whole home audio question

kkapp

Member
i know there are many diff options for this but it all confuses me so any suggestions is much appreciated to accomplish my spimplistic goal. I have a yamaha htr 6030 in my den. I want to be able to stream from it and also from my pc music library to multiple rooms. I am just having a hard time grasping how i can select playlists or songs in general from my pc at the desired zone. The remote subject is also giving me a headache as far as how to say change stations from a keypad located across the house from the av receiver. I am open to itunes or jrmc or what ever for the music server software. i could stream via sage extenders but i do not really want to stream music through the tv's i want to send it to in ceiling speakers. One of the zones will be outside on my patio as well.

Thanks, Kevin
 
Kevin,
I use HomeSeer to control my receiver that is located in my wiring closet using IR and an Ocelot to adjust inputs to the receiver. I use the iTunes HomeSeer plugin to control playback from my touch screens and the touch screens are controlled via HSTouch. I have 8 sets of speakers in my house all with in wall volume controls so each room has a manual volume control to manage the sound level. I do not have my music / HA announcments zoned. When HomeSeer speaks for example the incoming callerID it goes to all zones. The iTunes HomeSeer plugin mutes the music when an announcment is made and then resumes the music. Here's a screen shot of (not my) an iTunes interface on HSTouch to give you an example of what can be done using HSTouch if you have touch screens.
http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.php?p=8...mp;postcount=52
 
I have a 6 zone whole house audio setup. Each zone can play anything from my 850+ CD library or any radio station I select. J River Media Center is one of the best database/player applications out and can easily be the foundation for a variety of solutions. I personally use Netremote for my GUI front end client with my Nowplaying 2008 skin I created and Girder 5 for the home automation side of things. Musiclobby also supports JRMC as do a number of others.


Take a look at my showcase for much more information.
 
I cheese'd out as far as Multi room audio is concerned. I use the Sonos system, and love it. It's not integrated with HA but I felt that it really didn't need to be. I have 6 Zones and 2 controllers.

Looking at the OP, sonoe may just be what you are looking for. It's simple to set up, you can stream from multiple shares from separate computers/NASes.

You can hide the units for that "clean" look. No HA integration as of yet.
 
Yep it all depends on how much money you want to spend... cheap DIY system like mine or the sky is the limit....
 
I agree with gatchel. After crunching the numbers, you can get 4 audio zones with 2 wireless controllers for $2000 with Sonos (compare this to other multi-zone systems that are not so plug-and-play). If you have an existing amplifier, you can get a ZP90 (line-out only) or, if you have an area in need of amplification a ZP120 provides speaker level out. It can play all of your stored music files and also supports line-in audio from "old school" technology. The system is plug-and-play and always works. Aside from the wireless controllers, you can control the system from a PC with the included software. Plus you can link zones at will with complete synchronization.

Keep in mind, Sonos is meant to be a distributed system and not centralized. If you need to centralize your ZonePlayers due to pre-existing wiring, a ZoneBridge can be added to allow the wireless controllers to maintain a connection to the the ZonePlayers on the fringe of their wireless range. My system is currently centralized and instead of a ZoneBridge, I have integrated the Sonos system into my HA application to allow distributed control. Using a program called HouseBot, I am able to control all of my ZonePlayers functions (browsing available music, building a queue, transport control, display album art, etc.), though control of music services (Rhapsody, Pandora, etc.) is not exposed. Music services could be added in the future...but I just don't use them so there isn't a huge impetus for me to reverse-engineer and add the code.

My approach to HA was to add media first...primarily audio. Sonos was the most robust system when I purchased about 2 years ago and it remains so today. Tapping into the system for external control was not that difficult and I see Sonos as being a big player in distributed audio into the future.

Osler
 
If you are open to use itunes, you can use "remote" to control your playlists any where in your house from your iphone/itouch. "Remote" is
a free app in the apple store. Setup is a snap and takes no longer than 2 minutes if you are already sharing your playlists.

Your PC can be one of the source for your music that is controlled by iphone ("remote").
I am also using three soundbridges to stream music through my Russound system as I have
18 zones throughout the house. If you don't have
a centralized sound distributed system, just buy a soundbridge for each room/zone/patio. They will
connect to your itune (via WiFi in your LAN) which allows you to select songs locally from your
computer's mp3 library. If you go this route, you can also use another
iphone app "Rokuremote" ($2.99) to connect to multiple soundbridges locally and select individual
playlist for each soundbridge you have.



i know there are many diff options for this but it all confuses me so any suggestions is much appreciated to accomplish my spimplistic goal. I have a yamaha htr 6030 in my den. I want to be able to stream from it and also from my pc music library to multiple rooms. I am just having a hard time grasping how i can select playlists or songs in general from my pc at the desired zone. The remote subject is also giving me a headache as far as how to say change stations from a keypad located across the house from the av receiver. I am open to itunes or jrmc or what ever for the music server software. i could stream via sage extenders but i do not really want to stream music through the tv's i want to send it to in ceiling speakers. One of the zones will be outside on my patio as well.

Thanks, Kevin
 
Back
Top