# The Drunken Parrot Tiki Lounge



## hddummy (Mar 9, 2007)

Almost a year ago, an old boss of mine asked me to help him by designing and installing a total A/V system in his basement. When we started, the basement was completely unfinished, so I had a blank canvas to work with. He wanted a full featured multi-zone video and audio system. This is easily the most complex system I've done (which probably isn't saying much). I learned A LOT and had a lot of fun at the same time.

They system consists of six zones (main room, bar 1, bar 2, gym, living room (upstairs) and patio). The main zone has a 50" plasma, Yamaha HTR-6160, wired for 7.1 but currently running a 5.1 Bose system he already had, has auxiliary inputs for PS3 or camcorder, a 12" Dayton Ref/300W Bash custom subwoofer. Zones 2, 3 and 4 all have 26" LCDs and in-ceiling speakers powered by AudioSource Amp100s. The patio has 4 speakers also powered by an Amp100. The living room upstairs has a 42" plasma and an older dolby pro logic AVR.

All of the video sources (Comcast DVR, standard DVD player, Auxiliary input connections) feed a 3 in/5 out Impact Acoustics Component video matix. I made custom RG59 video cable for all zones. The longest run is about 35ft. The Yamaha controls the main zone and also outputs "zone 2" audio to the rest of the zones in the system. In other words, you can play the ipod over all of the ceiling speakers in all of the zones for a whole system distributed audio. I also ran an audio feedback cables from each zone TV back to the AMP100 that controls the respective zone speakers. This way, you can choose to play whatever is on the TV over the in ceiling speakers individually for each zone. Everything is controlled with an IR repeater system from each zone.

I'm sure this all makes sense to me because I built it, but I did a clear as mud job of explaining it. Feel free to ask questions. There were still some finishing touches that need to be completed when I took these pictures. He still needs a main TV stand and we are still working some gremlins out of the IR repeater system. I think we had a bad batch of IR targets.

Main Zone:

















Equipment Closet (top to bottom: Video Matrix, AVR, DVD, CD, Cable, four AMP100s) and Zone 4 TV:









View into Bar and zone 2 TV:









Other side of Bar and zone 3 TV:









Back side of equipment closet:


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

Looking good. That's not an insignificant type of system to tackle.

Bryan


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Looks great. Good idea with the rear access panel. For a second there, I was wondering how you ferretted yourself behind the gear to wire it up 

Depending on the predominant airflow direction, you may want to get some raw filter screen material and put it behind the louvers. That should help keep dust out a little bit, since out-of-sight usually is the last place we clean.

Great job


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## hddummy (Mar 9, 2007)

Cross reference to previous thread on Line Level Pre-Amps for the audio return from each zone to the associated Amp100

http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...ion/13428-need-line-level-booster-preamp.html


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