Speaker Wire Technology

vining

FYI, for those who haven't read up on the product line. I first became aware of this feature I think reading an article in CE Pro magazine which coincidentally was a day or two before a client meeting whose house was wired with just volume controls.

Any way the Matrix Audio system allows tradtional style keypads and a almost DMS like style keypad to communicate over 4 conductor speaker wire while driving the speakers on the same conductors. So if you want to upgrade standard volume controls to keypads w/o snaking in wires and the budget doesn't allow wi-fi touch panels in every room this is a great option. I beleive in new construction you can run a dedicated CAT-5 for control if you want.

I haven't tried this yet but the deal is just about done and in a few month I should see first hand how well this works as well as Matrix Audio in general.

Daedalus

Indeed all of the Matrix keypads can be wired using either 16/4 wire with the speakers wired to the keypad (like volume control wiring).

Or with the keypads connected with a Cat-5e (or any 2 conductor cable) with the speakers homerun to the rack location.

GSLogic

The ONLY drawback to the Matrix line is, you don't receive data from the keypad presses, you have to poll for the info. AMX did say they were going to be updating this feature soon... PLEASE, let us know when it is real.

vining

I vote for keeping the personal, the manufacturing facilities but completely redesigning the entire line and making them an AMX intelligent product. They're kind of cool but once branded by AMX you expect high quality integratable devices which the Matrix is not IMHO at least not yet.

They do have a lot of potential and I'm sure they're working their a$$'s off as I speak to that end. We can only wait and see.