Matrix Switch Guidance

[nate4AU]

Hello! I'm new to the whole home audio arena and could really use some help. Let me start by saying that I don't really have a "installer" that I can turn to. An old buddy of mine used to work for a Control4 installer and still has access to the equipment (at cost), but really can't provide much support in the way of design. He's also working for the low price of cold beer and good friendship, so I'm mindful of not taking advantage of his generosity.

 

As we speak I'm finishing up a new home. The plans call for seven dedicated zones - three are audio only and for are audio/video. Basically, we want to be able to pop a disc in the Blu-ray player and be able to watch it in any of the four video rooms. Being able to watch that Blu-ray in two rooms at once would be nice, but it isn't mandatory. Likewise, if my wife wants to have the same Pandora station playing in all seven zones at once (or just specific zones), we want to be able to do that.

 

The walls have already been sheet-rocked, but every zone has cat 5e, cat 6, and coax pre-wired. Zone control keypads are also wired in, and we will buy at least one portable touchscreen.

 

I'm a little hung up on equipment. My buddy suggested the control4 EA3 controller. I've got a cisco 24 port gigabit switch, Onkyo TX-RN575 receiver, UPS, rack, and control4 16AMP3-B. My primary challenge is that I don't understand how the whole system works, and so I'm not sure what matrix I need to purchase. I need to feed seven zones, and I have five or six different inputs. Video needs to be 4K - no exceptions. Can anybody point me towards a matrix that'll satisfy my needs and is compatible with control4? I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Cost is a concern, but it's not the only concern. All in, I have spent nearly $15,000 (wholesale plus 10%) in equipment. That includes security system, speakers, wiring, head end equipment, zone control, racking, etc.... I'd be a fool to spend all that money and then ruin the whole set up with a piece of junk matrix. That said, I can't afford to spend a fortune on this one piece of equipment. I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable, but I was really hoping to be in the neighborhood of $1500. I welcome any and all advice. Thanks in advance,

[Cyknight]

You're wanting 7 video zones, with 6-7 inputs, you also want 4k.

 

You're going to have to multiply your budget for the video switch a few times.....

[nate4AU]

7 total zones, but only 4 are video. The other three are audio only.

But all the same, what would be a realistic budget? Like I said, I'm not trying to be cheap, I'm just not experienced enough to know what will get the job done and what won't. 

 

Thanks for the insights.

[BraydonH]

The Control4 Matrixes are very expensive

 

Here is my most cost effective solution. It is a modular solution and is get incase one part fails it is easy to replace

http://www.keydigital.com/items.asp?ItemCode=KD8x8CSA&Company=KEY 

Use this matrix. It does NOT have HDBaseT built in which is great. Then you can either run a direct HDMI cable to each TV or most likely use up to 8 of these Baluns

http://www.keydigital.com/items.asp?ItemCode=KDX222PO&Company=KEY

This solution will require 9 Power supplies instead of 1 for true HDBaseT matrixes. So cable management can get messy if you dont do it right. It will also require twice the amount of HDMI interconnect cables and such. It is beneficial if one thing breaks (like output3) you dont need to send the whole Matrix in for repair, you could just replace the Balun or power supply. So there is some advantages of doing things this way just make sure cable management is tight and you got lots of velcro and labels.

This rack mount can hold 8 extenders if you want to clean it up a bit

http://www.keydigital.com/items.asp?ItemCode=KDRK250PLT&Company=KEY  

[Cyknight]

OK, so you'll have 4TVs, I'm assuming all of them will be 4K (and by that I mean 4K HDR with all the latest HDMI and DHCP specs) - and 6-7 sources. You want it to be full 4K compatible....

Using a known brand that integrates well and has proven it's mettle - I want to say that I'd be looking at at least 4 thousand USD COST , assuming you're going CAT distribution. If you're going direct HDMI, for 4 TVs you're roughly 3 thousand.

 

And yes that's using 'budget' options that I could still feel I'd trust, not what I'd recommend.

3 minutes ago, BraydonH said:

It does NOT have HDBaseT built in which is great

That is a very arguable opinion, but sure.

[nate4AU]

Thanks to you both. As I mentioned, the walls are already up, and filled with cat cable, but no HDMI. So I'd prefer an IP option, although it isn't an absolute must. I'll read through the key digital stuff more. 

