My parents recently built a new house and want to put in a wired whole home audio system. During construction the house was wired with 14g speaker cable and cat5 in 15 different zones (8 upstairs, 6 in basement and one outside). Ideally, each zone would be able to play different music from the receiver and have local input. Not really looking for a home theater capabilities. I was planning on helping my dad install the system and he wants something he will be able to tweak himself. Looking at ~$5,000 for the system in total.
I've been looking to see what is available and liking Crutchfield's guides. Here's what I have come up with:
These speakers from Monoprice: 6-1/2 Inches Kevlar 2-Way In-Ceiling Speakers
"home intercom" Type systems: Niles ZR6 Or Russound Systems
Pro: Distributed system
Con: underpowered, limited to ~25W RMS per channel
Home Theater Receiver: Yamaha A3010
Pro: Input for anything and everything, lots of power
Con: Expensive, only two zones, don't need the surround sound system
Crestron system
Pro: Does exactly what I want
Con: VERY expensive, can't maintain yourself, everything has to be done by an authorized tech
As it seems like there are many amp, receivers available, I'm thinking that my quest is more for receiver software than hardware. Is there something like the Crestron software that can be installed separately (like DD-WRT for Cisco routers)? Or another Home automation system company I have been missing?
I've been looking to see what is available and liking Crutchfield's guides. Here's what I have come up with:
These speakers from Monoprice: 6-1/2 Inches Kevlar 2-Way In-Ceiling Speakers
"home intercom" Type systems: Niles ZR6 Or Russound Systems
Pro: Distributed system
Con: underpowered, limited to ~25W RMS per channel
Home Theater Receiver: Yamaha A3010
Pro: Input for anything and everything, lots of power
Con: Expensive, only two zones, don't need the surround sound system
Crestron system
Pro: Does exactly what I want
Con: VERY expensive, can't maintain yourself, everything has to be done by an authorized tech
As it seems like there are many amp, receivers available, I'm thinking that my quest is more for receiver software than hardware. Is there something like the Crestron software that can be installed separately (like DD-WRT for Cisco routers)? Or another Home automation system company I have been missing?