Whole Home Audio Recommendations

[mjf0507]

I just bought a newer home with speakers and source/volume controls in every room. Everything is wired back to a technology room with CAT 6. Problem is that all the electronics were remove from utilities room.

How do I determine what I need to get everything back up and working?

I would like to play different sources independantly through each separate room

I'm not particularly tech savvy in the realm of A/V so any help would be greatly appreciated..

 

[Kaido]

This is a complex question. Let's answer it with a few more questions:

1. How many zones do you have? (rooms with speakers)
2. What equipment is already in place? (ex. the wallplates with CAT6, any labels or brands?)
3. What do you want to do?
4. What is your budget?

The number of zones will tell you how many channels you need on the amplifier. The brand of equipment will tell us how it's setup. For example, CAT6 can be used in a variety of ways:

1. As speaker wire
2. For data transmission (ex. to send an input to the amp)
3. For control (send & receive signals for things like volume)

The most basic setup is a whole-house amplifier, something like this:

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ma1260-multi-zone-12-channel-amplifier-60wpc--300-8150

They also have wireless solutions, which offer more flexibility:

http://www.sonos.com/products/wireless-stereo-components

At the most basic level, you need two things:

1. Power for the speakers (via an amplifier)
2. A source signal for the speakers

You can do one big amp like the whole-house unit above, or individual amps per room. For getting the source in, you mentioned there's a source input in every room. You can plug in an iPod or CD player into that & play it in that room, but you can also go one step further by getting something like a Sonos where you can send inputs to other rooms & also use network inputs like Spotify via a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

The more complex you want to get, the more the price goes up. So we need to figure out how many zones you have, what hardware is in place already, how you want to use it, and what your total budget is. For example, Sonos is by far the best wireless system (which can still apply to your system even though it's wired, because you can relocate inputs to other rooms for playback), but it's $500 per amplified unit, so if you have 10 rooms, that's five grand right off the bat.

 

[mjf0507]

Hi Kaido,

Thanks for your speedy response...

1. I have 8 Zones throughout the house... 1 of those zones would be a part of the TV area.

It looks like the system was setup for use but after the sale of the condo all the Audio sources and drivers were taken with... as expected.

2. There are wall plates attached to each zone that control audio levels and input/source selection, Input 1, Input 2, Input 3 and Input 4. There is no other hardware installed in the utility room, other than a bundle of CAT 6 cable which I can only guess is routed to the speakers and Control panels? Not sure about branding as I'm away from the house right now.

3. I would like to utilise the Zones independently from multiple sources.. Music streaming, radio etc, so what would a good setup so that I can drive the source audio from my IOS/Android devices??

I don't really want to spend anymore than 2K, I figure all the hard work has already been done regarding the speakers/wiring and control. So hopefully I can just get the right equipment and plug and play....

 

[queequeg99]

Sonos can be a good option if you're starting from scratch as far as speakers/amps are concerned. My brother in law has that setup and its very polished. The sound is definitely good enough for casual listening (such as if you're entertaining). But it can cost a lot. If you're moving any existing audio equipment into the rooms (speakers, amps, etc), you really need to look at Google's Chromecast Audio.

I have three rooms I wanted to have whole house music in. Two of them already have very nice audio setups in them. The third room had nothing. Incorporating my existing two setups into a Sonos network would have cost about $350 per setup (the cost of the unamplified Sonos Connect device). The Chromecast Audio, however, costs just $35 and does pretty much the same thing. So far, it's worked perfectly. Google just issued an update to the Chromecast app that allows users to group Chromecast Audios throughout your house to sync the music to one source (but you obviously can still use them separately).

Now I just have to figure out what I'll do with the third room. There are a few self-powered speakers with Casting abilities built in. But I think I'll end up buying a third Chromecast Audio unit and matching it with better speakers (where there are a lot of options). I could go with some pretty nice self-powered units (like some Audioengine A5+ speakers) or perhaps a nice unpowered bookshelf with something like a small Lepai amp.

 

[JeffMD]

mjf, give an example of how many sources you need utilized at the same time. ie how many people are we supporting here, what is the maximum you want this setup to be able to do?

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Could you snap a few photos? Show a couple of the speakers, and a couple of the volume / source control thingies? Are those things powered? I.e., are the amps built-in to the controller thingies? AFAIK it's not possible to carry amplified audio signals over Cat6, so there's got to be real speaker wire and real amplifiers sitting somewhere.

 

[queequeg99]

Doh! Reading comprehension failure on my part. Just reread your post again and noticed the part about there already being speakers in the various rooms. If you're trying to leverage speakers wired back to a central location, my prior post is probably entirely off the mark. As a prior post noted, there must be something more than CAT6 connected to those speakers. I suppose it is conceivable that they are all powered speakers with built-in DACs. That would require some power source (in-wall electric?). Pictures showing a make and model would be very helpful.