Seeking system ideas for multi-zone audio + 1 video zone, older home

[Jimmy Bond]

Yes I have purchased the in-ceilings, while they are past the return window, given that the vendor is Visions, a retailer who happens to sell a bunch of amps etc., I'm sure that I could probably get them returned for store credit if I am buying a (more expensive!) Yamaha receiver or two at the same time. I should have just returned them before to allow more time for the return window but decided that the 'deal' (200/pair vs $350 reg) was worth it.

On DVC - I see there are two 'discount' models of this -HTD and Monoprice both offer speakers for $50-65 that are the DVC type. However, if I did that, if I understand correctly I only buy ONE speaker for each room where I thought I would need two? So for instance instead of two speakers in ceiling in kitchen I would have ONE? From a cursory glance, it looks like due to the stereo-in-one nature of these DVCs, they have two sets of speaker wire running to them, so if I am still doing two per room I would be left figuring out how to power all these since double the connections.

OR...I just keep the ones I have and wire them, as I'm sure 99% of people who have in-ceilings have conventional speakers with L/R.

This is great feedback BTW, thanks again. If nothing else, gives something to think about for my setup and provides a web archive for some future person (like BrianBurke etc) who are looking to do multi zone as well.

 

[XEagleDriver]

. . .
On DVC - I see there are two 'discount' models of this -HTD and Monoprice both offer speakers for $50-65 that are the DVC type. However, if I did that, if I understand correctly I only buy ONE speaker for each room where I thought I would need two? So for instance instead of two speakers in ceiling in kitchen I would have ONE? From a cursory glance, it looks like due to the stereo-in-one nature of these DVCs, they have two sets of speaker wire running to them, so if I am still doing two per room I would be left figuring out how to power all these since double the connections.
OR...I just keep the ones I have and wire them, as I'm sure 99% of people who have in-ceilings have conventional speakers with L/R.
This is great feedback BTW, thanks again. If nothing else, gives something to think about for my setup and provides a web archive for some future person (like BrianBurke etc) who are looking to do multi zone as well.

JB,
You are correct, in your Kitchen (250 sq ft), Dining (204 sq ft) and Office (133 sq ft) one centrally located speaker would do the trick and avoid the increased cost of double amplification and wiring. Even though the Kitchen is a bit larger, the counters and appliances limit the areas where people would actually be standing/sitting so it should work well with one speaker.

IMHO the Workout area (~450 sq ft) looks too large for just one speaker and would probably need two DVCs with the accompanying requirement for two L/R pairs of amplificaiton and double wiring.
- You probably also want more volume in the workout area to be able to hear your favorite motivational sound track above the grunts and clanks while Hans and Franz "pump you up"!
Cheers,
XEagleDriver

 

[Latent]

One thing I just noticed about my earlier suggestion to use 5/7/9 channel stereo sound mode to allow a yamaha AVR to output 4 speakers in the primary zone instead of just 2 stereo speaks is there is an extra setting adjustment you have to make. By default 100% audio comes out FL and FR speakers but there is an extra option menu you need to go into and set the other speakers levels. The defaults are like 35% on most of the other channels so you may have to adjust these up to 100% so that all 4 (or more) speakers output the same volume.

 

[Jimmy Bond]

found more info on down sampling additional zones in Musiccast. According to this article, 3 devices are supported natively if playing the same song, and the system down samples to non-main zones only if trying to stream multiple high res songs to multiple zones.

Audioholics article:
"Indeed, because the main control is via an app, WiFi connectivity is an absolute requirement. MusicCast does have the capability for adaptive streaming to handle some network congestion. In reality, you really want to have a minimum of 802.11n to make the most of the what MusicCast can offer. WiFi bandwidth will become an even more acute issue if you want to do hi-res music streaming and may cause some confusion so let me explain. If you have a hi-res music song streaming via MusicCast, you can stream that one song to three devices. However, if you want to stream multiple hi-res songs to different rooms, then what happens is that the primary room will retain a hi-res stream and the remaining rooms will have the audio down-sampled to an adaptive bitrate."