Multi zone home audio - 8 zones

[Lorne Singer]

Hi All,

Hope to try and find a solution for my situation. Current have 80w speakers throughout my home in diffferent rooms and outside. Looking to be able to hooks up the speakers a certain way so that I can control each room from my phone and stream music.

Would prefer to be able to control each room separately. Would need total of 8 zones and 16 channels. Not sure if I should be looking for a receiver, or amp and receiver.

Can anyone suggest the best and most cost effective way to do this? I don't need anything crazy high end. Again, mainly just want to stream from my phone/ipad

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi All,

Hope to try and find a solution for my situation. Current have 80w speakers throughout my home in diffferent rooms and outside. Looking to be able to hooks up the speakers a certain way so that I can control each room from my phone and stream music.

Would prefer to be able to control each room separately. Would need total of 8 zones and 16 channels. Not sure if I should be looking for a receiver, or amp and receiver.

Can anyone suggest the best and most cost effective way to do this? I don't need anything crazy high end. Again, mainly just want to stream from my phone/ipad

Multi room systems like that are just a hassle. I know of no way to do elegantly what you want.

Normally you would have a receiver with pre outs driving a 16 channel distribution amp and an impedance matching volume control in each room. All rooms would play the same program and your iPhone would only stream in proximity to the central receiver.

If you want every room to stream from your phone, then you will need a receiver with an HDMI input in every room and a ChromeCast device plugged into one of the HDMI inputs.

What ever you do it is going to be very expensive. These sort of whole house hard wired systems are pretty much always a mess. They are also a negative selling issue and NOT a home enhancement.

Most people doing what you want are using wireless systems like the Sonos system.

Your speaker system is definitely yesterdays system.

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

For what you’re talking about, fully independent control in every room, there is no “most cost effective way.” That’s a very complicated and expensive system that will require a professional company to design and implement. Don’t know anything about the Sonos system, but if TLS recommended it, it’s worth looking into.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[everettT]

Niles Audio, control4 , crestron, sonus, and URC all have products that meet the OPs requirements. All will require an certified installer and be pricey. The programing can cost as much as the equipment FWIW

 

[TLS Guy]

Niles Audio, control4 , crestron, sonus, and URC all have products that meet the OPs requirements. All will require an certified installer and be pricey. The programing can cost as much as the equipment FWIW

As far as I can tell only the Sonus would do what he wants, but not use his existing speaker system

The others are much more commercially orientated. The URC have a home system but it is part of total home control.

From what I have read only Sonus customers seem moderately happy. The issue seems to fall down with the compilers and there programming.

Unfortunately the OP has no clue as to the complexity and therefore the expense of what he is asking for.

Then you get into the range of the home router and that whole mess, which I have not even gone into.

These type of systems seem to attract people at first, so they start half baked, rapidly get out of their depth and realize what they want and tried to do is not practical.

I say what people really should do is decide which rooms it really is essential to have entertainment and then put a discrete independent system in those locations. Having audio everywhere is a ghastly prospect and worse than having silent spaces, which should be most.