New System Advice Needed Please

[Signum]

Hi All

New to the forum and I guess new to the world of Hi-Fi so sorry if my lack of knowledge shows. I am I the process of renovating my house with extension, and as I build I want to put in a multi room system of some sort - I know there are wireless options, but being an electrician by trade, I prefer wires!

now I know in my head what I am looking to achieve but struggling to find solutions and what equipment is needed. Could I post up a simple block diagram of what I want to link to what and you kind people can tell me where I'm going wrong or if it just ain't gonna happen lol!

Thanks Mark

 

[toyota man]

Hi Post away I am sure that some one on the forum will have answers for you there a clever lot

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Waiting with baited breath.

 

[Signum]

Okay so this is a quick sketch of what I want to try and achieve. I guess the local stuff is easy, plugging PS3 into Amp adn Sky etc, howevr I have read in What Hi-Fi about some amps are better for surround aomefor Hi-Fi, but would like a tuner and CD Player etc as well as use for Blueray player (forgot to add that to drawing)

The bit I am unsure of is can I link a slave amp in another room from the main amp in the lounge? So the idea being, if I want to watch local TV in the kitchen I can select that, or if I have a CD or radio on in the lounge I can channel that through to other amps around the house ifthat make sense? I keep thinking of just running an Aux pair, one frm the main amp to each amp round the house?

Also can I get smaller amps that can have differnet speaker channels, so one thing goes out on speakers in kitchen and something different in the dinng room.

Budget, not endless but asking these questions will give me an idea of how expensive and if I do it - I am on the cusp of wiring the house, so now equipment being bought yet, but want to get the cables in ready.

Sorry for all the questons

Thaks in advance

 

[Signum]

....don't suppose anyone has any advice do they?

 

[toyota man]

Hi I don't know much abput multy room I only have a small terrace house an if I want to hear it in another room I just turn it Up but as I said before there are some on this forum that do I would just keep an eye on your post this post will put it on the top of the pile so to speak

 

[Anonymous]

Morning Mark,

I'm pretty new to this too so this might not be the best advice, but I'm currently trying to do something similar so I can tell you what I've found so far.

Amp-wise, are you looking to run a 5.1 or higher set up as well? You can easily find something that runs both movies and music nicely, providing you pair the right speakers with it. The what hifi reviews usually cover off the music credentials of the a/v amps. I'm looking to get a Yamaha RX A2010 (last year's model going for a very good price) to pair with B&W M1 speakers. It really depends on your budget though.

It sounds like you should also invest in an amp that can serve 2 zones - this means you could wire it to your kitchen set-up with out the need for investing in another amp as a slave amp. That way you can feed it to your kitchen. Did you want to be able to feed a tv in the office though, or is that just for music?

Music-wise, I'd strongly recommend getting a NAS if you don't have one already - you can attach this to your router and then stream your itunes collection throughout the house to various devices. I've got a Synology DS 212j and it's been great for streaming music and film around the house. Again, what NAS you'd want would depend on budget, the size of music collection, if you wanted to stream film as well etc.

Then to go with that, you could look at Sonos system to distribute your music around the house. Sonos do speakers that stream the music (Sonos Play 5 or Play 3), an amp that connect directly to speakers (Sonos Connect Amp) or just a box that streams through an existing amp (Sonos Connect). These can all be controlled by a free IOS or android app, and can be configured to stream the same or different combinations of music to the different zones you have set up.

So as an example, you could have a Sonos Connect attached to your A/V receiver, a Sonos Play 3 in the kitchen and a Sonos Connect Amp connected to some dedicated speakers in the office. Many A/V amps these days can stream music from a NAS without the addition of a Sonos system or similar, but the benefit of having a connect would be having one system throughout the house that can be controlled through one app.

If you're building an extension, you may also want to consider ceiling speakers. You generally take a drop in quality with them, but they have their benefits to suit asthetics etc.

And if you're wiring up the house anyway, make sure you put in some cat 5 or cat 6 to support any of the above - while most kit supports wireless these days, wires are always preferred like you say!

Hope that helps a little.

 

[Signum]

Thanks so much lokusai - ..'helps a little' - that helps a lot, and is already mor than I could find trawling through the internet, posts and magazines!

So first to your questions in your post: Yes looking to run 5.1 in the front room, I don't have the space really for 7.1 so think it would be a waste.... and yes looking to have an input from TV into Office amp, however would only have a couple of speakers from that.

Now a few questions back

The NAS Sounds a good idea, have seen these but wasn't sure the benefits of them - and I can hard wire this with networking (Cat 5 etc)

The Sonus idea equally is god, this answers my question about physically running output and input cables btween amps - When I looked a sonus before I tought they just did the all inone built speaker sets that look like radios lol, I take it this is similar to Apple Air Play - is there any benefits to one over the other, which is better, Apple Air Play or Sonus Connect?

You have in a round about way answered my quesion abotu zonal amps - I would prob still put a slave in the Kitchen, that way I cna have two Zones, Kitchen and then Dinning room. If I got a main A/V amp that had all my inputs, PS3, seperates, TV, NAS then out puts to 5.1, would I be expecting too much from it to do 2 zonal too - jack of all trades master of none? Is there a terminology for zonal amps?

I had thought of Ceiling speakers but do they not add a slight tin sound to them as a ceiling will naturally reverberate?

Thanks again for your help - sorry for all the questions back lol!

Mark

 

[dragon76]

Mark, I believe lokusai has started in the right direction, and I can expand on this a bit. If your main goal for the main system is to have multichannel sound, then an AV receiver is a way to go. Any modern AV amp will have many digital/HDMI and analogue inputs, so this will cover all your possible sources. Also, an AV amp will have a 2nd zone capability, some of which come with a second remote and it is clearly convenient, so you should be more or less covered with your kitchen setup.

Re NAS, this is clearly a good option if you have no issues with your home network and got cabling everywhere you what your components to be placed. If you do not want a separate NAS, your PC can serve this role and then transmit signal either to Sonos or, which is my personal preference, to Squeezebox Touch. You can either have your PC placed somewhere else away from any of your depicted systems and then have Squeezebox Touch everywhere you want your itunes to be played. alternatively, your PC can be stationed at one of your listening locations (say in the main system) with a direct/wired connection to your amp and it will simultaneously act as server/NAS to other locations via Sonos/Squeezebox Touch.

For your office system I think it would be an overkill to have it as 3rd zone of your main setup. I suggest you do not directly connect those two and just use NAS streaming into your office.

One last observation after looking into your system layout. If you implement this and will have additional hifi separates in your main system/lounge you are looking into a very complicated setup with multiple components and cables, so if I were you I would look into simplifying it a bit. Say, if you already have PC and will stream from there, you may not need a CD player. Just rip your CDs and then use NAS/PC to distribute them throughout your house. In this case you may want to enhance your PC and possibly move away from Itunes into smth better in order to improve sound quality. Just as an idea.

 

[Signum]

Thanks for the added input dragon76.

These NAS devices, effectively a hard drive yes? - what runs these, what software is used to stream the music from the storage out to the ddiferent divices - I take it you have an app which has the 3 zones listed and you send what music you want where?

When you say second sone in the lounge to cover the Kitchen, does the Kitchen then still have an Amp - so I can feed TV into it etc?

I like the idea of taking the CD player out - and I think having the office talking to it all would still be benificial, say for example I have a music channel ont he TV downstairs, I would like to feed that throughout the house - and if I want the radio on, I can have it from main amp and feed it around....or again is there a simpler way of doing that?

Mark