Recommedations for multi-room shop audio system

[Devious]

Hi,

I need some audio equipment to play in 3 rooms in our shop. It generally going to just play relaxing aromatherapy music, the same in all rooms.
Ideally 3 sets of stereo speakers, from an amp which can play from a USB stick and possibly bluetooth/Wi-fi from a phone.

Having more than 2 sets of stereo speakers seems to limit Amp choices, and I have read multi wiring speakers to outputs isnt a good idea as can overload the amp, though the music only needs to be played queitish in 2 of the rooms.

What options are there? Im not looking to spend a fortune and happy to buy second hand. The speakers dont seem to be hard to find its what amp and setup to have.

Cheers

 

[Devious]

Thanks for your replies.

Ive never heard of t.amps before, what is different about them compared to other amps and what makes them suitable for 6 speakers or more. Do you have a model reference for me to look at aroudn the £30 mark as most on google seem expensive.

Regarding installtion, we are having the shop fitted out at the moment so having wired speakers isnt an issue so doesnt have to be bluetooth speakers. I did look at the Sonos play as an easy option but looking for something cheaper as it isnt going to be playing loud/pop music.

There will be 2 sperate rooms and require speakers in the waiting area.

Regarding music licencing. The music will be a handful of relaxing songs of thai origin repeatadly played from a USB stick. What would be the licencing rules of this?

 

[Devious]

Ok I have a few options available.

Zone amplifier with multiple outputs (i.e Adastra RM240SB) + 3 pairs of speakers
This seems to be for the purpose of multiple rooms but I don't understand how the speakers screw terminals work for stereo speakers.

3 x Sonos Play 1 + Bluetooth out media player/USB.
Seems a flexible option. Do you have any examples of a cheapish dedicated unit for transmitting the Bluetooth stream to 3 channels? It needs an option to be able to play from a USB stick.

3 x t-class amps with USB or ability to receive Bluetooth or wired from a suitable media player/amp.
I have now found some cheapish t-amps. Again what source/player would you recommend to feed them if using a single source?

Cheers

 

[Devious]

Thanks for your comemnts Lucis but i'm non the wiser.

It's not a stereo amp. It sums everything to mono. This is a 100V Line amplifier for 4 zones, plus there's a local speaker mono output on 8 Ohm.

100V line is what has been used for decades to send music around factories, warehouses, offices and large shops/supermarkets. Trying to do this with 8 Ohm speakers on long cable runs just doesn't work. The signal loses too much power over distance. (By "long cables" I mean anything up to a couple of hundred metres, but can be longer.) This is because at low Ohms and low Volts the only way to carry a decent amount of power is at high current. The problem with high current is the resistance of the long copper cables.

100 Volt Line amps overcome the current issue by raising the voltage so that less current is required for the same amount of power delivery. (Ohm's Law, Power Equations, basic physics). Each speaker uses a small transformer to convert the 100V back down to the voltage range suitable for an 8 Ohm speaker.

With the 100V Line amp you'll need 100V Line speakers, each with the integrated transformer. You can string several speakers together on each of the amps zone outputs; you just have to make sure not to exceed 80% of the amp's total wattage figure.

The shop is about 30 foot max so would it be suitable with this and 8 Ohm speakers??

Sonos is a Wi-Fi/Ethernet based multiroom system. It doesn't support Bluetooth.

Yes, i forgot it was wi-fi. Si, its going to need a reasonabley priced wifi media player then and a broadband connection/Wi-fi network on top so its looking expensive now but probably the best sounding.

If you go for the T-amp solution (and I wouldn't recommend it), then you don't need another amp at the source end. Just go for a media player and a way to split the signals to feed the three T-amps.

Can you give an example a media player that can play from USB to feed these 3 x T-amps? Icant seem to find anything suitable.

Sorry, but if you think you're going to get anywhere near the quoted 20W out of those little T-amps then I have some magic beans to sell you. There's a bench test videos on Ebay where the wattage has been measured in to basic 8 Ohm, 4 Ohm and 2 Ohm loads. The result at 8 Ohm was 5.6 watts. LINK: https://youtu.be/7BQ2W9M4NUo

You have to also remember that a resistor is a far kinder load to an amp than a speaker because it's a static load. The resistance of a speaker varies with frequency and phase. There are also inductive and capacitive elements which add their own problems too. A speaker is a dynamic load, and so the amp could end up putting out far less power than even the measly 5W in the video.

THe music wil only be quiet and never loud, so will that be ok?

There isn't the budget to use a proper multichannel amp.

If you're thinking about an AV receiver in 5ch stereo mode then that's not a practical solution either.

IVe seen these kits on the 'bay' with 50m of wiring which seem to cater for shops with 3 zones. Would they be OK? They seem to be using splitters though for one of the channels.

 

[Devious]

Yes, but not with the Adastra amp.

Can you recommend an Amp?

Not at all. You don't need a live internet connection to run some Sonos gear. All you need is a router to act as something to connect the Ethernet cables to and to provide IP addresses, and then the shop's PC to run the control and media player software.

We wont have a PC in the shop so im scratching my head finding anything to play the music from a USB stick.
I know you could use an old phone but would prefer some kind of dedicated music player box with a USB port that can transmit to wifi/Bluetooth speakers. There much be something out there?

Yeah, it's cheap junk. "You get what you pay for."

Thought as much