New Construction - Looking for whole home sound/component closet

[diablokicks]

Happy New Year everyone,

My wife and I just signed to build a home this year, and me being somewhat of a techie, i'm trying to plan for the future and be smart about our technology implementation. When it comes to audio/visual I honestly don't know much, which is why I'm hoping to get some assistance. Our basement is not going to be finished yet, so that will be a blank slate.

What I'm after:
I would like to have whole home audio with 4 Zones (Outside, Main room/kitchen, Master Bed, and Master bath). I've attached pictures of both floors in the next post. The red circles are estimated speaker locations, and the square is where the TV will be. We would like to have the main room/kitchen double as the surround sound for the TV also. I would love it if we could control the system from our phone, especially if it allowed us to select zones to play, and volume.

I'm not necessarily looking for information about the speakers (although if you have affordable suggestions i'd love to hear them) as I am about the components required to run the system. Where we are building a home I don't have a ton of cash to put towards the system, but if you have some affordable yet decent systems I'd love to hear them.

My goal is also to have the TV components stored probably somewhere in the basement, maybe the utility room. This is also foreign to me, if I ran an HDMI from the TV to the utility room, and maybe an optical audio cable would i be fine?

If I'm missing anything, or if you think I should incorporate something else, please let me know! Thank you in advance for the help.


Patrick

 

[diablokicks]

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

A four-zone system with i-pad control is a pretty sophisticated system. Your best bet for DIY is to contact a specialty company like Home Theater Direct.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[ImcLoud]

When it comes to what you are installing in your HOME on a new build, I would stay away from anything that is current device dependent. In other words, who knows what we will be using in 5 years or next year to control our music, lol..

For whole house audio, I like a simple 2 channel amp, and a selector box with separate volume controls..

So its really simple, you get a 4ohm stable 2 channel amp http://www.amazon.com/Dayton-Audio-APA150-150-Watts-Amplifier/dp/B000VKXLBO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1452484765&sr=8-3&keywords=dayton+amplifier from $140 to the moon for budget...

then you get a selector box http://www.amazon.com/Pyle-PSS6-6-Channel-Speaker-Selector/dp/B000NJDO5G/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1452484831&sr=8-8&keywords=speaker+selector+box

then a volume control for each room http://www.amazon.com/AudioSource-AE100VC-Impedance-Matching-Control/dp/B003H3C94W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452484936&sr=8-2&keywords=volume+control+wall

speakers (I like yamaha for decent sound and affordable), cable (mono price).

NOW for a source you get an AVR that can handle zone 2, most decent units, and if you want to control it with your ipad get an avr that does that...


You will have a future proof system, when your avr is our of date, thats all you have to change..


NOW I listed the cheaper stuff, the sky is the limit, my brother is using a tcc selector that allows you to put 2 amps to it, so he is using a pair of emotiva xpa 5 (4 channels and then 1 channel for his rec room built in sub woofer..) He has a volume control knob in each room...

So the issue with this type of system is 1 source, my brother has 1 inside and one outside with an avr that is 3 zone supporting. BUT what I have noticed is, we use 1 source at a time, I have a large house (4500 sq ft) and we use one source, when my wife is cleaning and has the tv on she walks around with the zones playing what the tv is saying, or music. When the kids just want some music outside, its normally what ever they put on, and its on inside too, if you dont want to hear music inside, then you just turn the volume knob off for that zone...

Simple and cost effective, as well as easy to install program etc... I have 8 zones, 1 source. 16 speakers running off of a 200w amp, and they are loud...

I wouldnt go crazy with it, I would just put a 2.2 system in every room, lol...