Top 10 Options for Whole House Audio

[IVB]

I'm not sure I want to put a local PC in each listening area. I'm probably more inclined to use the multi-channel sound card feeding a stack of amps in the closet.

I, unfortunately for me, began shooting my mouth off about how I do this and how it works great.

Alas, i should have made sure to buy all my cheap 2ch zamps/etc, b/c i've been getting outbid on eBay regularly, and looking at the username, it's nearly always by an avs/cocoon/cqc/ML/some other forum that I frequent.

I'm only 1 zamp away from a full complement; i just can't break down and pay full retail...

 

[upstatemike]

Alas, i should have made sure to buy all my cheap 2ch zamps/etc, b/c i've been getting outbid on eBay regularly, and looking at the username, it's nearly always by an avs/cocoon/cqc/ML/some other forum that I frequent.

It's not me. I'm still just exploring all the interesting ideas.

 

[ellisr63]

How about the Autopatch?

 

[upstatemike]

How about the Autopatch?

Looks like cool stuff. Are you using it? Is it expensive?

 

[pete]

Ok. When you say "any computer in the house" I have to ask: How many computers do you have? Do you keep them all running all the time?

I have 5 machines, all are 'older' models picked up on ebay cheap . . . rather than spend big bucks on state of the art stuff I use 'lasts seasons' technology at a better price point . . . because of this I like to limit the 'load' on the machines . . .

2 run FreeBSD 24/7 . . . one is gateway/firewall/router for the in house network, the other is my media server . . . IIRC, the gateway machine is 500Mhz w/ 256M, the media server is 800Mhz w/ 512M . . .

3 Windows boxes . . . one 24/7 for HomeSeer . . . 2 are 'user' boxes that aren't up continuously . . . all are 1Ghz or better w/ 512M or more . . .


Pete C

 

[IVB]

How about the Autopatch?

Looks like cool stuff. Are you using it? Is it expensive?

Oh, he's using it alright. He turned a ton of CQC'ers on to it as it's a supported device with driver, and allows you to do full house HDTV distribution at a hardware through a robust interface. We talked about it elsewhere, and whereas a 4YDM [i *think* that was 4 HD in, 8HDout] used to be $350 or so on eBay in January, they're now more like $1000 on eBay.

Man, I was "this" close to buying one then for $325, was about to hit the "buy-it-now", and figured "nah, i'll wait until I get all the speakers mounted and amps purchased. It's not like the price is going up".

There's several versions of each model [HD capable, not capable, volume controls or not, front panel or not].

And there goes another great secret

Here's his wiring diagram.

 

[upstatemike]

Looks neat but the Autopatch is really just feeding the 2 AV rooms right? Not really in the loop for the distributed audio from by the CAV 6.6

I'm also not sure about investing in HDMI stuff till I see where things are going with DRM. Will HDMI switches and distribution stuff still work if DRM starts locking everything down?

 

[IVB]

Looks neat but the Autopatch is really just feeding the 2 AV rooms right? Not really in the loop for the distributed audio from by the CAV 6.6

I'm also not sure about investing in HDMI stuff till I see where things are going with DRM. Will HDMI switches and distribution stuff still work if DRM starts locking everything down?

Yes. I believe that Ron already owned the CAV66 and autopatch when he got CQC, and was using them as disparate systems as he didn't have the option to do simple integration. And, since he owns them both now, may as well keep them seperate from a wiring perspective, and only "integrate" them on the PC.

On your HDMI question, i'm not sure anyone can answer that with authority. I've seen random threads here/there about HDMI/HDCP [drm] concerns. The reason I don't immediately say "yes, you're hosed" is that HDCP could be implemented on the source and the display devices, and just use the switches & transmission for pushing the signal.

The final possibility that I've heard of is that the HDMI stuff may work without HDCP, but all your stuff could be downgraded to 480p instead of the 1080i signal by the display device, i.e., ditch the hi-def signal since it can't confirm the DRM.

I guess that's a really long winded way of saying " i'm not sure, and i don't think anybody else is either."

 

[pete]

I knew the IR repeater I use (Niles IRZ6+) was discontined some time ago, so I went looking to see if there was anything similar still available and found the Niles MSU440Z . . .

