Multi Room Audio & Radio

Villain

Hi I'm looking for a multi room audio solution which includes radio and internet radio isn't an option.

I was thinking of Sonos with some kind of tuner system but I haven't found anything suitable if anyone can offer any sugestions I'd be grateful.

conax

the Opus 500 system has a radio tuner built in to the main controller and shows the RDS data for the selected station on the wall control panel.

Homer

Hi Irish1,

Need a little more info to give you a better answer?
You say multi room audio but not how many rooms? Are you building/ renovating?
Are you going to be able to run cat5 and speaker cable everywhere you need?
As conax has mentioned the Opus system will give some feedback to the keypad on what station you are listening to?
What do you want/expect the system to do? What other sources do you want to connect to it?
Do you want multi room audio only or does video switching interest you?
Or is it really just the radio you want?
As I said the more info we have the better solution we can suggest.

Villain

Hi Industria thanks for the reply. to answer your questions:

I would say 4 zones
Its a renovation job which I haven't actually seen yet, it's a mates Da's house and I have been told it has been cabled for cat5e and speaker to all room and back to one central point I'm going down to see the house this weekend hopefully, he had someone design a system and pre-cable but the design is hugely over done and the price is crazy so he wants me to help him design a more suitable system.

What he basically wants is the ability to listen to music or radio in 4 zones two at the same time max. The original system had sonos for 9 zones!!

No video switching is required this will be acheived via sky plus been sent rf to each room with master room having an eye for changing channels.

So I suppose what I'm looking for now is a few ideas and then when I get to see the house I can see if those are possible giving the wiring.

I'm also looking at doing something simalar for my own house which I having started building yet. Cheers

Homer

OK,
so based on your answers there are a couple of options to do what you want.
An Abus system will do four zones with an amplified keypad in each room driving a pair of inceiling speakers.
http://www.russound.com/abus.htm
Source equipment centrally located and controlled via infra red pass through on each keypad.
approximately 2k for everything you need... Central hub, 4 keypads, 4 pairs of inceiling speakers, learning remote control and an am/fm tuner!
No display on the keypad unlike the opus but it is a third of the price?
You can of course spend more to get more zones or more functionality on the keypad.
Is there a budget? Or certain features you require?
Nest system up adds about 500 euro and gives you more amplification, nicer keypad and bass/treble controls in each zone.
http://www.russound.com/cas.htm
Cheers

Villain

That Russound looks good industria, I think I'll propose it if the cabling allows, I'll post back when I've seen the cabling.

Industria can you give a guesstimate at how much the following would cost (ball mark figure)

Lighting control for a 5 bed hosue which allows for dimmers in all 5 bedrooms and sitting room and then master control in living/kitchen and Front Door/Hall

Multi-Room sound for 4 zones for Radio and music and also video switcher (Opus 500) and 2 speakers per zone.

Just a guess even would be great, cheers.

Homer

Hi Irish1,

For the Multi-Room audio for 4 zones for Radio and music and also video switcher and 2 speakers per zone there are a few options. Cheapest would be cambridge audio abus system http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/categories.php?CID=37&Title=Multi-room+entertainment
6 audio inputs, 4 zone outputs for audio AND video. Again no feedback to keypad but at a price of approx €2.5k including audio hub, video hub, 4 keypads, 4 pairs in ceiling speakers, learning remote control and fm/am tuner very reasonably priced.
The Opus 500 Series multi-room system for four main zones (rooms), including all keypads, amplifiers, loudspeakers and master controller inc. radio tuner, is approximately €6k
Depends on how much feedback you want to the keypads!
There are also systems in between the two to suit any budget/requirements!
Lighting control is much more difficult to price for.
You say dimmers in all 5 bedrooms, and sitting room, then master control in two locations?
Do you want stand alone dimmers in the bedrooms and scene control in the main living areas or do you want whole house control? All on/off from one keypad, etc?
Without knowing the number of circuits and the lighting types and loads it is very difficult to guesstimate?
There are three options really....
1. Wallbox dimmers. Replace existing light switches (either single/dual circuit) with intelligent stand alone dimmers that work with various lighting types and can be programmed in a basic way. i.e. fade on time, fade off time, delayed fade to off etc. No specialised wiring required whatsoever.
2. Scene control/Mood lighting. Generally for the main living/dining areas where there are multiple circuits and you want to be able to set scenes or create moods using the lights. i.e. dining/movie/reading etc. generally standard wiring does not allow for this as all circuits would be wired back to one location, but there are ways around this.
3. Whole house control. All/most circuits are wired back to a central location and the lighting system can be integrated with your alarm system (external lights flash and internal lights illuminate when alarm is activated) and also linked to an astronomical time clock so exterior lights come on at dusk and off at dawn etc.
I know this is a lot of information and not much in the way of pricing but I hope you understand how difficult it would be to try and guess what it is you want to achieve?
Let me know if you need any more info or if you can narrow down what you want i'll come back to you on it.
Cheers

Red Alert

Personally I'd go for using Commercial HiFi equipment - likely to cost less and a lot of it allows wired remote control.

A company called Cloud in the UK make very good audio switchers/mixers and multichannel power amps. Another crowd called Rane who are based in the US do a similar product lineup. I'd partner that with wall-mount and ceiling speakers (JBL or even TOA).

The downside of this compared to the other systems mentioned in this thread is that you don't have everything as tightly integrated, although the sound quality is likely to be much higher, seen as you could use very high quality speakers and a good amp.

joebre

Hi Red Alert

Tried to google "Cloud" & "Rane"
No luck !
Do you have links ?

Thanks

joebre

byte

www.rane.com
www.cloud.co.uk

Tiesto

a friend was thinking of getting this..

http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/review/2006/03/24/Philips-WACS700-05-Wireless-Music-Station/p1

anyone used it?
experienceS??