Whole house volume controls?

Jimmy,

I'd suggest a call to Niles tech support. I got right through when I called, and they were very helpful.

Russound offers the choice of either screw-down or "snap connect" -- you order a different SKU if you want the snap connect.

- Eric

Interesting. I have Cat5 and a single 16-ga. speaker wire running to each room, so I could choose either.

Are these little amps for each room actually decent quality? Can they drive bookshelf (as opposed to in-wall) speakers well?

I have an amp I can use centrally (Rotel bridged to mono, 300+ watts), so that option is cheaper for me, if it can work well. Has anyone used some sort of centralized impedance matching box that gets around the degradation tberhart is describing?

- Eric

Thanks for the advice guys! Based on this info, I'm looking at impedance-matching volume controls from Niles Audio, Russound, and Sylvania.

I like Niles and Sylvania because they have higher power-handling capability -- 100w RMS, 200W peak. Russound is 45/126. Does this difference matter when I have 6 speakers powered by 300watts, or 3 speakers powered by 125 watts?

I like Sylvania because it appears to have less bass roll-off -- they say they do 20hz-20khz +/- 1db, where Niles reports +/- 2db (Russound doesn't report this statistic).

So two questions:

1. Do I need to worry about getting the highest power rating I can?

2. Which of these three is likely to provide best sound?

Thanks,

Eric