Office Sound System

[samrr]

At the moment we have a sony portable cd player we plug in and it works great however we have just laid Cat5 everywhere and think we could spread the speakers out so its not as loud in one area.

Bearing in mind this is just for staff use (most are on the phone so it has to be quiet anyway) whats the cheapest thing we can get away with? Or shall we just stick to the portable radio?

[cjs]

If you have a suspended ceiling then why not look at some ceiling speakers, you could place them over walkways so they are not directly over desks. They would not use the Cat 5, they would need their own cabling and an amplifier.

[Driller]

You can get ceiling speakers with an amplifier built in. You could use audio baluns to send the audio over the cat5 to these...

[samrr]

Have a big pitched ceiling so will have to be wall speakers.

What would I do just connect it to a pc and play the radio on the PC?

Is there certain software to use?

[Driller]

samrr said:

Have a big pitched ceiling so will have to be wall speakers.

What would I do just connect it to a pc and play the radio on the PC?

Is there certain software to use?

Line out/headphone out from pc into either multichannel amp for several pairs of speakers or as previously mentioned audio baluns via cat5 to powered speakers.

No need for any software just choose a radio station in a browser.

[samrr]

Ok Thanks for that.

Any ideas of some cheap speakers?

[cjs]

samrr said:

Ok Thanks for that.

Any ideas of some cheap speakers?

How many speakers do you think you'll need?

[Driller]

samrr said:

Ok Thanks for that.

Any ideas of some cheap speakers?

Here you go, cheap as chips:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Aerials_Ind...

I wouldn't turn the bass up though

It's going to be cheaper to buy a multi channel amp with these (you going to ask me if I know of a cheap multichannel amp now, aren't you?) as active in wall speakers will be at least £250 a pair. SO you're going to have to pull some speaker cable.

[talkssense]

For cheap speakers that are just plaing low volume background radio there is no need to run extra speaker cable if you have cat 5 in place.

Strip back the 8 cores, twist together in 2 sets of 4 (make sure they match at both ends) and use as speaker cable.

It's not hi-fi, but you weren't looking for hi-fi and it will work fine in most normal listening situations.

[samrr]

Thanks all - they seem perfect.

Driller - do you know of a cheap amp?


Only joking will try the cat5 root first