AVForums Multi Room discussion thread

As above Yes - and additionally you can select any Line-In from any Zone so you don’t have to listen to the Line Input in the Zone its connected to when you want to listen to it elsewhere in the house!

Joe
 
Another great little feature of line in is autoplay. You can set it up so that if a box detects a line in signal, it will auto play on any zone you choose at a specified volume.

For example, when my sky box comes on, it automatically comes on at zero volume in the kitchen. So if I'm out there doing something and missing the tv, I just turn up the volume on the connect amp on top of the fridge. And also we often leave the kitchen playing the radio for long spells in the day, but if I want to watch tv I want the radio off. This auto kills the radio the second I turn the sky box on. A neat little bonus!
 
Apologies if this in the wrong section! I've been reading here for a while but only just registered to post the questions as I've just bought my home.

I am looking to do a 4 room audio setup. I have looked at Sonos but when its almost £2k just for the sonus connectors alone without speakers, I am wondering if there is a cheaper way of doing it?

I currently have a 5.1 sony cinema system in the living room which I am happy to use as the room audio, and a 7.1 sony cinema system in a bedroom which I am also happy to use as that room's audio. I'd just need a way of interfacing with these existing systems

Then the final 2 rooms are kitchen & 2nd bedroom. Ideally I would like to be able to wire my own speakers into this solution so I can decide to later upgrade/change if I want more bass etc.

For info I work in IT and am quite happy running audio cable, CAT6/setting up networks. Network storage is pretty much free for me as I have several old computers and hard drives lying around.

As for what I am looking for in the sound system:
I'm not fussed about playing music from devices other than the network storage. All the music on my phone is just a copy of the music on my PC anyway.
I would like to have a remote, OR have the ability to use a phone as a remote just so I don't have to walk to a computer every time I want to change song.

Can any of you knowledgeable folks recommend me a solution that might fit the bill?
 
Last edited:
Can any of you knowledgeable folks recommend me a solution that might fit the bill?

Two Apples TVs hooking up to the AV systems and two Apple Express for the other rooms or Airplay enabled boom-boxes. Or use some active speakers with the Express, like AudioEngine

You won't get anything cheaper, but then it hasn't the flexible multi-zone capability of the Sonos.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the quick reply Amcluesent.

I don't have an Apple phone so does that leave me out on the "using my phone as a remote" part? ( I should really know the answer as I was an apple technician for a few years haha) I've got an android phone and an Android tablet for info

Infact given my previous work experience with apple, I'd rather avoid it where I can!

Just to get it straight in my own head, am I right in thinking that:

Multi-room = ability to play from ONE source to different rooms, selectively.
Multi-zone = abillity to play from multiple sources to multiple rooms?
 
Last edited:
I've just read up on the Jongo stuff. Has anyone used any of the kit they have out right now? Is it any good?
I've just read about this: Jongo A140B
Apparently coming out this year and says it will do what I want and at a good price too. Could be ideal as I'm not moving into the new place for a couple of months
 
Just to get it straight in my own head, am I right in thinking that:

Multi-room = ability to play from ONE source to different rooms, selectively.
Multi-zone = abillity to play from multiple sources to multiple rooms?

Pretty much, although I'd say streams rather than sources. For example, Sonos you have flexibility to stream different tracks off the NAS to each player concurrently, or group them in any combination. And an analogue input to one player can be fed to any/all other players.

Apple Airplay is getting better, but iTunes can only feed one stream and all the players get it. IIRC you can also setup point-to-point links from an iOS device like an iPad to a single player.
 
Have Sonos launched a new ‘High End' system and not told anyone?

A ‘basic' Sonos system to meet your requirements would be 1 x Bridge (£39) + 4 x PLAY:3 (£259 each) – total - £1,075.00.

If you want a system utilising existing or new loudspeakers you require 1 x Bridge (£39) + 4 CONNECT:AMP (£399 each) – total outlay £1,635.00.

Plus all manner of permutations between those two options.

Multi-Zone = Multi-Room – the only differential you could have being that within a Zone you may have more than One pair of Speakers connected to a Sonos Zone player – a typical example would be a Master Bedroom + Bath/Shower/En-suite all being fed by a single Sonos Zone Player.

Sonos offers a Free App for iOS and Android devices along with a PC or MAC – you can have as many control devices as you want around the house.

Where Sonos trounces all others is in the user interface - anything else is always second best!

