Whole Home

[JonW]

I disagree.  The trouble with the AVRs, and I have some Denons (although not THIS year's model, but last).  The steps necessary to go between zones and source, especially if one of them is a network source or airplay, is tediously unreliable.  Denon's engineers just "don't get it".  They're great AVRs otherwise.
 
That and define "quick" when it comes to apps... and most especially when it comes to spouses, guests or children.  Honestly, I'd LOVE for it to work but it just... doesn't.
 
But I'm willing to "agree to disagree".

There must be some differences then between the new models and the previous because it is seriously easy and quick.  The renamed sources on the amp also appear in the app.  The "Zones" screen in the app gives me power, volume, mute and source selection of each zone and if I'm playing Pandora, XM or something from my media server, the built in player app easily handles all the content selection.
 
For spouse/kids/guests, we have one of our old iphones in the living room as a remote control.
 

 

[IVB]

Amazon Echo y'all.  I'm in the midst of moving all GUI functionality to Alexa. No need to worry about WiFi cxn dropouts when everything is voice recognition.
 
And, i'm sure HomeSeer must be like this too, but CQC has no need for IFTTT, its just straight from Amazon Cloud->my CQC server. 
 
Here's a video I shot last night to show off Echo->CQC->RememberTheMilk. CQC sends an email to RTM to add an item to the list. Wicked fast. And no need to pull out the phone.
 
https://youtu.be/yyZ44kOVbmM

 

[pete_c]

Yup; with Homeseer Spud (3rd party author) wrote an Amazon Alexa plugin and a Kinect plugin.  No IFTTT involved.
 
The Alexa voice comes from a satellite Windows 10 mini PC going to the zoned audio and the VR is on the Kinect (two VRs) which talks to the mothership.
 
I can tell Grace (Kinect-MS SAPI) to shut off or turn on Alexa. 

 

[Neurorad]

When I had a speaker selector box, I never touched it. I used it for impedance matching only. All zones were always on, I controlled on/off at the VCs.

If you have a Kill-o-watt, you could find out how expensive, or cheap, it would be.

 

[drvnbysound]

A) form factor irrelevant if its in a closet, like mine (or that guys).
B )  *TOTALLY* agreed on Echo connectivity. I absolutely cannot stand the echo sound, and I have 2 of them / ordering a 3rd very soon. Its just a bridge to CQC and means for voice control, smartphones for control is two thousand and late ;-)
 
If Echo came out with a product with line out capabilities, then any signal sensing amp & speaker of your choice would do. And you could rack mount all the amps, make them digital so they're itty bitty, and bada bing Sonos is in deep trouble. Alas it requires running the line out back to the SMC but we're all old pros at that by now.

 
When I say form factor I am considering physical size and total volume as well. I'm going to be limited to what is originally designed as a coat closet (which will be a central A/V component closet - I'm talking a 1.5' x 2.5' closet or similar). Unfortunately, no basement or similar here. So, I'm just not willing to give up that much space to disparate amplifiers when I could get a single shelf mount amplifier to do the same thing. Not to mention all the power wiring that would be included in wiring up 6-8 Sonos devices.

EDIT: This is what I've got now.

Hard to tell there because of the lighting but top to bottom was: speaker selector, AVR, STB, PS3, DVD, and a UPS. The DVD was replaced with a STV HD200 and an AppleTV.

 

[drvnbysound]

When I had a speaker selector box, I never touched it. I used it for impedance matching only. All zones were always on, I controlled on/off at the VCs.

If you have a Kill-o-watt, you could find out how expensive, or cheap, it would be.

 
Sure. That's not an option with how I am wired today, because not all zones have VC's. With our open floor plan, if I were to do that, I would have 3 VCs in the same area and that wasn't something we were wanting to do (i.e. wall clutter), particularly when the AVR that controls this is also in the same room.
 
We don't "mind" using the speaker selector, we just have to make it a point to adjust it before using the system, which is a lot of the reason why we don't use it all that often. For me that comes down to wanting a real whole-home system that has independently controlled zones vs. a hack system like we have now.

 

[wkearney99]

For us I only used two Sonos:Connect units.  I figured we wouldn't need more than two to be used as a source at any one time.  I was right.  There wasn't enough space in the old house, nor were our listening habits such that we ever had more than one source in use most of the time.  I was only during parties that we'd play something different outside than inside.
 
Now that our child is 7 and we have a larger house there's greater likelihood of using more than 2 sources, and potentially a fourth to allow for inside/outside/rec room/kids room.  Because there ain't no way I'm shelling out for one source each for 16 different zones!   There's just no need.  Nor is there anything out there than can reliably synchronize that many different sources.  Mere milliseconds difference is annoying enough to be a show-stopper.  Instead when you need whole house from the same source it's just simpler to go old-school and share the source at a distribution amp. 

 

[pete_c]

Yup; here have 12 sources and only ever use 2 sources if anything.

 

[IVB]

oh sure, here too. But the issue is usability. Turn zone on, pick the source thats not working, send source to that zone.  Sure its possible to make it simple, but its waaaay simpler with a plethora of Sonos, 1 per zone. Then you merge the "source" and "zone". Stupidly expensive but i'm sick of the solutions that require more than one click. Plus with the Echo I can just use my voice, and everyone loves listening to my voice.
 
