Multi-room, Multi-zonal setup

[Quiggerz]

Hey all,

Hoping someone may have answers/tips for the setup I'm planning.

The aim

Me and the girlfriend are moving into our first home. My area (for PC, monitors, instruments etc) will be in the shed. I'm aiming for most - if not all - rooms to be speakered up. Ideally I'd like there to be at least 2 'zones' outputting different sources.

My ideas so far

I plan to wire up the house and put ceiling speakers in almost every room (Floorspeakers in the living room, the shed will have active monitors in them controlled via an audio interface). I'm planning on using KEF's ci series, and having individual volume controls in each room. As for audio sources I'm aiming to use the Onkyo txnr656 as my receiver and then a combination of my PC (via network), smartphones (google cast) and TV as the sources. All the features and the Zone 2 ability of the Onkyo sound promising, but I'm struggling to work out how/if I can get the sources to the correct 'zones' (rooms).

Will I need a speaker switch selector? Has anyone setup multi-room audio with the TXNR656 or similar?



Thanks for your patience with a Newb

 

[everettT]

Your thought of using the onkyo will on work if you use analog inputs for zone 2 . Denon makes a few models that allow digital sources for multizone.

How many rooms? how many speakers in each?

 

[Quiggerz]

Thanks Everett, I'll look into the Denon system.

The plan is for 4 rooms, 2 speakers in each:

Living room (where the receiver would live)
Spare bedroom/studio
Bathroom
Kitchen

I've looked into some multi-room systems (e.g. Russound’s CA4) but the price (£1000+) is too high, considering there's then the addition of the amp, speakers and cabling

I'm now thinking I might need to give up the individual room zone idea and just have a signal source broadcast across all speakers. Using the Onkyo receiver's zone 2 output I could then use a splitter (example) to select all/some speakers, reserving zone 1 for the living room TV. That's presuming the receiver can output two independent sources at once...

 

[Alexandre]

This is a bit of a departure from your original idea and isn't necessarily the majority opinion on these forums but personally, the way I am dealing with multi-zone / multi-room is getting airplay enabled speakers and broadcasting either from iTunes (it can be from any number of iTunes sources) or, more recently, using Roon. Roon can output to wired sources as well as airplay and their own network based audio streaming but that's not very commonly implemented in speakers/amps.

Sticking to the Apple eco-system (because that's what I know but I'm sure there are android/other equivalents), you could go with passive speakers in the rooms with an airplay device (airport express or apple tv) and a small amp close to each of those speakers. Or you could go with powered speakers and an airplay capable dac/airport/appletv.

My 2c,
Alex.

PS: a few folks made some small amp/dac recommendations in this thread if you want to explore that crazy idea further: http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/2-1-system-without-a-receiver-just-the-tv-–-is-that-possible.105023/
PPS: here is the roon labs article on supported devices: https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_What_audio_outputs_or_devices_are_supported_by_Roon?

 

[everettT]

Ok the order of consideration is
Do you want zone dependent sources
If so full dependent for each zone or maybe 2 sources only
Is surround sound a consideration in the main room
Consideration of sources
Volume control

The cheapest route would be analog sources, high power amplifier, high power speaker selector with or without built in volume control, dual zone preamp.

Many ways to go do coming up with a realistic budget, and deciding the above will get you started off.

Thanks Everett, I'll look into the Denon system.

The plan is for 4 rooms, 2 speakers in each:

Living room (where the receiver would live)
Spare bedroom/studio
Bathroom
Kitchen

I've looked into some multi-room systems (e.g. Russound’s CA4) but the price (£1000+) is too high, considering there's then the addition of the amp, speakers and cabling

I'm now thinking I might need to give up the individual room zone idea and just have a signal source broadcast across all speakers. Using the Onkyo receiver's zone 2 output I could then use a splitter (example) to select all/some speakers, reserving zone 1 for the living room TV. That's presuming the receiver can output two independent sources at once...