MP3 Audio - Whole House  

robertmee,

I have almost the exact same setup - 2x 6640s for the whole house audio. I would highly recommend getting the audiotron to interface with the kustom. They work great together. Here are some of the nice features that I like about the combo:

1. You can program the Kustom keypad number keys to trigger playlists/favorites on the audiotron.

2. You can use audiotron to pipe net-radio through out the house. I use this alot.

3. You can use the audiotron as an alarm clock. Mine plays "Forever Young" from Alphaville. I feel a bit old lately. : )

4. The audiotron is relatively cheap and saves you a lot of hassle dealing with girder/IRman ans so on.

5. You can use your Audreys to connect to audiotron's wepage and control the system.

6. Audiotron comes with the remote that you can just point to any kustom keypad and control the system.

Here are some of the cons of the combo:

1. The audiotron's analog out is kind of weak. You have to crank up the volume relatively high compared to the other source inputs.

2. There is no Video feedback. Sometimes the Audiotron is slow to react - especially starting up net-radio. You wind up pressing the same key multiple times since there is no confirmation.

3. The audiotron's web interface is a bit weak.

But overall, the combo is a winner. I find it far superior to just using a HTPC and well worth the approx $250 price tag. In fact, I am thinking about getting a few more for the second and third zones.

Feel free to contact me with any additional questions.

Here are the answers:

1) Yes it is networkable. In fact, you still need your PC as the storage device. It scans your network for all audio files and plays them off the network drives. It does not have any storage of its own.

2) There is no local storage. It justs plays whatever is available on your local network. What I did was to convert all my CDs to mp3s and I play everything through the audiotron. My CD player is sitting idle now. It can scan multiple machines so you can have as much storage as you like. In my case, I have access to over a terabyte of storage but my mp3 collection is only about 4GB now.

3) The radio does require broadband access. I have my kustom keypad programmed for certain stations. For example "1" will play classic, "2" will play hard-rock and so on. When you press the button, the Audiotron will tune in to the station you select. It works fine through routers/firewall, mine is going through a linksys now.

As for controlling the Kustom, I have not had any need to automate it yet although I do see the need to do it sometime in the future. For now, the audiotron pretty much does all my automation for me. In the case of the alarm, it has options to set the start time and and ramp up time.

In response to A), I my idea is to dedicate a audiotron per room/rooms. So, my master br/bath would have a dedicated Audiotron, my kids rooms would have another, and third for the common areas such as living, family, kitchen. Therefore, I would pretty much leave the source selection alone. Since I converted all my music to mp3 format, I really don't have more than one source to deal with. It may be different in you case.

B) the audiotron has this feature built in.

C) the audiotron has this feature built in.

With the audiotron, you can automate your system via http which opens up even more possibilities then I/R. I am working on some perl scripts to do automation like waking up my kids with different music and time depending on day of the week and playing some soft classical music in their bedrooms when they are about to go to sleep. There are lots of third party apps for the audiotron as well. I think it definitely will be worth your while to take a look.

My ignorance continues to raise its head as I seem to ask the same questions all the time. I would like a system that gives me a one spot control of all zones. Meaning I can stand at one keypad/touchscreen/whatever and pick and chose which zones are on/off, which source is on the zones that are on, and the volume of each zone that is on separately. Since my research (just started the last few days) seems to say this is not doable (without going creston, etc) in the DYI systems, it must be that it is not something that is asked for. I am trying to find the flaw in my logic of wanting these features. So, I will spill it again. I don't have a good location to put a keypad for a couple of the zones, so I want a central panel to do that. If I go with "all zones" control (which I seem to find is doable), I don't want to have to run to the zones I don't want on to turn them off.

Now to get on thread, does the Kustom have an interface that will give me that capability? if so, what equipment and if not, is there some direction I should be going (Crestron, Elan, etc.)? I may break down and decide I have to go high end but my issue is programming. I don't mind the initial setup. But if I want to add a simple component, or whatever, I want to reprogram myself.

Thanks in advance. I will get there eventually.

Thanks for the reply. I guess your solution just highlights that what I want really isn't "off the shelf" available. I may just back off my wants and go with local mechanical control. I too am looking at whole house MP3 with Juke box capable type touch screen. Maybe I concentrate on that aspect of my "toy". On the Kustom, what is the amp rating? is it 20 watts per channel? if so, are you happy with that size? I was wanting more in the 40 range as I want a little more than background music in some areas. I guess that means I could add another amp for those areas.

Thanks again, I will continue to seek, listen and learn.

Kustom has a master control panel which you can use to control all zones at once. However, it will not allow you to control individual zones remotely.

I find that it is not as much of a handicap as you would expect. You learn to live with it. For me, I split the zones up into different regions - master br/sitting/bath as one region, other bedrooms as second region, and public areas as third region. You hardly will ever want to play the same source across all the regions at the same time except maybe for parties. I just leave each region in its own source so when I play something in my region one, region two and three are not affected and likewise when I play something in the kitchen, I am not disturbing the people in the BRs. It is not perfect but it is acceptable for me. I did not think it was worth the exponential cost to get total control as you would get with crestron, elan and so on. You can achieve something similar by controlling the source. Volume and music selection can be done at source level instead of keypad/zone level. Not perfect but not too bad.

Very good point. I guess if you don't go to party mode then only the zones keypad you hit acutally comes on. Maybe I am being a troll here with this one. Now, how do I accomplish the fact that I do not have a good location for 2 of my zones. I know I could just put them together someplace else, but that seems a waste.

Maybe I will get there.