BTW this is all theoretical, i'm assuming Sonos has worked out how to sync audio across devices. I'm planning on buying a Play:1 tomorrow as one room doesn't have in-room, I have a Sonos:Connect linked to a NuVo Concerto so I can do a test run this weekend.

 

[batwater]

I currently have a gen 2 Sonos 5 in 1 room and a Sonos Connect hooked up to the "good" stereo system in another on the same floor and the audio is perfectly synced between the 2 rooms. The Play 5 is wireless, Connect is wired. Only a sample of 2 but 1000% improvement over my prior Logitech Media Server based solution. Like you I'm tired of the complexity and just want something that is easy to work and doesn't frustrate my wife to use. Simplicity wins out over cost.
 
I'm waiting on a blue tooth receiver to hook up to the Sonos 5 line in to use to use as a secondary audio input from the computer located in the same area. Avoiding going cabled due to recent lightning hit.  

 

[pete_c]

Cabling here took a while baby steps one room at a time; really never much of a rush and prioritize what was wired when.  The most difficult was outside deck and the garage even though they were utilized a lot.  The two locations were wired last.
 
Here the WAF isn't related much to sound as its just recorded (DTivo'd) cooking shows for her and audio for me.  I sync the video from the family room to one side of the kitchen to the other side of the kitchen (not really utilized that much) and the laundry room (well and utilize same zones for TV audio.  (or upstairs which never really is utilized - IE: we utilize the master bedroom to sleep in - never television and always audio).  Audio is just syncing from the 2nd floor hallway, office, master bedroom and master bath engulfing the are with sound.  Works this way for her and works for me.  Good insulated walls and solid core doors help isolating the sound from one place to another place in the house.
 
The push to escalate the surge / lighting protection came from one lightning strike taking out the irrigation system (two Rain8Nets with some 100 feet or so of serial cable to a Digi Edgeport - only took out the irrigation and not the digi stuff).  That said same lightning "bolt" took out LCD TV's, alarm panel and microwave oven next door so I guess I was a bit lucky.  I also did add separate surge / lighting protection on the outside HVAC - which was a PITA to have to rewire from scratch.
 
I see the convenience of wireless speakers cuz it is a PITA to wire in wall speakers.  That said this stuff is still always using the AC power in your home and if that isn't protected it can get a little jolt of lightning whether the speakers are wireless or not.  Lightning has not struck my outdoor wired deck speakers yet that I know of (they still are working fine after XX years).

 

[batwater]

...  That said this stuff is still always using the AC power in your home and if that isn't protected it can get a little jolt of lightning whether the speakers are wireless or not.  Lightning has not struck my outdoor wired deck speakers yet that I know of (they still are working fine after XX years).

 
Yup!  Anything electronic here over a certain $ amount is put on a UPS.

 

[drvnbysound]

I wouldn't expect any issues with the MyRussound app (Google Play, and iTunes) which is setup to select a zone and select your source; the same is offered for the HiFi2 (Google Play, iTunes). Coming from the system we are using now, this would be multitudes better and we would use the system a lot more often. My wife has already seen the apps and she is totally on board with what is offered - no issues there.
 
I've looked at just about every system on the market over the past 2 years or so and that's really why my OP wasn't a general request for "what should I use?" because I know there are a lot of systems out there are most are going to like the one they have for the reasons they selected them. I purposely made the request to be between the Russound and the HiFi2 because I'm not going with any other options for one reason or another - I've narrowed my list down to these 2 systems.

 

[pete_c]

Here the audio hardware, source switching et al has remained untouched. 
 
I have just added internet music / audio sources to my touchscreen tablets such that I just define buttons for single sources or applications which works for me and gives me a choice.  I have also integrated the hardware switching and sources on one tabletop touchscreen goofing around a bit with it.

 

[tmbrown97]

To each their own... I agree, the stack of Sonos devices doesn't appeal to me, and though I have no evidence in front of me to support this, I would expect their audio to be compressed... that whole synchronization of audio sources must come at some sort of loss.  However, they have the superior app so if the simplicity and usability is the #1 concern, that shows why it appeals to so many.
 
There are other options that should be far superior technically speaking while not having as great of apps or simplicity of tying in online services or grouping zones... ie Russound, HiFi, Nuvo.  I'm still in the camp where these are better options.  Or even ABUS if your needs aren't that demanding.  I like the instant change from a wallpad as you walk by rather than firing up an app on the phone any day.  And though you'll likely never use 12 zones, I'm sure it's nice to be able to run the in-room music player or audio device over the better speakers/amp since they're there, vs whatever local speakers... 
 
Now for the OP - personally I like the Russound the best - although I like the look of the Nuvo keypads better... but Russound's latest model makes them very unfriendly to DIY... so from that standpoint, if HiFi2 suits your needs, I'd go that way.  Very small installation footprint - doesn't even need a rack... and friendly enough to the DIYer that you shouldn't meet any real restrictions.