Connecting in-Ceiling Speakers to Control 4

[Dabbi]

Guys

I have in-ceiling speakers with 14/4 wire that comes to a volume control on a wall in the room. The Volume control has 2 cat 6 going to a central location. If I were going to do control and wanted to use the existing wiring, how would this work? Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Dabbi]

You guys are so knowledgeable. Thank you. What are the potential downsides to connecting CAT6 to 14/4 or 16/4? Audio quality issues? breakage?

If I pulled 16/4 wire from keypad to central location, I would have to join it to the 14/4 from keypad to speaker. Any issues there? Or should I just home run audio wire from speaker to central location.

 

[LollerAgent]

4 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

Guys

I have in-ceiling speakers with 14/4 wire that comes to a volume control on a wall in the room. The Volume control has 2 cat 6 going to a central location. If I were going to do control and wanted to use the existing wiring, how would this work? Thanks in advance for your help

 

What kind of volume controls are these?  Do they have integrated amplifiers? Are you sure you don't have speaker wire running from your keypads/volume controls back to a central location as well?

 

[Dabbi]

1 hour ago, LollerAgent said:

What kind of volume controls are these?  Do they have integrated amplifiers? Are you sure you don't have speaker wire running from your keypads/volume controls back to a central location as well?

 

There are no controls. Looks like I have one 14/4 audio wire going from wall to ceiling and 2 cat6 from wall to central location. Ideally, what do I need since will have someone pull wire if needed? Thanks

[LollerAgent]

31 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

There are no controls. Looks like I have one 14/4 audio wire going from wall to ceiling and 2 cat6 from wall to central location. Ideally, what do I need since will have someone pull wire if needed? Thanks

But you just said you had volume controls.  Are they just analog? 

That seems strange.  You have CAT6 going into an amplifier at a central location?

You would want something like 16/4 pulled from the volume control locations (where you would splice into the 14/4 going to the speakers) to a central location where your C4 gear/amps/matrix/etc is located.  You wouldn't want to use analog volume controls if you were using C4 audio, so you would need to remove them and put something else (blank plate, whatever) in their place.

Edited March 9, 2022 by LollerAgent

[Dabbi]

Thanks. So, if I understand this right. I need

1. One 14/4 wire from keypad to ceiling which will be used to wire 2 speakers in ceiling (assuming it is not bi-wired)

2. One 16/4 wire from keypad to central location. 

3. At the keypad, I would splice the 14/4 with the 16/4 and close the keypad location.

Am I right? 

[LollerAgent]

13 hours ago, Dabbi said:

Thanks. So, if I understand this right. I need

1. One 14/4 wire from keypad to ceiling which will be used to wire 2 speakers in ceiling (assuming it is not bi-wired)

2. One 16/4 wire from keypad to central location. 

3. At the keypad, I would splice the 14/4 with the 16/4 and close the keypad location.

Am I right? 

Correct.   You could obviously use 14/4 from keypads back to your amp(s), but 14/4 is generally overkill for for WHA zones consisting of a couple in-ceiling speakers.

Edited March 10, 2022 by LollerAgent

[Dabbi]

I have over 20 keypads (all through the house) with cat 6 from keypad to central location, that is a lot of wire fishing through the walls. Just thought I would check again,

1. is no way to use the cat 6 from keypad to central location?

2. Is it connecting to the controller, amplifier or matrix switch?

3. If I start with only whole house audio, it needs no keypads to control the audio. Correct?

Thanks for being so helpful.

[RAV]

5 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

I have over 20 keypads (all through the house) with cat 6 from keypad to central location, that is a lot of wire fishing through the walls. Just thought I would check again,

1. is no way to use the cat 6 from keypad to central location?

2. Is it connecting to the controller, amplifier or matrix switch?

3. If I start with only whole house audio, it needs no keypads to control the audio. Correct?

Thanks for being so helpful.

Yes, you could combine wires in the Cat6 and run for speaker.
Ideal, no.
Just be careful making your transitions, be consistant with your color combinations, and mindful that sold wire breaks easier.

[LollerAgent]

32 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

I have over 20 keypads (all through the house) with cat 6 from keypad to central location, that is a lot of wire fishing through the walls. Just thought I would check again,

1. is no way to use the cat 6 from keypad to central location?

2. Is it connecting to the controller, amplifier or matrix switch?

3. If I start with only whole house audio, it needs no keypads to control the audio. Correct?

Thanks for being so helpful.

Like @RAV said, if you had to, you could potentially combine two pairs in the CAT6 and try to use them as "speaker wire" back to your amp(s).  This isn't ideal though.

