Need audio setup ideas

[collegeboyslive]

Still working with my friend who wants me to " automated the crap out of it" I am looking at a whole house audio system.

We will want ceiling speakers in every room and ho seer control of what audio goes where, including his announcements.

In the past and in my own system I have simply had a separate small amp connected to each speaker and the input to that amp is tied to an autopatch unit with various inputs like the home seer sound card, output from a squeezebox ect.

That is maybe old school these day, so what's other ways of doing it digitally ? Of course while keeping cost in mind.

[happnatious1]

The first thing to consider is how many zones you will need and weather or not they need to be unique. Do you need independent volume controls in each room locally or will homeseer control the volume. Will announcements play in all zones at once or will there be independent control of what is playing in each zone etc.

In my system for instance every speaker on the main floor is considered a zone because there is no point in playing different things in say the kitchen and the dinning room because it would just be confusing. However not true when playing one thing in the garage as opposed to the basement.

As with everything else, you first need a plan.

[AshaiRey]

Maybe using a XAP800 audio mixer is what you need. They are cheap to come by too. Have a look at this thread http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=176042

[Moskus]

I would go for Squeezebox. As that is not really maintained anymore I would go for Sonos.

[TomTom]

There is also an inexpensive , as compared to sonos, hitachi wireless option now. I think it have been released or will release soon. A review I read about it was good.
Current home I'm using squeezebox with ipeng and hs squeezebox plugin.



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[Pete]

I currently still today utilize my Russound zoned amps and the older AB8SS RS-232 speaker switch. The hardware is not free.

The AB8SS speaker switch was controllable via RS-232 (and there was/is a plugin that still works just fine), X10 and IR. That said it was well made and I have never had a problem with it. The volume controls at the time of implementation was via the Leviton Digital Chopin system and Homeseer.

The Russound Zoned audio system is simple and I can and do control it today via my Leviton HAI OmniPro system and Homeseer via an RS-232 serial server. Works fine.

Media sources and control are whatever for it.

MonoPrice today sells a similiar zoned audio product with the basics of having a zoned amplifier and keypad control. The infrastructure is very similiar to the Russound.

Basically it is just wired pairs of speakers and catXX keypads per one pair of speakers.

The Squeezebox server now is opensource and you can also make tiny play back sources using the RPi2. You can also do this today with tiny Kodi boxes for audio and remote controllable via Homeseer.

The software is free. That said many Homeseer users are using both a Sonos and zoned wired amps / speakers.

You can remote control the above stuff with a tablet, web gui or telephone. There are no dependencies though on an particular telephone OS or widget.

[collegeboyslive]

The first thing to consider is how many zones you will need and weather or not they need to be unique. Do you need independent volume controls in each room locally or will homeseer control the volume. Will announcements play in all zones at once or will there be independent control of what is playing in each zone etc.

Thanks, I know all about zones et, I already use an autopatch and separate amps, before I repeated what I use I was looking to see if there was anything new and better out there, like a ceiling speaker with built in amp, digital receiver, addressable with its own his contoled volume and switching.

[hjk]

I'm kind of in the same boat, confused about how to proceed.

I have Squeezebox devices and the plug-in, also got an XAP800 after reading ZMC's inspiring set of articles on the subject.

But now currently I make use of the Squeezebox ability to synchronize playback across devices.

For mics and VR, I'm experimenting with Kinect devices attached to tiny PCs (like the Pipo, which Pete turned me on to). I have a couple of these.

I'd like to use mics, noise cancelling, etc provided by the xAP800 devices, and also avoid having little PCs all over the place that require care and feeding.

That said, I'd also like to avoid separate systems for playback (Squeezebox) and VR (Kinect). But I'm not sure how to integrate Squeezebox and synchronous playback with a non-Squeezebox system, as it would be via xAP.

Maybe I could have a SoftSqueeze source as playback through the xAP..?

I guess I'm just lacking some additional inspiration and/or examples and/or information enough to pull together a solution. Maybe I need a better plan of what I want to do, although what I "want" may be influenced by what is available... know what I mean?

[collegeboyslive]

For mics and VR, I'm experimenting with Kinect devices attached to tiny PCs (like the Pipo, which Pete turned me on to). I have a couple of these.

are you also using the kenect's for occupancy detection ? if so how is that working for you?

[TomTom]

Hjk, why not use xap for vr ( input) and squeezebox for out put( music, hs voice output). That's the direction I'm moving towards. I've finished the squeezebox part, now when I get time( hopefully soon) I'm gonna install xap.
I like squeezebox cause it allows me to use hs, none hs way ( iPhones, iPads, or physically( on the units) to control it. Wife prefers the latter two due to simplicity. Hs plugin allows me to turn off and mute everything at and when things aren't being used.


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[JB-dallas]

Home Theater Direct (htd.com) makes some nice whole house audio systems that you can control through Homeseer.

[hjk]

Hjk, why not use xap for vr ( input) and squeezebox for out put( music, hs voice output). That's the direction I'm moving towards. I've finished the squeezebox part, now when I get time( hopefully soon) I'm gonna install xap.
I like squeezebox cause it allows me to use hs, none hs way ( iPhones, iPads, or physically( on the units) to control it. Wife prefers the latter two due to simplicity. Hs plugin allows me to turn off and mute everything at and when things aren't being used.

Hey Tom!

Well, I'm not wanting to split between xAP and Squeezebox due to noise cancellation. In my living room, I have Squeezebox, amp, and Kinect (running on a NUC). I have the amp "monitoring" output plugged back into the PC, and have experimented with noise cancelling and such... it is kind of irritating when music is playing and I want to issue a command. I end up waiting for non-vocal periods or between songs to issue commands. I probably need to work more with noise cancelling features of the Kinect SDK (using the plug-in).

But that's why... unless you can feed Squeezebox through the xAP, which I'm assuming you can... hmm... see, part of my confusion -- too many ways to work this!

[mikedr]

My two cents. If you are considering AirPlay with non-AirPlay speakers, this little gizmo is wonderful (and very tiny). However the DAC they include isn't that good, so I used a different one.

http://amzn.com/B00EZWVZ44

Also, for multiple-channel amplifiers, I've found these to be very reasonably priced and solid quality.

http://www.htd.com/Products/multi-channel-amplifiers

[mfisher]

I highly recommend Sonos and Dirk's Sonos plugin. While the cost of Sonos devices may be higher than other solutions, consider that there are no wires to run, it just works out of the box, the system is amazingly reliable, the Sonos HS plugin is increadibly reliable and Dirk's support is phenomenal. Sonos is brainless to setup, units can be moved when desired (no rewiring) and did I mention that it is 100% reliable? I've been using Sonos with HS & HS Touch for years and it just works!

[Steve Q]

If you want to consider a DIY solution, you can add a SPST 120vac relay controlled by a Z-wave appliance module for each zone you want to control. Homeseer can switch on/off whatever zones you want. This approach allows the use of a single receiver/amplifier. You can use the various inputs (CD, DAT, Tape, etc) on the receiver for your audio sources. Homeseer can then send an IR signal to the receiver to switch to the desired audio source.

I have been using this approach for many years. It works extremely well and is extremely flexible. It you have "home run" speaker wires, it is really easy to implement!

Steve Q


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