. . . it makes IR control of the multi-receiver set-up for WHA easy, it allows using mutilples of the same reciever (so the same remote works regardless of which zone your in) and has 12v contact closure for status report to your particular HA system . . .

. . . I didn't price shop, so look around for better pricing . . .

Pete C

 

[ellisr63]

How about the Autopatch?

Looks like cool stuff. Are you using it? Is it expensive?

Oh, he's using it alright. He turned a ton of CQC'ers on to it as it's a supported device with driver, and allows you to do full house HDTV distribution at a hardware through a robust interface. We talked about it elsewhere, and whereas a 4YDM [i *think* that was 4 HD in, 8HDout] used to be $350 or so on eBay in January, they're now more like $1000 on eBay.

Man, I was "this" close to buying one then for $325, was about to hit the "buy-it-now", and figured "nah, i'll wait until I get all the speakers mounted and amps purchased. It's not like the price is going up".

There's several versions of each model [HD capable, not capable, volume controls or not, front panel or not].

And there goes another great secret

Here's his wiring diagram.

Mine was a 8 in 8 out HDTV (also called 32x32) and I got it for $400

 

[ellisr63]

Looks neat but the Autopatch is really just feeding the 2 AV rooms right? Not really in the loop for the distributed audio from by the CAV 6.6

I'm also not sure about investing in HDMI stuff till I see where things are going with DRM. Will HDMI switches and distribution stuff still work if DRM starts locking everything down?

What I am doing is feeding the HDTV and digital audio from all my sources to the Autopatch and this goes to my 6.1 zone and my 7.1 zone. All of my sources also send composite and analog audio to the Russound CAV-6 and that sends the audio out to my sonance 12ch poweramp... which goes to all 6 zones.

 

[3DogKnight]

Mine was a 8 in 8 out HDTV (also called 32x32) and I got it for $400

I'll buy it from you for $425.

 

[ellisr63]

Mine was a 8 in 8 out HDTV (also called 32x32) and I got it for $400

I'll buy it from you for $425.

I wish I would have bought several more.... I remember passing on a stack of 5 loaded ones for $500

 

[jlokanis]

I have a few questions:

What is the cost of the Nuvo and the Russound? What is a good place to buy from?

How can you use the Delta1010 or 410 instead? I know that these units have 8in-8out and 4in-4out connections respectively, but how can they be automated with the HA system? From what I can see, they only offer an SDK with a DLL that you can call to control some features. Looks like you would need to roll your own code to use them as a audio patchbay. Are there HA SW packages that include drivers for these products?

My goal:
Route stereo (not 5.1/7.1) to 5 different rooms from 4 analog sources. No keypads needed. Must be automatable (serial interface, etc).

thanks,

-John

 

[IVB]

I'll answer what I do know: Delta 410, as I have that.

No coding/roll-your-own needed. Once you install the 410 in your machine and add the drivers, Windows will see them as audio devices.

Then, in your audio playback program (i.e., CQC uses Zoomplayer as it's audio renderer), you select which audio device you want that player to use.

In my instance, I have 2 concurrent CD streams since that's all I'd ever need. I installed 2 instances of ZoomPlayer on my PC, and have each one pointed at a different audio device [i.e., one says M-Audio 1/2, the other says M-Audio 3/4].

The wiring runs from the 1/2 to the "source 1" input on my Xantech [russound equivalent without the amps]. The 3/4 output runs to the "source 2" input.

(this part is specific to my setup, which is CQC and Zoomplayer. I'm sure MainLobby must work in a very similar fashion as there's not too many options here)

CQC will control ZoomPlayer, and tell it to play a given songfile. ZoomPlayer has been setup to play that file via the audio device above, so all you need to do to play music in CQC is:

Setup the following actions in your template. [btw, i have downloadable skins for this, so you don't actually need to do this. You can download them, and change the images/background to whatever you like, assuming you don't like mine].
1) Turn Russound on
2) Turn desired zone on
3) Set zone to source #1(i.e., you want to listen to CD stream #1 above)
4) Send music file to Zoomplayer
5) sit back and listen.

Does that make sense?