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EA3 vs EA5?


mod220

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A bit confused on which I need to go with, would love do do the cheaper option since I have plenty to buy after the controller, but don’t want to come up short.  Here is my layout:

  • Basement:
  1. 7.1 theatre room area
  2. 2 speaker adjacent pool table area
  • First Level
  1. 5.1 family room
  2. 2 speakers in adjacent kitchen
  3. 2 speakers in living room
  4. 2 rear patio speakers
  5. 2 front patio speakers
  • Master Bedroom
  1. 2 speakers in bedroom
  2. 2 speakers in bathroom

There are my three main areas, I imagine each will have a AVR, Blu Ray Player, wall tablet, just not sure what they mean by 3 vs 5 zones, since some of these (living room, patios, etc) can easily be powered by a Sonos Connect Amp if needed.

I do have wires all over house for alarm, entry and camera:

  • 2 thermostats
  • 8 cameras
  • 4 Door locks
  • 1 Doorbird
  • 1 garage door opener

and in looking at light switches, probably 20-30 Caseta going in.

Can I get away with EA3 or will it be tight for any potential future expansion?  I don’t expect to ever have blinds, a pool, etc but also don’t want to be silly knowing the world is changing fast and new options arise each day.  Thanks!

Matt

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That’s where I get confused, some areas like front porch, back porch, living room, etc. can be somewhat independent with connect AMPs.   What defines “independent” audio outputs?  If I have three areas, each with their own receiver, their now Sonos connect, I don’t see how there would be a capacity issue at the C4 controller level?

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Are you centralizing all the equipment? I know when we did my rack I had too much equipment for the ea3 to handle for I.R (as not everything had ip drivers)  so I had to add in a second controller (hc800) to take care of the additional equipment for the additional rooms also gaining the additional audio streams. I would do a count on how many devices you are going to need control over and how many independent streams of audio you want to be able to use and go from there. I think a lot of the choice will have to do with how you have the wiring and equipment planned out 

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Your setup is very similar to mine. I would go with an AVR in the basement and family room. That means you will need some kind of matrix for the other audio areas. I used a Russound matrix amp but Control4 makes one. Instead of using a Sonos Connect like I have you could use an EA-3 to have 1 stream in your family room via digital out, 1 stream in your basement via HDMI and 1 stream for the rest of the audio zones via the analog out. This setup is something I would move to in the future if I stay with Control4.

avsetup.jpg

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51 minutes ago, therockhr said:

Your setup is very similar to mine. I would go with an AVR in the basement and family room. That means you will need some kind of matrix for the other audio areas. I used a Russound matrix amp but Control4 makes one. Instead of using a Sonos Connect like I have you could use an EA-3 to have 1 stream in your family room via digital out, 1 stream in your basement via HDMI and 1 stream for the rest of the audio zones via the analog out. This setup is something I would move to in the future if I stay with Control4.

avsetup.jpg

Thanks guys.  How do i get a drawing like this?  Wheat is iTach?

My wiring is such that the alarm, camera and most Cat5 wiring all runs to the basement.  But for AV, we spread those to each area, I think the thought being things like Sonos, and C4 controllers benefit being closer to the user?

So there’s as media center in basement for theatre/pool table area, in family room for family room, kitchen, living room and backyard speakers, Master closet for master bed and bath.  Front porch isn’t wired yet but I’m thinking either a pair of Sonos 1s or a Sonos amp in adjacent mechanical room powering 2 speakers.  Either way would not need to tie in to a media center.

Not sure that was the right choice, nothing beats a dope single rack setup!  

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1 hour ago, mod220 said:

Thanks guys.  How do i get a drawing like this?  Wheat is iTach?

My wiring is such that the alarm, camera and most Cat5 wiring all runs to the basement.  But for AV, we spread those to each area, I think the thought being things like Sonos, and C4 controllers benefit being closer to the user?

So there’s as media center in basement for theatre/pool table area, in family room for family room, kitchen, living room and backyard speakers, Master closet for master bed and bath.  Front porch isn’t wired yet but I’m thinking either a pair of Sonos 1s or a Sonos amp in adjacent mechanical room powering 2 speakers.  Either way would not need to tie in to a media center.

Not sure that was the right choice, nothing beats a dope single rack setup!  

I just did the trying in MS Vision.

iTach's are made by Global Cache to allow serial and IR connections to talk via TCP/IP.

If you are set on sonos and wanting to put the AV close to the location, then you will need to have a connect amp for each audio only location and a sonos connect for each video/AVR location.