Home runs from your keypad/volume control locations would be connected to an amplifier.

No, if you use C4 native audio, you don't need keypads.  You can control the audio from your phones, remotes, etc.  You may eventually want to add some C4 keypads, but they aren't required.

[Control4Savant]

11 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

You guys are so knowledgeable. Thank you. What are the potential downsides to connecting CAT6 to 14/4 or 16/4? Audio quality issues? breakage?

If I pulled 16/4 wire from keypad to central location, I would have to join it to the 14/4 from keypad to speaker. Any issues there? Or should I just home run audio wire from speaker to central location.

 

In a HiFi environment there would be argument for home runs. Realistically for distributed audio, having junction points is really zero impact. I would NOT suggest using CAT for speakers. Copper is copper so nothing above is incorrect… but one of the most important factors in wire gage is distance… using a non stranded 24 gage wire is a poor/low power design for distribution. 

No likely issues going from 16/4 to 14/4 for a distribution zone.. how large are the speakers? How much power do they want? How far are the keypad to rack pulls? 

[Dabbi]

I have over 20 keypads (all through the house) with cat 6 from keypad to central location, that is a lot of wire fishing through the walls. Just thought I would check again,

1. is no way to use the cat 6 from keypad to central location?

2. Is it connecting to the controller, amplifier or matrix switch?

3. If I start with only whole house audio, it needs no keypads to control the audio. Correct?

Thanks for being so helpful.

 

@Control4Savant- Thanks for the detailed response. I plan to use polk 80i or Klipsch, both of which are 200W. 2 per room and upto 9 rooms. Kepad distance is about 40 feet.

My take away here is:

1. Run 16/4 wire from keypad to central location (don't use unstranded 24 AWG Cat 6 wire from keypad to central location)

2. Joining the 16/4 (keypad to central location) and 14/4 (speaker to keypad) is OK for distributed audio

Am I correct in reading your response?

[LollerAgent]

Yes.

[Dabbi]

If I had speakers in a bedroom and adjoining bathroom and they were in 1 zone, but I wanted a volume control in each so that I could down the volume in the bedroom if someone were sleeping while I was showering, can I add volume controls in bedroom and bathroom. I understand these will be manual.

[LollerAgent]

21 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

If I had speakers in a bedroom and adjoining bathroom and they were in 1 zone, but I wanted a volume control in each so that I could down the volume in the bedroom if someone were sleeping while I was showering, can I add volume controls in bedroom and bathroom. I understand these will be manual.

Is there a reason you can't homerun each back to a central location?  I would recommend making each an independent zone if possible.  Otherwise, yeah, you would need volume analog volume controls.  This would mean you would have double volume controls (one in the C4 app, one on the wall) which could lead to a sub-optimal experience.

[Dabbi]

Thanks. Looks like manual volume controls is not the preferred way for C4. You bring up an interesting questions about zoning:

1. If I have an open floor plan with a sunroom, kitchen and family room Would I put them all in 1 zone? Otherwise, I feel music from one would bleed into the other.

2. I have 4 bedrooms, study, living, dining, basement, 1 for sunroom, kitchen and family room. That is 9 zones. But let us say, play simultaneously only 4 zones at once. Is there any way to get away with a 4 zone matrix multiplier or would I be forced to get one with 9 zones.

Thanks

[LollerAgent]

55 minutes ago, Dabbi said:

Thanks. Looks like manual volume controls is not the preferred way for C4. You bring up an interesting questions about zoning:

1. If I have an open floor plan with a sunroom, kitchen and family room Would I put them all in 1 zone? Otherwise, I feel music from one would bleed into the other.

2. I have 4 bedrooms, study, living, dining, basement, 1 for sunroom, kitchen and family room. That is 9 zones. But let us say, play simultaneously only 4 zones at once. Is there any way to get away with a 4 zone matrix multiplier or would I be forced to get one with 9 zones.

Thanks

There are a few reasons to have independent zones:

1) You want to be able to play independent sources in each of the zones

2) You want to be able to control volume (via the C4 app/remotes/touchscreens/keypads/etc) in each room/zone independently

If you don't care about either of these, you're welcome to combine them all into one zone if your amplifier(s) can handle it.

If you have 9 zones, you need a matrix that supports 9 zones (has 9 ouputs).  If you can stick to 8, you can do it cheaper (since there is an 8 zone matrix, next step up is 16).

