Advice for a receiver for my speakers?

[rukna]

I have these pure accoustics in-ceiling speakers installed in the bedroom and in living/dining of my condo. The 2 bedrooms have 2 speakers each, the MBR has 6 speakers and LR/DR has 4 speakers. The conduiting is done such that each room has it's individual set of speaker wires terminating at the entertainment console / TV wall.

Now my question is that which is the best (read: economical and feature-rich) receiver/amp I could buy to put in each of the rooms such that it is able to support the power on the speakers in each room. Ideally, I would also like bluetooth built-in so I could stream music directly from my phone and if I could use a "broadcast" or multi-room mode so I could have the same music playing in multiple locations. Is that possible or am I asking for too much?

 

[Latent]

From this i take it that the speaker terminals are in each room? Classic multiroom you have just one point in the house for all your termination but doing it your way is now quite a viable option. You can still get many of the multi room simultaneous music options even though each room is its own island which used to be very hard.

I would recommend looking into yamaha musiccast as it does multiroom like this really well and has bluetooth but also does other streaming options from your phone which are much better quality and convenience.
http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/avreceiver/home-audio/receivers-amps/home-theater-receivers/1.html?home_audio_key[]=Yamaha MusicCast

There is a list of some units that can do it. For a single small room the 479 model will do it and there is a s601 that is smaller if space is an issue. Also the 679 and above can power two rooms with the single unit which could save you a bit.

If you want tv/video in some of the rooms as well then I would consider the option of getting a higher end unit like the 2050 or similar for one room and connecting your cable/bluray/media players to this unit. Then connect the hdmi zone2 output to a hdmi switch to split it into say 2-4 outputs and then run long hdmi cables or hdmi over cat5/6 extenders (for over 40 feet distances) to the avr inputs in the other rooms. You then control the zone2 output on the to select a source device and can view it in the other rooms. Not a perfect solution from a remote control point of view as it can get a bit complex controlling master avr and sources in lounge and the local avr and tv in bedroom with separate remote setups. Main room can watch one video source and other rooms can watch the same or different source. But other rooms can't view two different sources as they share the same zone2 output. But for audio only sources and music the music cast feature allows any room watch any source or combine rooms for a party etc.

Musiccast can connect to your house wifi network but it works a better with wired network connected to as many units as possible to reduce latency and dropen out issues.

 

[Latent]

Also forgot to mention that the second generation of musiccast units with rx-vx81 and rx-axx60 model numbers are just being released to consider.

 

[rukna]

Thanks a lot for your input @Latent. Yes, terminals are in each room. I specially like your advise on having zone 2 of a receiver switched to multiple room output. Unfortunately all wiring has been done so running new HDMIs is not an option but I did run Cat 6s all around the condo and each TV terminal has a CAT6 wire coming in from the "server rack"; I just have to understand how to run HDMI over CAT6 per your advise.

Also thanks for suggesting the Yamahas. Are there any other economical options?

 

[Latent]

Just type 'hdmi extender' into any online shopping/auction site. Cheap units use two cat5/6 cables for shorter runs but the better units use just one cable and the length they do varies by model and price. Also some may do hdmi 2.0 and hdcp 2.2 which have just come out for 4k/HDR content and some units only do older hdmi 1.4 spec only. Newer source devices and tv's may need the newer standard.

Only way you are going to get cheaper than musiccast is to go down the second hand route. You can get some great deals on older receivers if you hunt around auction sites. You have two options. First is to look for units that have decent modern hdmi switching built in. Models released in the last 6 years should be fine if you don't want 4k/hdr video. You lose the advantages of musiccast but you can replace this with something like chromecast audio connected to each unit. This gives you smartphone controlled multiroom music.

The other even cheaper option is to find the cheapest older non hdmi or early hdmi units. Make sure they have 2 optical digital inputs which most do. Then for each unit get a chromecast audio and a 3.5mm to toslink optical cable to hook it up digitally to the old AVR. We won't be using any video features of the unit though and it just does audio. If you have a TV in the room then connect hdmi in from hdmi cat6 extender into tv directly. Then get a optical toslink cable and connect from tv audio output port to another digital input on old AVR. You now set tv to internal speakers off mode and Bitstream output mode.

To make control of your tv and avr easier I would try and find the cheapest new or second hand logitech harmony remotes. Because each room may have a mixture of brand so tv's and AVR's anyone else is going to be confused by which remote to use and which one controls the volume. A simple harmony remote with say three task buttons for chromecast audio, zone 2 hdmi, and TV.

Then if you do want to do zone 2 distributed video then you need a location with a newer higher end AVR and your source devices and use a new logitech harmony hub based unit that allows you to use your smart phone to control this AVR and the sources over wifi from any room. Run hdmi cable from hdmi zone 2 output to your central network location where you place a 1 in 4 out hdmi splitter and up to 4 hdmi over cat6 extenders.

 

[rukna]

You're awesome @Latent - all great suggestions! Members like yourself is what makes these forums a success!

I've been looking at a few HDMI BASET extenders that use single CAT5/6 wires. There also appears to be an HDMI 4x1 (or +) MATRIX available from which I can automatically switch the source to 4 simultaneous HDMI outs. That way, I wouldn't have to put extra money into multi zone receivers. I'm am also looking for second hand Musiccast receivers so I can bring my initial cost down.

Quick question: I went a little overboard and put a couple of these speakers in the kitchen area too. What receiver would you suggest I use there? I don't care if they do multi-room, I just want the form-factor to be extremely small so it doesn't take too much space.

 

[rukna]

So, after a lot of reading, I'm getting more and more confused This is the setup I'm thinking of going with:

1. Yamaha RX-550A in each bedroom to run as a 2.1

2. Yamaha RX-850A in LR/DR and MBR to run as a 7.2

3. Pyle PDA5BU to power the 2 speakers in kitchen and hallway.

In this setup, I have all AVRs and power amp with bluetooth and wifi built-in so I can easily stream the content from my phone to any of the rooms.

Any thoughts or further pointers would be appreciated

 

[Latent]

Before choosing these MusicCast yamaha units I would make sure you are comfortable with the uses and limitations of MusicCast.

https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/seeking-system-ideas-for-multi-zone-audio-1-video-zone-older-home.97509/

There is a thread with some useful info from a previous discussion. Also look for a local dealer that sells Yamaha AVR's and go in and ask for a quick demo of how MusicCast works. There are also some youtube videos you can watch that give you some idea but be wary of marketing hype in the yamaha released ones.

One thing to note is that bluetooth is the old way to cast music to speaker systems and has many limitations. It drains the battery of the phone streaming the sound and has range issues and drop outs if you move around to much. Can also be fiddly to pair and switch between multiple speakers. solutions like MusicCast and ChromeCast Audio have some advantages over bluetooth.

Also the RX-A850 has some limitations when running multizone. It can only power 5.1 speakers in the main room if you use it to power zone 2 speakers. Can add a stereo amp for the second room to keep 7.1 in the main room though. Also it won't pass HDMI or digital audio out of zone2 as it only passes analog, radio, bluetooth, USB or network sources to zone2. I'm not sure how well the zone2 works with MusicCast as I have never used one of these units to try it out myself.

Another note is that you can join an external bluetooth sound device (like the Pyle amp you mentioned) to MusicCast as an output device but their may be some fiddly setup for this and there is audio delay issues. Also extra bluetooth output speakers added to MusicCast do not magically give you extra 'Rooms' to feed audio to as they are somehow tied to the main room you are casting from. So they work more like extra or alternative speakers for an existing room setup.