Cyknight, if I'm hearing you correctly, I need to retune my budget to the $3k-$4k area for a good, budget matrix. Again, thanks. That's the kind of honest info I'm looking for. Do you have any recommendations for specific models/units that would fit the bill? Someone in another thread described a situation similar to mine, and the LU862 was mentioned, but all evidence would suggest we're above my budget at that point, particularly if I need to go D series.

A few (what I suspect are stupid) questions:

1. I should be looking at 8x8, yes? Only 6 inputs, but since I have 7 zone outputs, a 6x6 wouldn't cut it. Do I understand that correctly?

2. Is downmixing something I need to be concerned with? My living room is 5.1, but every other zone is 2-ch stereo. If the wife wants to flood all zones with music, is downmixing going to be needed? If we DIDN'T downmix, does that simply mean that the 5.1 room would also play the music in stereo?

 

Again, much thanks.

[eggzlot]

1 hour ago, nate4AU said:

Thanks to you both. As I mentioned, the walls are already up, and filled with cat cable, but no HDMI. So I'd prefer an IP option, although it isn't an absolute must. I'll read through the key digital stuff more. 

Cyknight, if I'm hearing you correctly, I need to retune my budget to the $3k-$4k area for a good, budget matrix. Again, thanks. That's the kind of honest info I'm looking for. Do you have any recommendations for specific models/units that would fit the bill? Someone in another thread described a situation similar to mine, and the LU862 was mentioned, but all evidence would suggest we're above my budget at that point, particularly if I need to go D series.

A few (what I suspect are stupid) questions:

1. I should be looking at 8x8, yes? Only 6 inputs, but since I have 7 zone outputs, a 6x6 wouldn't cut it. Do I understand that correctly?

2. Is downmixing something I need to be concerned with? My living room is 5.1, but every other zone is 2-ch stereo. If the wife wants to flood all zones with music, is downmixing going to be needed? If we DIDN'T downmix, does that simply mean that the 5.1 room would also play the music in stereo?

 

Again, much thanks.

Here is a modular bring your own hardware solution - http://video-storm.com/products.asp?cat=3 - I have their "pro" hardware and its fantastic and works well within Control4.  @videostorm could jump in to add more info.

 

[Cyknight]

2 hours ago, nate4AU said:

Thanks to you both. As I mentioned, the walls are already up, and filled with cat cable, but no HDMI. So I'd prefer an IP option, although it isn't an absolute must. I'll read through the key digital stuff more. 

Cyknight, if I'm hearing you correctly, I need to retune my budget to the $3k-$4k area for a good, budget matrix. Again, thanks. That's the kind of honest info I'm looking for. Do you have any recommendations for specific models/units that would fit the bill? Someone in another thread described a situation similar to mine, and the LU862 was mentioned, but all evidence would suggest we're above my budget at that point, particularly if I need to go D series.

A few (what I suspect are stupid) questions:

1. I should be looking at 8x8, yes? Only 6 inputs, but since I have 7 zone outputs, a 6x6 wouldn't cut it. Do I understand that correctly?

2. Is downmixing something I need to be concerned with? My living room is 5.1, but every other zone is 2-ch stereo. If the wife wants to flood all zones with music, is downmixing going to be needed? If we DIDN'T downmix, does that simply mean that the 5.1 room would also play the music in stereo?

 

Again, much thanks.

I would say 4000 is a bare minimum.

1 - it all depends on the setup really. The modular solution is there too - either the mentioned VideoStorm or Just Add Power. But those do not always come cheap.

2 - without downmixing ALL zones are going to be Stereo on ALL sources.

 

Understand that we are working on too little information to give you an informed opinion on what would work best for your setup, we don't know what you already have, plan to get or what your full intentions with the system are.

 

For example, if you have many sources that do not have stereo outputs, but you need an analogue stereo stream, your needs for your HDMI switch changes - and may become more expensive. That said, by spending it on the switch, you may not spend money elsewhere to make things work, cutting the real 'cost' down....

[Mario_Przepiora]

I was going to recommend JAP, but your budget needs to be adjusted to about $1,000-$1,200 per source and zone. 6 TVs and 4 sources is about $10,000

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Terry Gore]

I've been using one from Shinybow which was well priced... I paid about $5000 and it's a 4K (30fps not 60)  8x8 with HDBaseT (so really 8x16) and there are Control4 drivers... it's been working great for me.