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Decide if you want to use Sonos or control4 for audio. 

I’m using sonos, but thats because i started out with one room and a HC250 and then have grown in to a HC-800 and now a EA5. 

I wouldnt recomend sonos today, because they seem to make it hard for integrators. Bluesound have a very costeffective solution for centralization, but so does C4. 

So it ends up with if you want to put all yor equpment in one place or not. If so, i would go with C4 and start with a EA-5 for the multiple audio outputs. But Im sure both the EA3 and EA5 could handle that list of equipment. But if tou want to centralize its more costeffective to start with a EA-5 and maybe add a EA-3 and a EA-1. That way you also get three GUi. 

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I think I'll use Sonos since I plan to buy some of their Play speakers and put them in my garage, front porch, and kids rooms over time.  However, friends that have C4 and Sonos all tell me they prefer using the Sonos app since its so much faster than C4.  If all the speakers are tied to C4, do you have to use C4, or can you still use the Sonos app?  Not sure how the hierarchy works?

Regarding my 1st level, I need power for the following:

Family Room - 5.1(installed)

Kitchen  - 2 speakers (installed) 

Living Room - 2 speakers (installed)

Back yard - 2 speakers (installed)

Front Porch - Need 1-2 speakers

Since I need to buy front porch speakers I may as well buy Sonos play 1 or a pair of them which will be cheaper than speakers + power source.  If I do that, I was thinking of using my old 7.1 receiver to power the other three two-speaker zones (kitchen, living and back yard).  Any disadvantage to doing this?  Either way I'll buy a new receiver for primary receiver for this level.

Lastly, would it make sense to do Sonos One on porch so I have Alexa access from out front?  A little worried about security as I don't want someone outside having control of my house!  I'm also looking at alarm systems and curious to see what type of safeguards are out there to prevent a crook from yelling "Alexa, turn off alarm" and walking right in the front door!

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16 hours ago, mod220 said:

I think I'll use Sonos since I plan to buy some of their Play speakers and put them in my garage, front porch, and kids rooms over time.  However, friends that have C4 and Sonos all tell me they prefer using the Sonos app since its so much faster than C4.  If all the speakers are tied to C4, do you have to use C4, or can you still use the Sonos app?  Not sure how the hierarchy works?

Regarding my 1st level, I need power for the following:

Family Room - 5.1(installed)

Kitchen  - 2 speakers (installed) 

Living Room - 2 speakers (installed)

Back yard - 2 speakers (installed)

Front Porch - Need 1-2 speakers

Since I need to buy front porch speakers I may as well buy Sonos play 1 or a pair of them which will be cheaper than speakers + power source.  If I do that, I was thinking of using my old 7.1 receiver to power the other three two-speaker zones (kitchen, living and back yard).  Any disadvantage to doing this?  Either way I'll buy a new receiver for primary receiver for this level.

Lastly, would it make sense to do Sonos One on porch so I have Alexa access from out front?  A little worried about security as I don't want someone outside having control of my house!  I'm also looking at alarm systems and curious to see what type of safeguards are out there to prevent a crook from yelling "Alexa, turn off alarm" and walking right in the front door!

Based on what you've written so far, you might want to look into Bluesound a little deeper. It offers almost exactly what Sonos does in terms of products and features (great app, powered and non-powered zone players, wireless speakers etc), and is much more powerful (speed of operation, "snapiness") and has far superior Control4 integration. Cost is a little higher than Sonos, but between the functional differences and the improvement in sonic performance you might find the added cost very acceptable.

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  • 7 months later...

Still confused on EA3 vs EA5, and what exactly an audio sourde is defined as?  If I have an EA3 in family room as my main, then add EA1 in master and EA1 in basement (id like to have GUI/Camera feeds on a TV for each level of house, what are my limitations.  Other than audio, what are the capacity limits per controller?  If I run Alexa, can’t I simply run lights, locks, etc through another hub and use C4 for mainly audio/video?  Not ideal but a way to reduce total load on C4

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1 hour ago, mod220 said:

Still confused on EA3 vs EA5, and what exactly an audio sourde is defined as?  If I have an EA3 in family room as my main, then add EA1 in master and EA1 in basement (id like to have GUI/Camera feeds on a TV for each level of house, what are my limitations.  Other than audio, what are the capacity limits per controller?  If I run Alexa, can’t I simply run lights, locks, etc through another hub and use C4 for mainly audio/video?  Not ideal but a way to reduce total load on C4

Unless you live in 10,000 sq ft or more with crazy thick walls I would guess an ea3 and 2 ea1 are way more than one would need. 