[Jakelay]

Since you were asking about lighting in your other thread, note that you can ‘replace’ the functionality that you currently have with the ‘analog’ volume control in each room by using a keypad dimmer or configurable keypad in rooms with audio.  That keypad can be set up with the bottom row of buttons controlling volume up/down and the rest of the buttons can be programmed for lighting, audio on/off, music selections, etc. A lot of new construction over the past decade+ use the Russound mechanical dials in the wall.  If you like that, consider the keypads to offer that ‘in-wall’ volume control. Note though, that you get so much more with the C4 keypads. And you can also have the system programmed for volume control from your remotes, phone (via the C4 App, touchscreens, etc).

Nothing above addresses wiring, just functionality to consider.

In areas that are open to each other, we have them set up as separate zones but when we play audio, all turn on to the same source. Video only turns on the zones in that area where we would typically watch TV (for example, kitche/kitchen table/morning room - video only turns on the sound in the main kitchen and kitchen table zones. Audio selection turns on the audio in all three zones and is in sync. We can also individually turn on/off or join the same source anywhere in those three zones or anywhere in the house but the primary selection we set up was to have all three zones start up when we select an audio source in those rooms).

Also, if they are pulling wire, it may be less expensive to bypass that analog switch altogether and just cap off the control since you likely won’t be using it anyway.  Especially on the second floor if you have attic access to the ceiling speakers. Disconnect the speaker wire to the analog switch entirely and just home run those speaker cables. On the first floor, you might save some headache going with the above suggestions only running to the analog switch area - basically using that as a junction box for the wiring that is going to be home run so you might avoid some fishing holes, etc.

Hope that helps

[mujtaba.khokhar]

On 3/9/2022 at 10:20 PM, Dabbi said:

Guys

I have in-ceiling speakers with 14/4 wire that comes to a volume control on a wall in the room. The Volume control has 2 cat 6 going to a central location. If I were going to do control and wanted to use the existing wiring, how would this work? Thanks in advance for your help

 

Pictures would help a lot in this case!

 

makes it easier to figure out what you have

[LollerAgent]

5 hours ago, Jakelay said:

Since you were asking about lighting in your other thread, note that you can ‘replace’ the functionality that you currently have with the ‘analog’ volume control in each room by using a keypad dimmer or configurable keypad in rooms with audio.  That keypad can be set up with the bottom row of buttons controlling volume up/down and the rest of the buttons can be programmed for lighting, audio on/off, music selections, etc. A lot of new construction over the past decade+ use the Russound mechanical dials in the wall.  If you like that, consider the keypads to offer that ‘in-wall’ volume control. Note though, that you get so much more with the C4 keypads. And you can also have the system programmed for volume control from your remotes, phone (via the C4 App, touchscreens, etc).

This assumes he has 110VAC available at the analog volume control which is necessary for C4 wireless keypad dimmers.  But yes, C4 keypads are great for audio control.

 

[Jakelay]

1 hour ago, LollerAgent said:

This assumes he has 110VAC available at the analog volume control which is necessary for C4 wireless keypad dimmers.  But yes, C4 keypads are great for audio control.

 

Yes, sorry, again I’m an end user not a dealer but what I meant was to bypass those analog controls entirely where applicable and use keypads at the light switches to control the volume. If there is applicable power to those analog volume controls then a configurable keypad could be used there but if not, cap that off and put a keypad in for one/some of the light switches in each room and use the bottom row of buttons for volume control. I made the assumption that when he mentioned the two CAT cables, they wouldn’t carry enough power for a configurable keypad to be installed there. 

Thanks for the clarification - definitely don’t want to confuse anyone!

[RAV]

8 hours ago, LollerAgent said:

This assumes he has 110VAC available at the analog volume control which is necessary for C4 wireless keypad dimmers.  But yes, C4 keypads are great for audio control.

 

He's got Cat6, so he could use Wireless Keypads (no load) and power them with a low voltage transformer over the cat.
If he wants some form of audio control there rather than just a blank plate.

[RAV]

22 hours ago, Dabbi said:

Thanks. Looks like manual volume controls is not the preferred way for C4. You bring up an interesting questions about zoning:

1. If I have an open floor plan with a sunroom, kitchen and family room Would I put them all in 1 zone? Otherwise, I feel music from one would bleed into the other.

2. I have 4 bedrooms, study, living, dining, basement, 1 for sunroom, kitchen and family room. That is 9 zones. But let us say, play simultaneously only 4 zones at once. Is there any way to get away with a 4 zone matrix multiplier or would I be forced to get one with 9 zones.

Thanks

Getting to 8 zones is going to save significant money.

I'd be more inclined to combine the kitchen and sunroom into a zone.