[nate4AU]

Thank you all for the help and guidance.

Hearing what you all had to say made it abundantly clear that I need to take a step back and reassess exactly what I wanted to accomplish and what I could AFFORD to accomplish. By giving a little here and there, I think I have a setup that I'm happy with. Here's what we did.

1. We stuck with the whole home audio. 7 zones are being handled by the Control4 8-zone 16 channel amp and an EA3. Keypads on the wall in each zone, plus the T3 tabletop controller, a couple of SR-260s, and our iDevices give us plenty of control. We aren't demanding a bunch of different inputs for this one. Quite frankly, my wife just wants to be able to pick which rooms are playing her favorite Pandora station at any one time.

2. For the video, I gave up a little on distribution. We ultimately decided that the bedroom and the office didn't need to be part of a matrix. Their sole feed comes from their respective 4k Joeys. Dish has Netflix embedded in the GUI, plus the onDemand options, so it's not like we're living completely in the stone age. Taking those two out of the matrix meant that we really only had two zones sharing 4 inputs (DVR, joey, bluray, and appleTV). That allowed us to step down to a 4x4 matrix, which saved enough money to make this whole project work.

All in all, I think we're happy. Wife can listen to music - that's enough for her. Can I watch the same bluray, at the same time, in every room of my house...? No. But I've (literally) never done that before now anyway. And more importantly, it's not something I've ever lamented not being able to do.

again, thank you all!

[wappinghigh]

On 02/09/2017 at 7:15 AM, nate4AU said:

Can I watch the same bluray, at the same time, in every room of my house...? No. But I've (literally) never done that before now anyway. And more importantly, it's not something I've ever lamented not being able to do.

again, thank you all!

Yep big friggen deal you can't do 8x8 or 16x16 4KHDMI for like $10,000 bucks, then put up with all the Hollywood HDMI shinnanigans and all their totally self destructive handshake and other content providing blocking nonsense and actually pay for the privilege of them stuffing up your movie viewing experience! When all you need is a few Kodi Boxes (with the awesome AlanC driver) and a couple $199 Blue Ray players (if you really need 4K) at a few local TV's...

Heck it aint hard to pick up a disc and walk to the next room and slot that sucker in... and it sure is a heck of a lot cheaper.., you don't need a dealer in the middle of the night (just as it's gettin all romantic) to hassle to "fix it" (yep you can empower yourself) because you can do it! And low and behold yr misses is just fine and dandy with it and you'll get lucky every single night... 'cause all she has to do is just point that IR remote at it.... > and here is the rub..

IT WORKS! 

[Cyknight]

36 minutes ago, wappinghigh said:

Yep big friggen deal you can't do 8x8 or 16x16 4KHDMI for like $10,000 bucks, then put up with all the Hollywood HDMI shinnanigans and all their totally self destructive handshake and other content providing blocking nonsense and actually pay for the privilege of them stuffing up your movie viewing experience! When all you need is a few Kodi Boxes (with the awesome AlanC driver) and a couple $199 Blue Ray players (if you really need 4K) at a few local TV's...

Heck it aint hard to pick up a disc and walk to the next room and slot that sucker in... and it sure is a heck of a lot cheaper.., you don't need a dealer in the middle of the night (just as it's gettin all romantic) to hassle to "fix it" (yep you can empower yourself) because you can do it! And low and behold yr misses is just fine and dandy with it and you'll get lucky every single night... 'cause all she has to do is just point that IR remote at it, but here is the rub..

IT WORKS! 

Oh wait, NOW you're back

[wappinghigh]

^ Try it (IR) it's just like Viagra

I assure you ol sport...

It works every time! 

hahahaha

[Cyknight]

1 hour ago, wappinghigh said:

^ Try it (IR) it's just like Viagra

I assure you ol sport...

It works every time! 

hahahaha

I'm sure any number of US xfinity users will beg to differ, not to mention old apple driver users (on older apples where remotes still get dropped from the device), or PS4 users for that matter, LOTS of android TV users (especially the ones with a 'mouse' style remote). Oh and those that like to have volume feedback on any device controlling volume....