Joe
 
Last edited:
Hi All, Im Dan and brand new to the site and audio really.
I have literally just bought my first house which at the moment is being gutted.
Absolutely everything is being ripped out leaving a blank canvas for me.
Before I start putting in my kitchen and bathroom etc im having the house rewired by my best mate. While I have this opportunity ive had the thought in installing the apple airport express into a few rooms with some speakers. Im just looking for the very cool idea of being able to play music in whatever room I want or even multiple rooms.

As said im not an expert but this is what im hoping to do which I hope is ok but please correct me if not.
Ok so ill be installing airport express or apple tv in my lounge (not decided on which one yet). this will be hooked up wirelessly to my laptop. Speaker wise in my lounge I will have this hooked up to my home cinema system which I take it will be by plugging in the 3.5 jack from the airport to my home cinema system. (all wires hidden of course, this is my main thing Is to have an almost hidden system).
So airport/apple tv 1 will be my lounge. I will then want to have another airport in my kitchen. Now speaker wise im not looking for anything special for the kitchen its just so I can bop around while cooking so the plan was to install some ceiling speakers which will look incredibly high end and trick. I was thinking 2 speakers in the very small kitchen which will then hook up to an amp and then plug into the airport. Now this is the first bit im stuck on. can I just get a very small and compact, cheap amp which I can hide away which will do the job? Im really not sure what to use here.
So going on from here I would like to install a third airport into my bathroom with again 2 ceiling speakers. Im quite lucky that I have a cupboard just behind one of the walls so I can have the airport in a nice dry cupboard and then just go up into the loft to the speakers in the ceiling which these speakers will be the ones I can use in a bathroom. Again I would need to have this connected to an amp like the kitchen so would need a little info on what to use.
Im not really sure where I want to go from here. I might install a forth unit into the main bedroom or an apple tv so I can stream to the tv but I can add this at anytime Mainly I just wanted to see if what I was doing would work and is correct and also what amps do I use for those ceiling speakers?
Im hoping that this is actually going to be a very cheap and incredibly cool setup with the fact I have a blank canvas and a very good electrician could look like an incredibly high end job for very little money.
Costs that im expecting is Home 5.1 cinema system = £300
3x apple airport but possibly one tv= £260 max
4 x ceiling speakers = £120
Totalling £680 which the home system I was going to get anyway so for the addition bits its like £380 over what I had originally planned. As an addition once I get round to it I am also going to be sorting out some decking which goes straight out from my lounge onto the garden so I am hoping to have some speakers that I can put under the decking that I will hook up to the home cinema/separate amp/ airport so when im having a bbq or a little party I have music outside aswell but I might just concur this with a portable wifi speaker but would be cool to have some speakers built into the decking
The house I have just bought is actually needing quite a bit of work and im looking to actually make a bit of money on the house so fitting these fairly cheap bits I think will really help with making sure when I do decide to move on I think something like this will help a sale as this kind of house is very much a first time buyers house so will probably be bought by a young family/couple.

Hope you can help with this and I will certainly keep you all updated with pics. Im hoping to have all this and the house including the decking done within 3 months so I have quite the challenge
 
Last edited:
Hope you can help with this and I will certainly keep you all updated with pics

Previous posts in this thread have discussed various active (self-amped) ceiling speakers etc. and how folks have done multi-room.

My only advice would be to make sure you fully understand the current limitations of Apple Airplay, esp. the non-existant support for multi-stream/multi-zone, FLAC format playback etc. before basing your whole system on Apple. TBH, lifestyle systems are based on Sonos or, up a price point, Linn and have a NAS as the core. Look at the the other forums here which cover whole house AVinstall and the plans for dropping CAT5 cables into rooms etc.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Were moving to a new build house in the summer and had planned on getting speakers fitted in the ceilings in 4 of the rooms (living, dining, kitchen and main bedroom). We want to have the ability to play music in these rooms independently or all together and have been looking about at various systems. We can purchase the opus 300 system from builder and have fitted but this is very expensive so looking at various options.
At present mainly looking at the Airport Express option so would have 2 speakers, small amp and AE in each room and control audio via itunes on PC or ideally from ipad/ipad mini so easier to move about house and control volume etc. Now this is all pretty new to me so any advice and help pointing me in the right direction would be great.
With regards to amps for each room im looking for something fairly small and seen a couple which may be suitable
The World's Smallest Audio Amplifier: microFidelity 200
and
MUSE M20 EX2 TA2020 T-Amp Stereo Amplifier 20Wx2 | eBay
any advice?

We have a wireless router which will be setup for use also.

Any help/advise would be greatly appreciated.
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
I refer you to post #362
 
So with AE you can only listen to same song in each room, no way to change song from room to room?
 
So with AE you can only listen to same song in each room, no way to change song from room to room?

