I know this is a bit of an old thread, but can't chumperdink do the whole multi-zone thing using a Musiccast receiver as long as he combines this with a lot of wireless musiccast speakers (WX-030 or WX-010) in each room? The speakers are a bit pricey though compared to standard wired speakers. With the Yamaha system you can have up to 10 zones I think and I believe it's limited to stereo not multi-channel for the remote zones. I just bought one of their receivers and have 2 zones setup but my second zone is wired as I haven't bought any of the wireless speakers yet. The Musiccast app is really terrific BTW.
I think this is a more modern way than doing the old multi channel amp wired system with remote receivers and in-wall panels in each room.
...Roger
Sonos, and the new clones of Sonos, are certainly a viable option. The problem, and I think it is a real problem, is that you still have speakers to contend with in every room. Do you put your speakers on a shelf? Hang them on a wall? Do you get in-wall or in-ceiling speakers, then run wires to them through the wall?
What if you have range/wi-fi/networking issues?
What if the company EVER goes out of business?
That last one isn't a joke as one of the major 'jukebox' companies of the early 2000's, Escient, recently went bankrupt and shut down the CDDB which their players used to look up CD metadata. Rendering thousands of media players obsolete in one moment. Imagine if Sonos goes out of business, and there are no firmware updates and your collection is limited to what continues to work, if it works? As iOS devices update and Android devices update, and all the music services update, the Sonos would eventually completely die.
Hard wiring a home and using keypads that require no firmware updates ever, and using traditional amplifiers, and preamps, are a long term solution. You can pick from thousands of different sources to put into your system, including the newest Sonos or Musicast systems, or your record player or reel-to-reel deck. This isn't a short term solution, and requires a thought process. But, I recently added a Sonos to an existing system and it took about 2 minutes to do. It was great, incredibly easy.
Going from scratch, I still want surround sound and an A/V receiver, and if the functionality of Sonos isn't built into the receiver I buy, then I have to get additional hardware to make it work, and those speakers all are wired to the A/V receiver, etc.
There's advantages and disadvantages to both options. Wiring and wireless solutions. I'm not against wireless if the goal is just music, in just a few locations, and people have a good way to deal with the in-room wiring and speakers. Throw a Play-1 into a kid's room and let them enjoy all it has to offer! Great! But, wiring in a dozen Connect-Amp units ($500 each) and then putting speakers in the walls, and running the wiring... Well, maybe a home-run system with centralized control may have been the better option at that point.
