A whole home stereo system allows you to listen to music throughout your home. You can have a simple system which consists of speakers in another room from your main stereo to a system which has… speakers in virtually all areas of your home including the garage and back porch.

How does whole home stereo work?

A whole home stereo works by taking the audio source you are playing in the main room where the stereo equipment is located and piping it to the other rooms in the home. The common way of connecting speakers in other rooms is throughout your home using speaker wiring. Other systems are wireless but with these systems you can sometimes experience problems due to wireless interference because other electronics in your home are also wireless and many share the same frequency. Oddly as well, the solar can periodically cause wireless interruptions from solar flares etc.

What are the different types of whole home stereo?

The easiest system to install is a wireless speaker. In this application you would connect a wireless transmitter to your stereo and then you would have a wireless speaker or speaker pair that you could move about from room to room as you wish. Typically these systems will run off batteries however they tend to drain quickly so it’s best to plug the speaker into an electrical receptacle for power.

The other common type of whole home audio system is hardwired. The ways these systems can be wired vary depending on the control the end user wants within each room. The simplest way is to wire the speakers directly back to the stereo. Extra control of volume can be achieved by installing a separate volume control knob between the stereo and the speakers in another part of the home. In this scenario however because you are impacting resistance you’d need to make sure all the devices in the setup support this design.

The most complex type of whole home stereo is a multi-zone control system. These systems are usually for installations of 4 or more rooms away from the main stereo locations. A multi zone control system allows the user in a given room to have complete functional control of the entire system or just the zone their occupying. Often these systems allow multiple audio sources to be played simultaneous with only one source naturally being enjoyed in a given room

Summary

A whole home stereo allows the user to listen to music a several rooms of a home. Whole home stereos can be from wireless equipment or hardwired equipment. Although wireless equipment is the easiest to install speaker drain batteries quickly or need a permanent plug in electrical receptacle and often suffer from wireless interference. Hardwire systems are more difficult to install but are more reliable.