Single audio end point. A real practical problem for Control4

[SMHarman]

Problem with that article is that there are different levels of Sonos and he doesn't really cover that. No, I don't want Sonos Play 5's all over my house but I do want a ZoneBridge or two as an audio source with an EV driver to control it. I think now that you can see your Sonos favorites in the EV driver it is relatively foolproof.

An interesting blog on the pros and cons of Sonos

http://www.residentialsystems.com/default.aspx?tabid=90&EntryId=645

He talks about the mesh of devices in play.

[h_sqd]

Thanks' date=' SMH and Cyk.

Follow up:

After tweaking several elements and finally getting music to get all the way through the chain (and watching the display on my TV), I can confirm that .m4a and .aif song files are not being decoded by C4. Unfortunately, that is the bulk of my collection. [/quote']

So an MP3 seen in Digital Audio, as can an m4a but if you select the mp3 you get an audio stream, however clicking the m4a does not?

I know this works seamlessly on my 250 connected to a Synology NAS folder in Digital Audio. The bulk of my collection is also m4a and the 250/800 was the reason I pulled the c4 trigger.

None of this is iTunes purchased m4p? If it is you need to go through the unlocking process, paying 30c a file $1 album and getting new m4a files.

Only the mp3 files make it through. All my music was ripped from my own CDs through my Mac, so I don't think unlocking is an issue. I don't specifically recall switching from one lossless format to the other. It might have been coincident to an iTunes upgrade along the way. I did find an Apple Knowledge Base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1550 which allows for conversion right within iTunes. If this works, I still need to decide to leave them all in their respective directories or do a blanket copy to a new library and do a mass conversion. (I don't really care what format gets used as long as it is lossless.)

Cheers,

h_sqd

[SMHarman]

Ah, I see.

I'm guessing that while the HC250/800 will do m4a what they mean by m4a is MP4/AAC lossy encoding. m4a can also be MP4/ALAC as wikipedia says same container, different encoding) which I guess is not supported?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

The only lossless encoding I see on the list is FLAC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC

Of course iTunes does not natively support FLAC.

[turls]

Problem with that article is that there are different levels of Sonos and he doesn't really cover that. No' date=' I don't want Sonos Play 5's all over my house but I do want a ZoneBridge or two as an audio source with an EV driver to control it. I think now that you can see your Sonos favorites in the EV driver it is relatively foolproof.

An interesting blog on the pros and cons of Sonos

http://www.residentialsystems.com/default.aspx?tabid=90&EntryId=645

He talks about the mesh of devices in play.

And I have Sonos but I have no Sonos mesh. That's what I'm talking about.

[wappinghigh]

^ ....the silence on this is deafening...

Yes very

And as posted - the "proper" way to do this is using....the proper set-up and stop using "original remotes" just like you would for TV.

This isn't always full-proof (streaming you phone to an airplay piece comes to mind as you might use that phone outside the system) but it goes a long way.

Yes' date=' putting in the hardware you need to do what you want to do is the way to go - and yes that may be more expensive. In the end such is life. You can't expect to cut back on cost and retain the same functionality endlessly.

Can C4 "fix" this - possible. Will they - possibly.

But if you want this and everything else right now - it would require C4 to poor even more resources into R&D, which would just mean that they would need to raise the prices - so instead of paying for more equipment, you'd just be paying for more expensive equipment.

The solution can also come from third-party hardware (yes more/the right hardware) - in fact VideoStorm seems to have been tackling some of these issues with their Netplay device - I'm waiting for my personal piece to come in to test this.

Yes, of course all these things get communicated back to C4 - as I said earlier on, you are not the first one, let alone the only one, to come across this - if anything dealers were.

Do understand that most dealers have no open, direct line of communication to the engineers that tackle this sort of stuff - our first "contacts" are reps and tech support. But most of us do not sit by idly and ignore issues - if we did, would we even be on here?

The dealer "community" as a whole is quite vocal towards C4 through the mediums we do have available. And I think these forums alone are proof enough that we are far from unwilling to communicate back to you what we can.[/quote']

Thanks again Cyk..

It's good to know the message is getting thru (somehow...)

I really am grateful for the detailed explanation of the difficulties tackling this issue. It's amazing how what appears to be such a simple problem on the outside, can have such complexity on the inside!!!

After your helpful advice I think I'll separate off the Sonos ....and swap to a hardware solution....maybe using a Russound speaker switch..

Appreciate the reply..

Wap

Edited August 30, 2013 by wappinghigh

[SMHarman]

Problem with that article is that there are different levels of Sonos and he doesn't really cover that. No' date=' I don't want Sonos Play 5's all over my house but I do want a ZoneBridge or two as an audio source with an EV driver to control it. I think now that you can see your Sonos favorites in the EV driver it is relatively foolproof.

[/quote']

He talks about the mesh of devices in play.

And I have Sonos but I have no Sonos mesh. That's what I'm talking about.

Which seems to be the way to run it in conjunction with C4. Get a Sonos Zone Player 80 or 90 or CONNECT and connect this as an input to the C4 multizone amp and control that with EV.

Once you have the PLAY devices things get more complicated.

[wappinghigh]

^ Yes they can get complicated.. You are right. But the EV Sonos driver really is a marvel of software integration..

But I agree.... better to give Sonos control points (ie Zone players) their own separate amps and speaker setups. It starts to get very complicated if you try connecting them thru Home theatre receivers and the like..

This has been a problem with Sonos since day dot. It constantly gets raised on their forum and to this day they have refused to do anything about it...

[cashmoney]

I don't get what the issue is... I have all of my sonos hooked up to a plethora of dedicated amps, home theater receivers, and distribution amps. We typically control Sonos via C4, especially with the somewhat recent EV updates that automatically puts favorites into the stations tab. We occasionally use a sonos controller to browse music in ways we can't with C4 and sometimes we use the sonos app to change the volume.

I don't know that a Perfect Scenario will ever be available, but the C4, Sonos, EV solution is rather close.

[THEORY]

Perfect is on it's way

http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=15235

[Cyknight]

Perfect is on it's way

http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=15235

What you're doing full volume transparency too?

[THEORY]

Yes it looks like we shouldn't have an issue. Fully functional zones with all Sonos services, and full search in each. Requiring pretty much no properties for each service.

This thing is feature rich, and simple to install. It might require watching a 2min video but that's about it. The driver is also extremely small in size and will easily adapt to added Sonos services.

[Cyknight]

Nice, looking forward to it.

[wappinghigh]

Perfect is on it's way

http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=15235

.... Yes. Perfect would be good :cool:

[msgreenf]

this makes me want to get a sonos! Now to try to find one on a deal...

[MATT1983]

Could you not use the colored buttons and link to volume up/down of the audio endpoint your unable to control. Would give you both volume on one remote. In properties can assign commands. Not a button that says volume up and down but they would be none the less

[mstafford388]

4 hours ago, MATT1983 said:

Could you not use the colored buttons and link to volume up/down of the audio endpoint your unable to control. Would give you both volume on one remote. In properties can assign commands. Not a button that says volume up and down but they would be none the less

There are probably a million options for this that didn't exist in 2013 when this thread was last discussed 

 

For everyone else I'd like to state that although my name is Matt and I was indeed born in 1983 this is not my burner account.