Equipment Layout Advice for Newbie

[Codepyro]

Hello everyone!

I am trying to put together C4 system as a DIY project. Although I do have a dealer scheduled to come meet me this week as I think I will probably need assistance acquiring hardware and probably need a little help programming.

 

Quick back ground.

 

I have a house with 24 speakers(avg 2 per room, some rooms have more). All the cables for the speakers including those in the family room(5 speaker surround) go into the basement. I have one hdmi feed into the family room from the basement and about 5 coax feeds to different parts of those house. Now I dont watch much tv and do not plan on having a home theater in the basement but I do want to setup a simple system that I can slowly add more things to every year. First thing is I want to get my TV and the 5 living room speakers to work and the other 19 speakrs in the house to work for ambient music. Here is a diagram I drew up. Please advise. I am sort of confused on the best way to approach this. I am also looking for the cheapest way to approach this. Quick note all my networking equiment and STB box is in the basement, the stb box is outputting video to tv upstairs thru hdmi and splitting of a duplicate signal to a a coax splitter to the other tvs.(I understand that it means I can only watch the same channel in any/all tv but I am ok with that).

 

 

Thank you.

 

I can paypal someone for their time and advice to design the best solution.

[SMHarman]

19 speakers is 8 sterio pairs and another dual voice coil single stereo speaker or something different?

I see a 16amp3 in your picture. That only covers 8 zones and if you have 10 you will need to combine Or get a 16 zone matrix and amplification for 10 zones.

You will also need an AVR between the cable box ans the tv (in the basement) for the 5.1.

Also what do you listen to and how many of you (residents and guests) listen at the same times.

[Codepyro]

19 speakers is 8 sterio pairs and another dual voice coil single stereo speaker or something different?

I see a 16amp3 in your picture. That only covers 8 zones and if you have 10 you will need to combine Or get a 16 zone matrix and amplification for 10 zones.

You will also need an AVR between the cable box ans the tv (in the basement) for the 5.1.

Also what do you listen to and how many of you (residents and guests) listen at the same times.

 

Thank you for the reply! I figured I needed an receiver between the cable box and tv, Is there a receiver that works well with C4(nothing fancy but airplay support would be awesome)?

 

I am a bit confused about where to place the receiver, I was thinking about feeding the 5 speakers into the amp matrix but that would be a waste of 5 inputs. Should i split the audio connection for the 5 speakers to both the amp/matrix and receiver?

 

I would mainly listen to songs from my iphone or desktop, and i do not think we would need to listen to it the same time but does the amp matrix support listening to different inputs to different zones simultaneously?

[thecodeman]

Don't hook up the 5 speakers to the 16 channel matrix amp. That's what the receiver is for.

 

And yes, the matrix amplifier supports listening to one source in different zones or different sources in different zones simultaneously.

[Codepyro]

Don't hook up the 5 speakers to the 16 channel matrix amp. That's what the receiver is for.

 

And yes, the matrix amplifier supports listening to one source in different zones or different sources in different zones simultaneously.

I only have 5 speakers in family room, how would i listen to music through the whole house(from say my iphone) if its not hooked up into the matrix?

[SMHarman]

Can you expand on the speaker locations.

Is this 5 in family room and 14 over 7 other rooms as stereo pairs?

What do you listen to on your iPhone. ITunes or a streaming service.

It is usually better to get the service as a Service on the system so it is not tying up your phone.

To get the iPhone onto control4 use the wireless music bridge.

To get mmost services onto the control4 use a Sonos connect.

It would be beneficial to get a NAS to put the music on the desktop on and have the control4 look there not the desktop.

The Sony 1800 ES is a cheapish AVR that integrates nicely.

You can split the audio distribution up to the AVR and the matrix to get the source to both locations.

[Codepyro]

Can you expand on the speaker locations.

Is this 5 in family room and 14 over 7 other rooms as stereo pairs?

What do you listen to on your iPhone. ITunes or a streaming service.

It is usually better to get the service as a Service on the system so it is not tying up your phone.

To get the iPhone onto control4 use the wireless music bridge.

To get mmost services onto the control4 use a Sonos connect.

It would be beneficial to get a NAS to put the music on the desktop on and have the control4 look there not the desktop.

The Sony 1800 ES is a cheapish AVR that integrates nicely.

You can split the audio distribution up to the AVR and the matrix to get the source to both locations.

The sony you suggested supports airplay, so I should be able to use that? 

 

Also "You can split the audio distribution up to the AVR and the matrix to get the source to both locations. " IS this the best way to do it or is there a better "cleaner" way?

 

I do plan on hooking up my synology to the network but i'm sure my wife would want to control which songs she wants to listen to and probably wants to do it through itunes or her phone.

[SMHarman]

I hate the airplay functionality so disabled it from my control4 system. It adopts the phones volume or the iTunes volume as the volume. If you leave that at 100% on your computer you are in for a rude surprise.

Control4 has music media management similar to iTunes. By album, aartist, genre playlists etc. It will scan and play your iTunes unencrypted library.

The elegant solution would have a 16 zone matrix feeding an 8 zone power amp and the AVR for music.

You would have Synology, Rhapsody and TuneIn natively.

I'd add at least one Sonos connect for Pandora and other streaming service. A wireless music bridge for slinging music from your phone. This also has the ability to start other system functionality such as when music sent to airplay on wireless music bridge play music at 25 in family room and kitchen.

Sounds like there are TWO of you so that should be enough sources for now.

That would allow 4 different native feeds from the hc800. One from WMB and one from Sonos, so 6 different streams can play in 6 zones or mote Or one stream can hit all zones. You choose.