A-Bus Audio
- Thread starter nicknorth
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hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
Re: A-Bus Audio
Don't know if you are going to find anybody here who would give you opinions on it. You are getting into the area of whole house sound and home theater work which is a specialized trade. If you are going to be good at it it's a full time job by itself.
-Hal
Don't know if you are going to find anybody here who would give you opinions on it. You are getting into the area of whole house sound and home theater work which is a specialized trade. If you are going to be good at it it's a full time job by itself.
-Hal
petersonra
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern illinois
- Occupation
- engineer
Re: A-Bus Audio
Another thing to keep in mind about high end audio is that while very few (if any) people can tell the difference in sound quality between a good, but relatively inexpensive product, there are some who claim they can.
These are usually people with more money than brains, so if you get into this area, expect to go along with most of what they want to do without smirking about the money they are pissing away for not good reason. Think of it as a way to help pay for your kid's college education.
Another thing to keep in mind about high end audio is that while very few (if any) people can tell the difference in sound quality between a good, but relatively inexpensive product, there are some who claim they can.
These are usually people with more money than brains, so if you get into this area, expect to go along with most of what they want to do without smirking about the money they are pissing away for not good reason. Think of it as a way to help pay for your kid's college education.
luke warmwater
Senior Member
Re: A-Bus Audio
We install the P$S system. But the audio is usually run as a stand-alone system.
P$S supposedly bought On-Q, who also has an A-Bus system.
One drawback of A-Bus is long to extra long speaker wire runs.
I definately can tell if something sounds 'good' to me. Now that doesn't mean that I can tell if it is a low cost or high cost item.
We install the P$S system. But the audio is usually run as a stand-alone system.
P$S supposedly bought On-Q, who also has an A-Bus system.
One drawback of A-Bus is long to extra long speaker wire runs.
I definately can tell if something sounds 'good' to me. Now that doesn't mean that I can tell if it is a low cost or high cost item.
petersonra
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern illinois
- Occupation
- engineer
Re: A-Bus Audio
I read an interesting story the other day. Seems ABC decided to do a coffee taste test. They tested expensive "high-end" coffee like starbucks against generic coffee like Folgers and the cheap stuff you can get at Sam's.
Well, Starbucks came in first and Sam's cheap coffee came in a close second. Interestingly, the number one coffee brand - Folgers - placed dead last. the most expensive brand was next to last.
http://www.theunionleader.com/business_showa.html?article=54378
Few if any people can tell the difference between a good quality sound system that is relatively inexpensive and the very expensive "high-end" units.
I read an interesting story the other day. Seems ABC decided to do a coffee taste test. They tested expensive "high-end" coffee like starbucks against generic coffee like Folgers and the cheap stuff you can get at Sam's.
Well, Starbucks came in first and Sam's cheap coffee came in a close second. Interestingly, the number one coffee brand - Folgers - placed dead last. the most expensive brand was next to last.
http://www.theunionleader.com/business_showa.html?article=54378
hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
Re: A-Bus Audio
We install the P$S system. But the audio is usually run as a stand-alone system.
Right, and that's the way to do it. Not sure if that would be A-Bus though since with it all audio, power and control is run on CAT5 (GASP!). The speakers and volume control (which contains the amps- GASP! again) are daisy chained back to a distribution panel so speaker runs wouldn't usually be long.
Not sure what sound quality and power you could expect from this setup, but as Peterson says the more people pay for it the better it sounds to them. About all this could offer is maximum flexibility and it does make it easy for just about anybody to install it.
-Hal
We install the P$S system. But the audio is usually run as a stand-alone system.
Right, and that's the way to do it. Not sure if that would be A-Bus though since with it all audio, power and control is run on CAT5 (GASP!). The speakers and volume control (which contains the amps- GASP! again) are daisy chained back to a distribution panel so speaker runs wouldn't usually be long.
Not sure what sound quality and power you could expect from this setup, but as Peterson says the more people pay for it the better it sounds to them. About all this could offer is maximum flexibility and it does make it easy for just about anybody to install it.
-Hal
luke warmwater
Senior Member
Re: A-Bus Audio
It can take extra long runs.
