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New construction multi-zone audio distribution help

post #1 of 7
8/24/12 at 5:40pm
Thread Starter 
My wife and I are building a new home and would like to pre-wire home audio. I've been reading a lot in the forums and most talk about distributing video as well. I plan on running cat6 for network, rg6 for tv, and maybe some cat5e for misc. I haven't planed that out yet...wanted to tackle one thing at a time. I figured I could just run extra cat5e/cat6 for HDbaseT if I wanted to distribute video, but as of right now I don't (just one tv in the "Home Theater" room) So for audio I just need a simple 5-6 zone setup with the following goals:

This is our first home buying/building experience and my first time trying to plan this out so any suggestions are valuable. (I am kind of a computer/network geek, so I would consider myself somewhat technically inclined, just not when it comes to audio...)
  • Have one central source to distribute the audio
  • Be able to have different music playing in different zones & be able to sync zones together
  • Be able to control what plays where using an iphone/ipad
  • Sources of music to include: a file server, iphone (preferably wireless, bluetooth?), pandora or similar internet streaming

The question being, what do I need to do this? I ultimately would like to control it from an iphone/ipad or tablet, but control units in each room wouldn't be out of the question either.

I've seen suggestions of NuVo, Sonos, HTD, and some others. Nuvo is most likely out of my price range and Sonos looks like it is just wireless.
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post #2 of 7
8/24/12 at 8:09pm
Welcome to the forum!

Get the wiring correct, and wire more cat5e/cat6 than you think you'll need. It is way too handy, and it'll never be this cheap to run cables as it is now. Same for speaker/zone wiring - do any room that could be an audio zone now or in the future.

Sonos can run on wireless, but can also be centrally located or paired with a multi-room amplifier. If NuVo is out of your budget, look at HTD.com coupled with a Sonos unit or two as sources.

Jeff
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post #3 of 7
8/25/12 at 9:41am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jautor View Post

Welcome to the forum!
Get the wiring correct, and wire more cat5e/cat6 than you think you'll need. It is way too handy, and it'll never be this cheap to run cables as it is now. Same for speaker/zone wiring - do any room that could be an audio zone now or in the future.
Sonos can run on wireless, but can also be centrally located or paired with a multi-room amplifier. If NuVo is out of your budget, look at HTD.com coupled with a Sonos unit or two as sources.
Jeff

Thanks for the reply!

I do plan on wiring more than I need. This might be a stupid question, but for the cable runs that are for future use, do you just leave them in the wall? or actually designate a spot in the wall and just put a blank wall plate?

For the multiroom audio, have you seen any receivers that are bluetooth capable? and IP controllable?
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post #4 of 7
8/25/12 at 12:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by salvo2002 View Post

I do plan on wiring more than I need. This might be a stupid question, but for the cable runs that are for future use, do you just leave them in the wall? or actually designate a spot in the wall and just put a blank wall plate?

You can do either. In places where I knew I was likely to add a keypad in the future, I left a blank wallplate. In other areas that I wired that I was less certain would be used, or places where a blank would be unattractive, I buried the cables in the wall and documented the location(s) with photos and measurements.

For example, my guest bedroom had a blank plate at switch height for a keypad (I knew I'd put one there later, and I did). I wired high up on a wall in the master bathroom for a TV outlet. Don't know if I'll ever do that, so the cables are buried in the wall.
Quote:
For the multiroom audio, have you seen any receivers that are bluetooth capable? and IP controllable?

There are a number of bluetooth options, with more coming, but AirPlay is considerably more popular. Lots of them are IP controllable as well, though most are intended to be controlled from a vendor-supplied mobile app.

Jeff
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post #5 of 7
8/25/12 at 12:49pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jautor View Post

You can do either. In places where I knew I was likely to add a keypad in the future, I left a blank wallplate. In other areas that I wired that I was less certain would be used, or places where a blank would be unattractive, I buried the cables in the wall and documented the location(s) with photos and measurements.
For example, my guest bedroom had a blank plate at switch height for a keypad (I knew I'd put one there later, and I did). I wired high up on a wall in the master bathroom for a TV outlet. Don't know if I'll ever do that, so the cables are buried in the wall.
There are a number of bluetooth options, with more coming, but AirPlay is considerably more popular. Lots of them are IP controllable as well, though most are intended to be controlled from a vendor-supplied mobile app.
Jeff

Cool, sounds good. I've been looking at the HTD options and they seem to have what I want at a decent price. Have you or anyone you know used HTD products before? They seem to get fairly good reviews....
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post #6 of 7
8/25/12 at 4:40pm
There are many folks here on the forum who purchased HTD systems. I've never heard anything negative about them here... The big "limitation" vs. Nuvo / Russound is the lack of full metadata support on the keypads. But the HTD systems are a great value.
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post #7 of 7
8/25/12 at 4:58pm
Thread Starter 
Found the HTD owners thread, and a few other ones. I am going to give them a call on Monday and see what they suggest for what I want to accomplish. Right now from what I've researched on their website I like the Lync 6 package, but will probably end up with the MC-66 with KC7 keypads since it will fit in my budget better. Thanks for all the help.
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