Time if up for Whole House Audio Selection

[pablito]

Paul, you are touching on a lot of different topics and they probably need to be separated a bit.

There are 2 major ways to do distributed audio: The first method is to have centralized source equipment (music server, internet radio, CD changer, terrestrial or satellite tuner, etc.), and centralized amplifiers. These systems require both data cabling to remote controls (keypads) and audio cabling to the remote speakers. These are the NuVo and Russound type systems so often discussed here.

The second method is to have a centralized music repository and distribute the music digitally to source equipment and amplifiers located in each listening area. In these systems all cabling is local except the network connection and even that is often handled via WiFi. This is the method used by systems like Sonos and the Logitech Squeezeboxes.

...

Good summary/review of the options Mike, thanks!

So I assume then that in your setup, each squeezebox has its own pair of locally powered speakers (the AudioEngine A5's?). At one point, I thought I had understood that you had centrally located amps which fed speakers in each room so I was wondering how you had resolved getting the line level audio back to the central location (i.e. amps).

In answer to your other questions:
A squeezebox system can display messages from a Home Automation system but it is not a Home Automation controller and is not the way to control other devices. Also this is not simple to implement because it is not directly supported by most Home Automation devices and requires you to work with the xAP protocol which might not be where you want to focus your efforts right now.

The weather and stock display features are plugins for the Squeezecenter application that acts as the music server for Squeezebox players and are not dependent on any Home Automation application or hardware.

What led me to this question was my assumption that the weather and stock ticker were likely some types of plugins to the server. If the SqueezeServer plugin API can also intercept incoming events from the user's interaction with the squeezebox, I figured it would be possible to have the plugin interpret these events and pass them on to a home automation server... or as you say over xAP/xPL. This opens up a number of possibilities and might allow the squeezebox to act as a stand-alone interface. S-W-E-E-T!

Can anyone chime in here and confirm that the server plugins can do this type of event interception or are they limited to display updates only? I must admit, that everything I'm suggesting implies the server would have to be able to control quite a bit of the squeezebox's display, manage contexts (music mode vs. home automation controller vs. whatever else). Clearly not what it was designed for, but who knows.

However, as you pointed out, such a setup (assuming that I'd want the squeezebox speakers centrally powered) would require me to run the line level audio from the back of the squeezebox down to the amps in the wiring closet. Hmm... if the server really had full control of the squeezebox, I guess it could even theoretically control audio levels, feeds, etc. That would be a way sort out automation announcements... but I'm surely going overboard with its capabilities.

 

[upstatemike]

Paul, you are touching on a lot of different topics and they probably need to be separated a bit.

There are 2 major ways to do distributed audio: The first method is to have centralized source equipment (music server, internet radio, CD changer, terrestrial or satellite tuner, etc.), and centralized amplifiers. These systems require both data cabling to remote controls (keypads) and audio cabling to the remote speakers. These are the NuVo and Russound type systems so often discussed here.

The second method is to have a centralized music repository and distribute the music digitally to source equipment and amplifiers located in each listening area. In these systems all cabling is local except the network connection and even that is often handled via WiFi. This is the method used by systems like Sonos and the Logitech Squeezeboxes.

...

Good summary/review of the options Mike, thanks!

So I assume then that in your setup, each squeezebox has its own pair of locally powered speakers (the AudioEngine A5's?). At one point, I thought I had understood that you had centrally located amps which fed speakers in each room so I was wondering how you had resolved getting the line level audio back to the central location (i.e. amps).

In answer to your other questions:
A squeezebox system can display messages from a Home Automation system but it is not a Home Automation controller and is not the way to control other devices. Also this is not simple to implement because it is not directly supported by most Home Automation devices and requires you to work with the xAP protocol which might not be where you want to focus your efforts right now.

The weather and stock display features are plugins for the Squeezecenter application that acts as the music server for Squeezebox players and are not dependent on any Home Automation application or hardware.

What led me to this question was my assumption that the weather and stock ticker were likely some types of plugins to the server. If the SqueezeServer plugin API can also intercept incoming events from the user's interaction with the squeezebox, I figured it would be possible to have the plugin interpret these events and pass them on to a home automation server... or as you say over xAP/xPL. This opens up a number of possibilities and might allow the squeezebox to act as a stand-alone interface. S-W-E-E-T!

Can anyone chime in here and confirm that the server plugins can do this type of event interception or are they limited to display updates only? I must admit, that everything I'm suggesting implies the server would have to be able to control quite a bit of the squeezebox's display, manage contexts (music mode vs. home automation controller vs. whatever else). Clearly not what it was designed for, but who knows.

However, as you pointed out, such a setup (assuming that I'd want the squeezebox speakers centrally powered) would require me to run the line level audio from the back of the squeezebox down to the amps in the wiring closet. Hmm... if the server really had full control of the squeezebox, I guess it could even theoretically control audio levels, feeds, etc. That would be a way sort out automation announcements... but I'm surely going overboard with its capabilities.

While you can probably run line level audio over some distance using cat-5 adapters or baluns to convert the hi-z unbalanced lines to low-z balanced, this approach seems like you would be "doing things the hard way" as well as challenging the value of a digitally distributed system. I converted my system from central amps to local systems (a mixture of powered speakers, audio triggered amps, amd traditional mini-audio component systems. I do announcements either with pages through my phone system or by using relays to switch the music speakers over to a dedicated HA announcement amplifier.

If you really want to use a SqueezeCenter based system with central amps I would suggest something like this:

1- Run your speaker lines to a central location
2- Put a rack of AudioSource amp 200s (1 for each room) at the central location. These amps turn on automatically when audio is present and they have 2 inputs on each amp.
3- Put your automation server in the central location and plug the audio into input 1 of each amp (daisey-chained)
4- Plug 1 Squeezebox Receiver into input 2 of each amp. In locations where you want the local display, this is where you would run the long audio cable to the amp input. (This is the part that I feel you should think long and hard about...)
5- Put Squeezebox Controllers in a few key locations.

I think if you use CQC as your automation server then it can control the Squeezebox players but I'm not sure how well it supports HA announcements.

The Command Line Interface and HTML Interface for the SqueezeCenter server app is published and you can look it over to see if you can do what you want for control.

I would verify that you can really do what you want this way before committing to a wiring topology that you can't back out of. This approach ends up being very similiar to the Grand Concerto with OLED displays and wireless remotes except more expensive and harder to implement so be sure to think it through carefully.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Can anybody that has a grand concerto possibly plug it into a kilowatt and measure the watt when all the zones are off and the thing is asleep. It seems hard to imagine the E6G can only use .8 watt while the grand concerto needs 25w.