I've been working with a winamp plugin called BrowseAmp. It allows you to control Winamp running on any PC on the network from another PC (audrey would also work) via a web brower interface. By running winamp on multiple PC's (i.e. one for each zone), you could control each of them independently centrally from anywhere using a web interface.

I've developed a skin using HTML code that works really well -- I use it to organize approx. 1,000 CD's, display album art, and create/manage custom playlists. I'd be willing to share this with anyone who's interested.

It's also free. www.browseamp.com

Regards
BB

I distribute one dedicated DSS receiver just for music through my Kustom 6640.

This DSS receiver has all channels blocked except for the music channels.
The way I control the channels is through my TV's. I have a TV in every room that has a keypad so it is very easy to navigate the channel.
I also purchased those X-10 8 button transmitters, those will eventually send an X-10 signal to my Ocelot which will send IR to my Receiver for direct channel entry.

For the MP3 PC I would think that this would also be a good way to select playlists. That is as long as you already have a video distribution in place.

FYI -- you can find some great deals on Crestron, and comparable gear, on Ebay. These three items, for example, would be a great start for what you're trying to do:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3008128739
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3008260935
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3008711550

I would think that "master" control of all zones (volume, source selection, on/off, etc.) would be possible using: (1) a multi-zone preamp with RS-232 control; (2) PC running Girder with the serial plugin; (3) MainLobby or some other GUI for Girder; (4) touchscreen display for the PC; and (5) PC running Media Center 9 or Winamp or other playback software with analog outs from soundcard routed into the whole-house preamp.

In this scenario you could have a touchscreen GUI with complete control over what's playing in each zone, on/off, volume, etc. It would require some setup time to get Girder to control the multizone preamp, and some work with MainLobby to design a friendly GUI, but it's definitely doable. Eventually we'll see the release of MusicLobby to go with MainLobby, which will provide a user-friendly Flash frontend to Media Center 9, giving you complete control over song selection from your media server.

This concept can be expanded to multiple PCs with touchscreens, each running MainLobby and each able to control playback from the main HTPC or server (local instances of MainLobby communicate with Girder on the HTPC via TCP/IP).

- Ken

Here are some screen shots that I did of the system that I put together (described above) using Winamp and the BrowseAmp plug-in.

The first shows the initial screen, which allows you to browse the names of artists of whom I have CD's ("Soundtracks" and "Compilations" are considered artists for organization purposes).

When you click on an artist name, it brings up another screen listing the Album titles from that artist & showing a photo of the artist. This is shown in the second screen.

When you click on an Album name, it brings up a list of songs on that CD & a picture of the album art. This is shown in the third screen.

You can play a song directly by clicking on the title, you can queue up an album by clicking on "select all" and then pressing the "add selected" button.

You can also create, save, and retrieve custom playlists, with selectable shuffle play.

At the top of all screens, there is a "Currently Playing" heading, and at the bottom, there are standard control buttons & volume/mute control.

All of the above can be used to play music on the host PC OR can be used as a control panel from any other PC on the network to remotely control the host PC.

My plan is to create a skin with set of screens that are optimized for the web browser interface of a PocketPC. I would then be able to manage everything remotely via 802.11 wireless network.

All of this is done using standard PC(s), home network, and web browser. The only needed software is Winamp, Browseamp, and the skin (which was created using HTML code).

Regards
BB

2nd Screen

3rd screen.

Sorry for the quality of the screen captures. Forum rules limit size to 640x640, and the screens that I'm using are 1280x1024. The actual screens are very legible.

I just looked at the browseamp program its GREAT. works over the network wonderfully.
and great work on the skin BB
man is this going to Drive my wife nuts!!!!

You're going to need two RG-6 to run analog line level. Yes, you could do it, though hopefully you have solid copper RG-6 which is preferrable.

Ditto for SPDIF. Yes, you could use F to RCA. Or if you want to add another cool tool to your arsenal,
http://www.extron.com/product/produc...it&subtype=66.
http://www.extron.com/product/listbytype.asp?subtype=66

I forget who the original manufacturer is - it is sold with about 20 different names through Liberty Cable, Extron etc. It allows you to make BNC cables, RCA cables etc. without adapters or soldering and uses compression fittings like the Augut tool you are familiar with. Make sure to get the prep tool for it.

You can easily & cheaply run SPDIF audio out of a sound card that provides digital out via coax to a coax digital in on an amplifier/receiver. The Aopen AW850D card has both coax & optical SPDIF out (it includes an optical cable). It costs $29 shipped from Newegg.

Regards
BB

Robert

There really is not such an "item" for say, but an adapter is more what you need.

RS should have what you need.

Dave

isn't that justa mini to RCA adaptor??? mono of course

Is it possible to from my new office PC (SP/DIF out) which has all WMA/MP3 files .... over cat-5+ ethernet, to Audiotron in the entertainment room?

Can you please tell me the connectors at each stage?
I'm really new to this PC-to-stereo stuff.

The cat5+ ethernet wire run is about 70' long - will it degrade quality much?

I have very nice Denon receiver, Energy speakers, and whole house stereo; would like to start hearing the digital music on them.

Stew,

The Audiotron has SPDIF output and will play your WMA/MP3 files without any degradation. The audiotron will use PC file sharing to access the music files from your PC and play it out the SPDIF connection to your Denon.

Do you already have a PC network setup? If so, setting this up will be a piece of cake. If you don't, you will have to enable file-sharing on your PC and setup networking.

thanks.
Yup, have network; familiar with peer file sharing.

How about 75' run degrading ethernet signal?
Any need for an ethernet amplifier or repeater (don't really understand this stuff)?

If you want to just connect two devices you can wire up the cat5 as cross over. Otherwise, you need a hub/switch.