They way I understand it is you need multiple iterations of itunes if you want to play different things in different rooms. One library can only play one song to one or many rooms.
 
So could i then control the music in one room via itunes on the pc and in another room via itunes on an ipod mini? this work ok?
 
Apparently this was in the wrong section last time :)

I'm hoping you clever chaps can help me. I want to set up a 3 zone music streaming system on a budget. I currently have:

Office - PC, wireless router and ReadyNAS Duo containing all the music in FLAC format.

Zone 1 - Lounge - PS3 connected to Denon 1910 Amp (no direct streaming to the amp).

Zone 2 - Kitchen - PC with connected speakers.

Zone 3 - Bedroom - Bose Soundwave with audio in AUX at the rear.

I would like to be able to control everything via my Galaxy S3 or Android Tablet and have the ability to choose 1, 2 or all 3 zones playing the same thing at the same time.

I know in an ideal world I would buy 3 Sonos Connects and make a nice system but that will cost me £750+ but I want to take advantage of the PS3 and kitchen PC to save money. Would a simple app like iMediashare allow me to stream music from the NAS to the android device then output it to my choice of device (if I had something like an airport express plugged into the Bose?). I don't mind spending around £200 on hardware if that makes a nice simple solution.

Also, I'd rather stay away from iTunes as I don't want to have to convert all those files to Apple Lossless.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
 
I don't mind spending around £200 on hardware if that makes a nice simple solution.

You could have a look at what peeps are doing porting Squeezeplay to the Rasberry Pi and run Logitech Media Server on the office PC.

But TBH you're seeking a lot of funtionality across incompatible kit for no money...
 
hi, i was wondering if anyone could recommend some sort of multi room amplifier with DLNA.
Ideally with iphone/ipad app to control, 3 zones min (4 or more would be best), able to play from a itunes server or just from a NAS, same song or different songs in each room, internet radio, ethernet.

Ive wired my house with cat6 and have put speaker cables in for 2 zones which i have some blucube ceiling speakers. So was thinking i would just use some sonos amps for each set of speakers. But i wanted to see if there was anything else i could get to save having lots of devices and to see if i could make it a bit cheaper, ie for 3 zones its £400 per sonos amp, if i could get a dlna amp which lets me do the above but can do say 4 zones(or more) for less than £1200 then happy days!!

I have been looking at NuVo, but their product range baffles me and im not sure what does what and if you need a couple of things to make my idea work.
Their Essentia seems like a good choice but ive no idea if thats all you need. They also do a zone amp as well, but once again i've no idea if thats what i need.

Or do i get a Amp that has say 6 inputs and outputs for say 6 sets of speakers and then buy a little DLNA receiver for each set of speakers (or each zone) and do it that way? I guess i would need a remote switch to turn the amp on and off for power saving via my iphone.
I found this DLNA receiver DLNA Audio Receiver--DAR01 - ce-link.com
but buggered if i can find it for sale.
But this method seems a bit messy, so really im after some ideas if anyone minds sharing their knowledge. Ohh im in the UK so i must be able to get it over here :thumbsup:

thanks
 
multi room amplifier with DLNA

The DLNA protocol doesn't support multi-zone(*), some suppliers have added their own control s/w on top. Sonos (and Squeezebox, now only available 2nd hand) don't use DLNA and have well proven multi-zone.

Don't forget each Sonos CONNECT AMP can run two pairs of speakers (see other threads for wiring diagram) so that may take some cost out.

In this thread you'll see some peeps have gone for a distributed system using Ethernet, other have use a multi-way amp and pulled speaker cables back to a cabinet with the amp and, typically, a set of cheap streamers like Squeezebox Receivers hooked up to the amp's inputs.

IIRC Cambridge Audio also do a multi-zone product, Incognito.

(*) Actually it barely supports one zone ;)
 
Last edited:
I understand DLNA doesn't support multi-zone and its just a way of things talking together. So i wanted to know if there was an amplifier which had its own multi-zone function in it but had ethernet connection so it could talk to a NAS device to stream all the music to it and then send different songs to different zones.

Looking at the NuVo's, they seem hint they can do this but i cant find out at the mo, but i wanted to see if anyone had or knew of such a amplifier with the features i am after.

Ah i see, thats handy to know about the sonos amps, but i really want to be able to choose different songs in the rooms.
 
Hey Guys,

Re doing my property and I am looking at installing ceiling speakers in every room. Now I am wanting a system that can stream to these which I understand from research seems to be a Sonus Connect Amp.....

However I would like to be able to play different music in different rooms? Would this require a separate Amp for each room?

Thanks.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom