Whole house sound system?

[jarvis82]

Just bought a house, one which needs extensive modernisation and renovation.

Been wondering about how to go about making a subtle (its a period property) sound system that will allow music to be played in every room at the same time (if desired) - i.e. if I'm wandering around the house the music is playing throughout.

Figured that as the ceilings are going to replaced at some stage in the next few months, that I might whack a single sensible speaker into the ceiling in each room that I want music piped into. A mate did this, but only in his living room for his TV.

I want something that can take music from my PC (spotify, itunes etc), but am a little lost.

Any advice or ideas?

Cheers.

 

[xs2man]

Sonos will do what you want. But I hate the Sonos ecosystem personally.

Maybe some of the other manufacturers may do something similar. But it sounds like you want proper, in-built speakers. Which would likely require proper amps to drive them. In that case, you may need to consider matching all your amps so that you might get some consistency there. For example, maybe Yamaha's Music Cast might be able to achieve what you are wanting. But perhaps other manufacturers may also be able to do similar. But to properly acheive what you are wanting, you will need all amps from the same manufacturer, and for their eco-system to work as you are wanting.

That sounds like something I would want too, to be honest. But most people will say it's just easier to go with Sonos. But I don't like it mostly because of the poor interface for my needs (the Sonos "app" on my PC infrequently updates it's library for example), and the sound is much inferior to that from a proper set-up. So I wouldn't personally go that way. But in as far as Spotify and iTunes go, it probably would be the easiest way to achieve your desired outcome.

 

[lucid]

There are literally dozens of solutions for this. At the top-end of the market there are brands such as Linn (Knekt), Naim (Mu-So), Crestron (Sonnex), Living Control, Netstreams, Sanus, B&O etc where you could very easily spend £5K-£10K or more per room. In the mid-market you have Bluesound, Sonos, Denon (Heos), Yamaha (Musicast), Russound, Pure (Jongo), Proficient, Control4, Speakercraft, Niles, Bose (Soundplay) etc where per room prices range up to £1.5K. At the entry-level you have DIY products such as Raspberry Pi, or 'part-solution' products such as Chromecast, Apple Airplay etc.

Some of the above are purely based on some kind of small active speaker that either links via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to its neighbours for a basic "play the same thing everywhere" solution. That might seem okay as an idea at first, but once you've lived with a system for a while then you'll get fed-up of running all over the house to turn on speakers or turn them off. The better solutions have some kind of control method (usually an app now) that allows you to select which speakers play and at what volume individually or collectively. As you live with a system more then you start to realise that the other people(?) in your house might want to listen to something of their own while you listen to something different. That gets us further in to the question of how easy a system is to live with, and particularly for those non-techy significant others who were wondering why you spent money on this instead of decorating or doing up the garden etc.

In the end though it all comes down to money. There's a kind of critical mass amount to spend to get the basic creature comfort boxes ticked such as usability, quality, compatibility and flexibility. If your budget is under £500 per room then I'd suggest forgetting about in-ceiling speakers. By the time you've worked out that cheap in ceilings are cheap for a reason, and that you need fire hoods for some of them, and amps and a decent control interface then you'll also understand that you should have saved your money for a proper solution rather than a hotch-potch of budget bits-n-pieces that you'll forever be on Tech Support duties for to keep it running. For around £150-£300 there are any number of stand-alone powered speakers with network music features. The Sonos Play 1 and Play 3 speakers spring to mind instantly.

If we go back to in-ceilings as an idea; one speaker per room probably isn't going to cut it unless each room is quite small. The sound from a speaker firing down on to a listener can be quite directional and localised for a start. The other issue is that unless it's a single point stereo speaker then you'll need to work out some why to make the sound mono. If you don't do that then music playing from that speaker will only get half of the stereo mix and it'll sound odd. There are ways around this, but each solution has its own knock-on effects.

For a fixed in-ceiling speaker system with up to 6 independent stereo zones your budget should be around £5K for a self-install system. Stand-alone mains powered multi-room speakers could cover the same area and provide the same flexibility for under £1000

 

[jarvis82]

Seriously concise replies - and just the information I need - thanks.

Since all the money is going to be tied up in renovating the house, there is no way that I would be spending loads on a house-wide music system that might in the end only get minimal use.

Maybe I'll have a look at the Sonos system, as £150-£300 is certainly more my budget!

Thanks again for the concise info - greatly appreciated.

 

[hornetstinger]

Multi room could cost so much, you may find it cheaper to have multiple seperate hifis in each room, say a T-amp and bookshelf speakers, with a media streamer of some kind.

I use a couple of squeezeboxes (nas has the squeezecenter service) one for the hifi other home theatre, and the third audio system is avr (which has dnla features) or a computer which plays audio from the server nas

 

[lucid]

Multi room could cost so much, you may find it cheaper to have multiple seperate hifis in each room, say a T-amp and bookshelf speakers, with a media streamer of some kind.

I use a couple of squeezeboxes (nas has the squeezecenter service) one for the hifi other home theatre, and the third audio system is avr (which has dnla features) or a computer which plays audio from the server nas

With respect, a bunch of devices that can access media storage and do a bit of streaming is a country mile away from what proper multi-room system does.

 

[ShivP]

Chromecast audios + whatever speakers/amps

 

[hornetstinger]

With respect, a bunch of devices that can access media storage and do a bit of streaming is a country mile away from what proper multi-room system does.

Not really as you can sync music with media streamer across rooms.

 

[lucid]

Not really as you can sync music with media streamer across rooms.

Alright then, how do you plan to switch on/off the Hi-fi or AV system that your streamer is attached to without either walking in to that room or involving some kind of add-on control system?

 

[hornetstinger]

Alright then, how do you plan to switch on/off the Hi-fi or AV system that your streamer is attached to without either walking in to that room or involving some kind of add-on control system?

12v trigger.

Also a complete all in one multi channel amp means you won't be able to have discrete music- I can play two different tracks, or play two different sources at the same time if I want.

 

[lucid]

12v trigger.

Directly from a Squeezebox? Not unless you involve 3rd party hardware you can't. That's what I meant by control system.

Besides, Squeezebox is a dead product and most multi-room music customers aren't interested in creating a Heath Robinson pile of interface boxes or doing command line coding. It's an exercise in reinventing the wheel for masochists.

12v trigger.

Also a complete all in one multi channel amp means you won't be able to have discrete music- I can play two different tracks, or play two different sources at the same time if I want.

My apologies but you're showing your ignorance in this subject.

"Multi-channel amp" doesn't automatically mean an AV receiver. Something like a Niles 1230a is 12 mono channel amps in a single box. That's a true multichannel amp. It can be configured in a variety of different ways. e.g. 6 stereo pairs. Feed it with 6 Sonos Connects (as I do regularly when installing multi-room music systems for customers) and I can then run any song in any room; 6 individual songs playing, or make any on-the-fly zone groups I wish perming any combination of a 6x6 matrix. This is done through the Sonos control app.

Six Sonos Play1 speakers can achieve exactly the same combination, and all for around £160 per room. Proper multi-room, that works, no fuss, no drama, and with decent ongoing tech support from the manufacturer.

 

[hornetstinger]

I'm aware of 12 channel power amps.

Sure Squeezebox is end of life, but it still works, Sonos was, and is still far more expensive - and not open at the time (Sonos could not output DTS or support Replaygain) plus you needed the expensive remote control, didn't have VFD. The SB had VFD.

I use multi-channel amps, but I don't have multi-channel pre-amps to control each one seperatly or input wise.

It really depends on how much of a multi-room system you want, from Creston touch control, or simply just having two hifi systems. Maybe just two different media streamers. You may not want to have long speaker cable routed from the amp to other rooms.

There are many ways to have multi-room, I personally don't have a problem with the two system approach- the extra cost of a single amp, cable routing, expensive controller. Plus I just switch on the amps I need. And having the pre-amop in the location of the room aids in ease of connecivity.

A t-amp in the location could be one option, it's nice and cheap, close to the location of the room and powerful enough.

 

[lucid]

I don't doubt that Squeezebox still works. I've got bits of Hi-Fi over 40 years old that still work too, so that isn't the issue. It's finding something that fits the OPs needs.

Bearing in mind that he said the house was to undergo a major refurbishment, then running cables really wouldn't be an issue. Also, given that the original requirement was for in-ceiling speakers, and something that was to be discrete, then the idea of bits of gear in each room to run local speakers probably wasn't going to be a runner. Or to put it a different way, I've been to enough jobs over the last 10-15 years to know that the average customer looking for something subtle or discrete isn't going to say yes to a pile of source and amplification gear wired in to a wall socket unless there's an absolutely critical reason for it to be like that. For the "I just want a bit of music around the house, mate " crowd then that's really a non-starter.

I looked long and hard at SB versus Sonos back in 2006-2007. What I found was that for the average Joe the pluses of SB weren't important, and they were offset by the negatives. For example, the higher quality audio of SB didn't matter to the typical customer. Their music library back then was geared around iPod/iTunes and they didn't have a Hi-Fi good enough to tell the difference between 128kbps vs 192 let alone something better. Yes, SB had a VFD, but just like the SB remote the Sonos controller was colour, worked like an iPod and it showed them album art. It was also partly waterproof, so it really didn't matter that the players had no display. The killer for SB though was the need to run a server app. Sonos didn't. "Here's your basic NAS drive, or your PC, Mr Customer. Yes, Sonos reads from it directly."

People that bought SB were tech-heads doing their own installations and getting involved in debates about how this or that power supply improved the audio quality of the analogue out... yadda yadda yadda. There's nothing wrong with that, same as there's nothing wrong with running a classic car as everyday transport so long as you're prepared to get oily hands on a regular basis. Other customers just wanted to get in, turn the key, and play with the toys on a nice reliable journey. They had the money to buy something that did that. There's your typical early Sonos customer.

Now the range has expanded to include a pretty reasonable-sounding multi-room speaker that enjoys all the benefits of the Sonos ecosystem including full app control, a broad range of support for online streaming, integration with Spotify, multi-platform support with iOS and Android, enough power in the music library handling for the majority of customers, and all for around £160 a pop. It does what most customers want, is stupidly easy to use, and for a starting price that's not far off the dumb stereo systems in Currys.

As for the wired system, No, you don't need a multi-channel pre-amp. You're over-complicating things. In the example I gave of a 6 room system there would be 6 zone players, each one dedicated to a room or an area; and each one it's own pre-amp just as the SB is. Output is analogue and Optical Digital and Coax Digital. Can be fixed or variable output (software selected). Each zone player has an analogue input too - 6 analogues in total then in this example - and ech analogue is accessible to 1/some/all of the other zone player too. e.g. pipe in Sky, watch the big match on the main TV, route that sound to the kitchen too/whole ground floor/whole house. Or, Group rooms or zones to segregate the house e.g. Music for the BBQ on the patio plays in the kitchen, the lounge, and the downstairs loo. At the same time the boys are upstairs gaming and playing music off their iPhones and Samsungs in to half of the 1st floor speaker while the girls are doing their own thing through the speakers in another bedroom and ensuite. Come 11 o'clock mum takes control to reign in the sound level from all the zones. Total control. Complete flexibility. All of that I just described, with the exception of a TV audio input, can be done via the £160 speakers too.

You and me are on the same page about wanting a lot of input flexibility. I use a desktop and a laptop rather than an iPad because I need to connect things for programming and calibration and diagnostics. Can't do that with a tablet. But I know plenty of folk who are happier with an iPad because all they do is FB, Amazon, Ebay, Youtube Netflix and play Candy Crush. Each to their own. What I try to avoid is telling someone like that that they must have a laptop, even if it's cheaper, because I know it's a message they just don't want to hear.

 

[Beansprout]

In my old house, which I'm also gradually modernising, I have a mixture of Sonos Connects (to my proper hifi - hardly a high-end one but it still sounds great to me - better than Sonos), Sonos Connect:Amps to ceiling speakers in a couple of rooms, and Sonos Play 1 / 5s around the place depending on room size. Mostly Play 1s. And the occasional Sonos Sub so that you get some bass in more or less most of the place.

Works brilliantly with the Sonos app, and now with Alexa support I can shout at it from the jacuzzi!! And guests can control the system if they desire which saves me a job. And between Spotify and Amazon music it's very likely anyone's song choice will be available. I've not bought any music in years but I do have a hundred or so classic albums in a local library.

After spending a bit of time on the network layout the system just works too, even if speakers are turned off (eg someone goes to sleep in a room with a speaker) and when there's a power cut everything comes back up in about 10min.

I learnt a bit about cheap ceiling speakers though - in the Kitchen I replaced the old ones and put in some £130 ~14cm diameter Kef speakers and whilst they sound good, obviously bass is very limited and the sound is reasonably directional, but the Kef UniQ works to an extent so no need to point the tweeters.

I solved the bass problem by moving the sub in the next room closer but I'm looking into ceiling subwoofers....I was out in town one day and stumbled upon a bar with a brilliant ceiling system install so that's shown me what is possible. The B&W install speakers are er not cheap though....1k+ per pair....

The only thing I don't like is the new Sonos app. Everything is upside down. But I can live with that.

 

[daz]

I am using Chromecast audios for a similar set up. I've added some Google Home minis in a few locations as well, and with grouping the speakers together I can tell Google - "Hey google, play Ed Sheeran on 'inside speakers' " and it will then play in the rooms I've grouped together with those Chromecasts. The price of the Chromecast audios is such that it means I'm happy to move to something else in the future should it appear, but it also means I'm not tied to speaker brands etc. Quite impressed really.