With the P$S system, you are supposed to run from the receiver to the distribution board, where there is a card for slitting off to different rooms. From the card, ou run to each volume control and then to the speakers.
It can take extra long runs.
hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
Re: A-Bus Audio
Right, that's the classic A- Bus system as I outlined above.
I still can't see how runs would necessarily be any longer than with any other type of system. I even think there is an advantage here because the actual low impedance speaker runs are from the volume control with its built-in amplifiers to the speakers.
From the volume control back to the distribution point is CAT5 and length shouldn't be that critical. If they are using that stuff they should have accounted for some pretty good runs by designing for voltage drop. That should be easy to do since all they have to contend with is the power to the amps in the volume control and I can't believe it's much. Unlike power, the audio and control signals on the same cable should present little problem with reasonable cable lengths.
-Hal
Right, that's the classic A- Bus system as I outlined above.
I still can't see how runs would necessarily be any longer than with any other type of system. I even think there is an advantage here because the actual low impedance speaker runs are from the volume control with its built-in amplifiers to the speakers.
From the volume control back to the distribution point is CAT5 and length shouldn't be that critical. If they are using that stuff they should have accounted for some pretty good runs by designing for voltage drop. That should be easy to do since all they have to contend with is the power to the amps in the volume control and I can't believe it's much. Unlike power, the audio and control signals on the same cable should present little problem with reasonable cable lengths.
-Hal
luke warmwater
Senior Member
Re: A-Bus Audio
Hal,
yeah, that's the new P&S system. The old system was to run your speaker wires back to the card and the volume wires back to the card. I said that wrong earlier.
And as I am not up to date with my P&S classes, they have now added a module for internet viewing of the cameras installed on the system.
I'm glad that you've got me looking into this as I have another one comming up, and I'd rather not use 3rd party stuff if I don't have to.
But, am I mis-understanding you and Bob? Are you saying that you think most people can't tell if something sounds good or bad, or that most people can't tell high quality from low quality, or high price vs. low price?
As I said before, I can tell if something sounds 'good' or 'bad'. But that doesn't mean that the better sound didn't come from less expensive equipment.
Can you not tell if there is distortion in the low end? Or cracking in the high end?
Hal,
yeah, that's the new P&S system. The old system was to run your speaker wires back to the card and the volume wires back to the card. I said that wrong earlier.
And as I am not up to date with my P&S classes, they have now added a module for internet viewing of the cameras installed on the system.
I'm glad that you've got me looking into this as I have another one comming up, and I'd rather not use 3rd party stuff if I don't have to.
But, am I mis-understanding you and Bob? Are you saying that you think most people can't tell if something sounds good or bad, or that most people can't tell high quality from low quality, or high price vs. low price?
As I said before, I can tell if something sounds 'good' or 'bad'. But that doesn't mean that the better sound didn't come from less expensive equipment.
Can you not tell if there is distortion in the low end? Or cracking in the high end?
petersonra
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern illinois
- Occupation
- engineer
Re: A-Bus Audio
The sould quality difference between the very expensive stuff and the good (but far less expensive) stuff is just not discernable to most people (and that is assuming there actually is a difference).
This is like the argument put forth years ago (and to some extent today) that tube based amplifiers produce a better sound than solid state amplifiers.
My personal opinion is that it is mostly a snob appeal kind of thing. If you run across a guy like this, let him spend as much money as he wants on your children's education.
he can than brag about it to all his buddies who on listening to it will wonder what the big deal is.
What I said was "Few if any people can tell the difference between a good quality sound system that is relatively inexpensive and the very expensive "high-end" units.".
The sould quality difference between the very expensive stuff and the good (but far less expensive) stuff is just not discernable to most people (and that is assuming there actually is a difference).
This is like the argument put forth years ago (and to some extent today) that tube based amplifiers produce a better sound than solid state amplifiers.
My personal opinion is that it is mostly a snob appeal kind of thing. If you run across a guy like this, let him spend as much money as he wants on your children's education.
he can than brag about it to all his buddies who on listening to it will wonder what the big deal is.- Status