upstatemike
Senior Member
I agree about radio stations but for that you can buy a Russound tuner with the dedicated keypads that plug directly into it for just that purpose. My problem with most whole-house systems is that the scenario of controlling a bunch of stuff locally from a keypad just doesn't play out in real life. I sometimes want a remote volume control but not always, and almost never want to be messing with source equipment remotely.Steve said:Maybe until next month when the other guys come out with their new leapfrog feature. All systems will have their pros and cons and things that appeal to some and not others. To me, while this is certainly nice, it is nothing you can't do with other panels and standard Nuvo or Russound equipt.upstatemike said:So now I am taking another look at HAI as perhaps the most plug-and-play automation system available.
Also, while I am not a big audiophile and I do not have a whole house system yet, I would think one of my requirments would be to have metadata info available at the keypad. Especially when listening to radio - I'd like to know what channel I'm listening to at a glance - not guess blindly about presets.
My preferred scenario is a console with a keypad for each zone right next to the source equipment. I turn on the system, pick the rooms I want on, and preset the volume for each room all at once. If I enter a remote area and change my mind about the volume then a local volume control linked to the master is handy, but not needed in every zone.
If I got a regular Russound system I would likely mount all the zone keypads on the equipment rack and run a second keypad to the 3 or 4 zones where I feel I might want one.
I can also use remote sources with a regular Russound system using Cat5 audio extenders and such. This system is just cool because it has that already built-in. It might not support multiple keypads on 1 zone though so maybe it won't actually do what I need and I would have to stick with a standard Russound system anyway.