're trying to keep cost as low as possible. Any suggestions?

[Stephen Askins]

Hi,
  70v or 100v Distributed Systems are great if you need to install numerous Speakers.  I suppose the first question is how many Speakers will you need in each Zone and what quality are you after? Generally speaking, the quality of sound with 70v or 100v systems it hugely dependant on the quality of the Transformer. If you do use this type of system ensure you stick with reputable brands.  Also make sure you have plenty of Headroom and you are evenly covering the nominated area !

I've designed a few multi zone systems for Clubs lately and have used a mixture of low ohms & 100v Speakers, depending on the application for each Zone.  For example, Zone 1 which has music videos running all day has 4 * Turbosound TCS35 speakers powered by a Lab Gruppen Amp.  The other 3 zones generally only have lower level background music however sometimes they use some of these zones for louder music late at night.  For these areas we used Toa 100v Wide Dispersion Ceiling Speakers powered by 3 Australian Monitor 100v Amps.  This system works very well and gives a very even coverage of sound around all areas.

One unit I recommend you look at as perhaps the System Controller is the DBX Zonepro.  This unit allows external Volume Controls, Source Selection etc from its various wall panels.  It also has eq, limiting etc all built in and over here in Australia is relatively inexpensive.

Hope this helps.

[Too Tall (Curtis H. List)]

Nate B. wrote on Tue, 05 October 2004 20:08

I'm a FOH/recording tech at a rock club, not an electrical engineer We want to install a three zone playback system that would be fed by a single stereo source. Each zone would be controled from a central mixer as well as passive volume pots in each zone. We would desire good sound quality at fairly loud (shout-over not dance club) volume. My original proposal used traditional stereo power amps. I know nothing about 70-volt audio distribution systems or if one would be appropriate for this application. We're trying to keep cost as low as possible. Any suggestions?

In addition to Nate's comments one reason you might use 100v/70volt with transformers for a certain area is you can not put the power amplifiers close enough to the speakers. You can extend quite a ways with large gauge speaker wire, but there are limits in distance versus performance and cost.