Multiple Wired Speaker Controller...

Tiny Clanger

Tiny Clanger

Tiny Clanger

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19 Oct 2002
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Hi - looking for some help/advice on the following...

A neighbour of ours is in the process of renovating his home and, whilst he had the walls and ceilings plaster-free, had speaker and coax cable runs put in all over the place 'in case it came in handy'. So....he now has several sets of very nice ceiling mounted speakers cabled back to a single point in the house and now needs to work out the best way to set things up. And, as I haven't really got a clue I thought I'd venture a post here! ;)

What he ideally wants to be able to do is have a set up where he can play/stream different stuff to each zone and to be able to control all of this from an iPad. Is there a simple (or viable) solution for these requirements or is it all a bit too complex and require more manual control?

Thanks in advance for any replies,

TC
 
Ideally no more that ~£600 - however, if there's a simple and elegant solution which costs a little bit more I'm sure he would extend that a little bit... Hopefully, that should cover what's required - however, if you were to recommend a 'perfect' solution which was significantly more than this budget I suppose I could at least show him what the art of the possible was (if he was perpared to pay... :))
 
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Ah - okay, what would be the minumum to get that sort of set up?

Or....for example, to control 2 sets of speakers could he get something like a Sonos Connect AMP - or is the power insufficinent to drive long cable runs?

Thanks once again for your help with this...
 
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Okay - so.... the cable runs aren't especially long but the cable is cheap (not quite bell wire but not much better...).

Having had a look around could the solution be something like a Denon CEOL N8 or Marantz MCR 603 with a manual speaker switch? This would be relatively cheap (well, under £400 all up) and give the ability to switch (albeit manually) whilst streaming from an iPad/iPod (the apps for both Denon and Marantz look quite comprehensive....)

Any thoughs/comments gratefully received :)
 
Yes, there has been a bit of 'scope drift' - however, what I'm trying to propose is a solution which meets some of his requirements without spending a significant sum of money. With the speaker switch he could stream music to multiple locations - but the compromise is it's the same music stream. I'm going to nip over and have a chat with him this evening and see what he wants to do...
 
Hi Lucid - yes, it is a bit of a no-win isn't it. Thankfully the situation is the former rather than the latter - as I said at the top of the thread, I'm no expert and (thankfully) didn't advise him what to do in the first place - phew!

In terms of zones, there's currently only 2 (I found out for certain last night :)) - one indoors with 4 speakers and one outdoors with 2 speakers. As a source he's keen to stream music on his iPad or iPhone - and could presumably do the same thing for radio stations. The speaker cable comes back to a central point which is nowhere near his router (I'd thought of using a powerline adaptor to get network connectivity).


So - all in all your ZP100 solution looks best overall and value for money. Thank you very much for taking the time to detail the options and deal with a numpty like me :D

Cheers!

TC
 
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