Low budget multi-room/source

How many zones and sources are you looking to incorporate. Obviously the more you want, the more expensive it will be

I would probably hold on the the current receiver. As you mentioned, you may want to use it in a zone where you want 5.1/6.1/7.1 sound instead of simply stereo. If it has multi zone ability (2 or 3 zones), then you can probably incorporate in into the larger distribution system.

Assuming back-ground music and a basic, budget system is your need, recommend the NuVo Simplese 4-Source/4-Zone, 15 watts per channel digital amplifier with 4-Keypads. Good basic system for money, though not a lot of power. http://www.nuvotechnologies.com/proz...P-156-0622.pdf

If affordable, Highly recommend SpeakerCraft MZC system. Extremely programmable with IR and A/V input/output assignments.

Audio or video sources? You could put a multichannel sound card ie M-Audio Delta 410, and immediately get 4 concurrent CD sources. JRMC does some mzone/msource stuff, no idea how good it is, but the $75 for the card plus $40 for s/w is pretty cheap.

You need the PC
The delta 410
An amplifier to power the speakers (i like the ma 1235, but you can use ANYTHING)

all mixing for the 410 is done via software (but it is true hardware mixing on the card) So you get seamless/perfectly synced audio for parties OR, can play any source in any zone.

You have 10 channels of output on the card but one is digital (which is good for your living area zone, or wherever you main receiver is as it likely has digital in), the other 4 are analog. It has 1 digital and 1 analog in. Anything can be mixed to anything (except outs remain outs, in's remain ins).

You can use either a couple of those or 1 of those, 1 onboard audio, and 1 soundcard and would have enough In's/outs for most applications (the only caveat is that you will be doing a lot of the VB coding or at least ganking, to customize your setup).....you can get the same or much more functionality than the turn-key solutions, BUT the price is in the frontend.....it takes exponentially more time to set up (initially)....

You dont need J-River by the way...you can use x-lobby for free and it supports multizone.....so if you have an AMP, you can get started for the cost of the 410 and go from there.....

BTW:
X-lobby + mediamonkey (both open source) should be able to do ANYTHING that retail software does.....(just in case you didnt know about mediamonkey...you can get all your album covers and directory structure organized with it, then x-lobby will build a database for you and automatically incorporate it into its front end....)

in re-reading I realized one part may have not been clear...10 outputs, the digital is of course stereo...so thats 2 (but you can send different data to each channel)....the other 8 are either mono or stereo....so 1 delta 410 is good for 5 stereo zones (which in my opinion, stereo in some areas is silly, like bathrooms and rarely used guest bedrooms......I went with 6.5 vs 8" speakers in those areas and mono....sounds fine)..

Correct, 10 outs means a max of 5 pairs of stereo outputs, 10 mono outputs, or any combination of the two.

However, a multi output sound card doesn't really solve your distribution question. It does provide multiple sources (or inputs), but you still need to amplify those sources somehow.

You can simply get a cheap amplifier or receiver for each zone and use the soundcard as your source, but you'll also need to have some sort of IR distribution system so you can control each receiver and have volume, power, and other control from each zone. It is possible, but will take a little more effort to be able to control the computer from each zone (to pick songs, play, pause, etc).

I haven't looked at your current receviers specs to know if they allow multiple source to multiple zones. It sounds like it doesn't from your posts. You said multi-zone, but only one source in your current set up.

The other option is to go with a "whole house" distribution system like the Nuvo Simplese mentioned eariler. The advantage to this type of system is that it provides local zone control via a keypad. That way the IR distribution system is built in already. You'll still have some work cut out in order to control the computer, but it isn't that hard. Basically a USB-UIRT will give you IR control of the computer.

Yes, a multi channel amp is fine. If you simply think the main sourse will be the multiple audio channels out from the computer, then you will have volume control via the computer. However, if you want to hook up a regular CD player, or FM tuner, etc, make sure the amp has some sort of volume control. An alternative method would be to use some sort of volume control knob in each room.

The Delta 410 is a fairly old, but you can still find it online. I just did a quick search and found it on Amazon and a couple of other sites for about $150. I really don't know what a decent price is.

I matrix switcher is going to be a more flexible system, but also more expensive. Basically the matrix switcher allows you to have multiple sources and multiple zones and have any source play in any zone/zones. If your only source is going to be the computer, then a switcher isn't required. But if you want to be able the choose between your computer, a CD player, DVD player, etc, then a matrix switcher is more convienent.

Popular brands of switchers include Autopatch, Neothings, Extron, and Digital Key, but there are many, many manufactures.

We are selling a Brand new in Box Nuvo Grand Concerto System. If you are interested feel free to contact us.