Audio soucre is a stream.  Pandora.  SiriusXM.  Iheartradio etc.  on an ea3 you can stream 3 different sources at a time.  One source can be in 10 rooms playing the same thing and it’s still define as 1 source not 10.

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1 minute ago, eggzlot said:

Unless you live in 10,000 sq ft or more with crazy thick walls I would guess an ea3 and 2 ea1 are way more than one would need. 

Audio soucre is a stream.  Pandora.  SiriusXM.  Iheartradio etc.  on an ea3 you can stream 3 different sources at a time.  One source can be in 10 rooms playing the same thing and it’s still define as 1 source not 10.

Thanks, other than streams any other measures of capacity?  My installer implied too many devices would overload a smaller system, not sure what is used to measure the “horsepower” of one of these, since the only limitation I’ve read is audio sources?   If I did the EA3 and (2) EA1, my understanding is it’s not expandable, in that I don’t now have 5 streams to use all over, rather two single streams and one triple stream, make sense?  Lastly, if I’m running a Sonos Play, since that runs somewhat internal/independent, would it count as a audio source?  What about TV?  Or is it simply streaming audio and not tv/cable, hard drive, DVD, etc?

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8 hours ago, mod220 said:

Thanks, other than streams any other measures of capacity?  My installer implied too many devices would overload a smaller system, not sure what is used to measure the “horsepower” of one of these, since the only limitation I’ve read is audio sources?   If I did the EA3 and (2) EA1, my understanding is it’s not expandable, in that I don’t now have 5 streams to use all over, rather two single streams and one triple stream, make sense?  Lastly, if I’m running a Sonos Play, since that runs somewhat internal/independent, would it count as a audio source?  What about TV?  Or is it simply streaming audio and not tv/cable, hard drive, DVD, etc?

Streaming audio.  Nothing w tv.   Nothing w sonos.  And I’d think that setup gives 5 streams but maybe I’m wrong. And again it’s unique streams.  You can have 1 stream in 10 rooms

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thanks.  I guess I’m confused why anyone would buy EA5 when they can save $1k on EA3 then add a switch for more zones right?  Why did my installer imply number of switches, cameras, etc would require me to upgrade from EA3 to EA5?  If it’s just audio streams, I assume most people are like me and want GUIs all around, seems like EA3 would be more popular?  I’m sure some just say “give me the biggest and the best.”  I’m looking on eBay and here at used prices, if I can grab an EA3 and a EA1 for a good price, the move to C4 is a lot more palatable 

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25 minutes ago, mod220 said:

thanks.  I guess I’m confused why anyone would buy EA5 when they can save $1k on EA3 then add a switch for more zones right?  Why did my installer imply number of switches, cameras, etc would require me to upgrade from EA3 to EA5?  If it’s just audio streams, I assume most people are like me and want GUIs all around, seems like EA3 would be more popular?  I’m sure some just say “give me the biggest and the best.”  I’m looking on eBay and here at used prices, if I can grab an EA3 and a EA1 for a good price, the move to C4 is a lot more palatable 

THere is a link floating around comparing all the EA differences.  Ea5 v EA3 - with the 5 you get more I/O ports too for control.  More IR, more serial etc.  plus it has more horsepower.  The more drivers and more advanced programming the 5 will just be snappier.  

http://smart-story.ru/files/products/controllers/control4_ea-1/ea-1-performance-comparison-rev-a.pdf

Its like spec’ing a PC.  Hard to compare unit A vs B in a box - I may be doing word processing and you are doing video editing.  If you trust a dealer ask them.  That’s why this is a dealer model.  Even if you are buying used on eBay - some dealer is going to set it up for you.  So ask them before You buy.  If you are buying used that dealer has zero incentive to upsell you on a 5 over a 3 from new stock.  

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Thanks for the link, I’ll have to study to learn more about a lot of the technology.  In general, does adding EA1’s to an EA3 add horsepower, or simply put a GUI on additional screens?   I wish I could just get three EA1’s and be done, as I’ll never need to control an area away from room I’m in.   but I read that isn’t possible you need a EA3 or EA5 for multi room?

 

My basement is not finished yet so worst case I get an EA3 in main area (family room) and if it’s undersized I move that to basement when done and end up with EA5 in family room, EA3 in basement and EA1 in master 

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