Stuck on speaker options?

[fredsoneya]

Hi All,

This is my first post so please be easy!

I am doing a full control 4 kit out of my new house, the house is not a renovation project or new build it’s a 17h century building so although I can run cables, in ceiling speakers or in wall speakers are a no go. 

Here lies my dilemma, I am selling all my Sonos kit as I really don’t want a “2 app” system and I’m struggling to work out what to do with audio. If I can’t install ceiling speakers or wall speakers, then I’m left with wall mounted speakers or wall mounted sound bars.

One dealer has recommended Bluesound and looking into the integration, it seems almost seamless and wouldn’t require 2 apps however it still isn’t perfect native triad. So the other alternative I can think off is passive sound bars - does anyone have experience with these (Triad of other hopefully cheaper versions) and are they any good? Or I do on wall speakers for the rooms which don’t have TVs, that makes sense, but again what do I do with the rooms on TVs?

Or is there another active sound bar brand like Bluesound which doesn’t need a 2nd app to control etc. 

Any ideas welcome :)

[eggzlot]

1 hour ago, fredsoneya said:

Hi All,

This is my first post so please be easy!

I am doing a full control 4 kit out of my new house, the house is not a renovation project or new build it’s a 17h century building so although I can run cables, in ceiling speakers or in wall speakers are a no go. 

Here lies my dilemma, I am selling all my Sonos kit as I really don’t want a “2 app” system and I’m struggling to work out what to do with audio. If I can’t install ceiling speakers or wall speakers, then I’m left with wall mounted speakers or wall mounted sound bars.

One dealer has recommended Bluesound and looking into the integration, it seems almost seamless and wouldn’t require 2 apps however it still isn’t perfect native triad. So the other alternative I can think off is passive sound bars - does anyone have experience with these (Triad of other hopefully cheaper versions) and are they any good? Or I do on wall speakers for the rooms which don’t have TVs, that makes sense, but again what do I do with the rooms on TVs?

Or is there another active sound bar brand like Bluesound which doesn’t need a 2nd app to control etc. 

Any ideas welcome

https://usa.denon.com/heos

I believe their integration with C4 is fairly rock solid and could be a 1 app solution

@msgreenf I believe has experience with Heos

[msgreenf]

Heos is awesome! look into it and I am happy to review it with you...

[Cyknight]

Bluesound works awesome too, once setup no need to use the blusound app (as with Heos)

[fredsoneya]

Thanks for the feedback @Cyknight @msgreenf @eggzlot I really appreciate it. With either heos or bluesound what are the downsides vs native triad?

Can you zone them with triad or should have entire system as one or the other?

How does the UI experience work, I assume you have to click “listen” and then “bluesound” and then stream?

Thanks for your help

[msgreenf]

you could also look at the Triad Ones...

Heos integration is "good" but also more capabilities music service wise vs native.  

I have 10 zones of native audio and 4 zones of heos audio in my house

[fredsoneya]

15 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

you could also look at the Triad Ones...

Heos integration is "good" but also more capabilities music service wise vs native.  

I have 10 zones of native audio and 4 zones of heos audio in my house

Are you able to zone native with heos? Or is that a limitation?

I did look at Triad Ones but I can run cable so the amplification isn’t the challenge, more if I can only really use sound bars in the TV rooms is there any decent passive ones for Triad or do I just go heos / Bluesound 

[msgreenf]

You can do zoning with Heos - and add zones to other heos in control4 UI.

[lippavisual]

There's a plethora of great passive sound bars.  Triads are nice, Episodes are good.  You will definitely want a sub to compliment them though.  Otherwise, it will sound like a Bose system.

[cdepaola]

I've also just sold all of my Sonos stuff and moved to all native with Control4.  Its just easier for everyone in the house and don't have to worry about things like one room being a sonos amp while all the other rooms are on a crontrol4 matrix and amp.   

As for speakers I'm a huge fan of James, they are pricey but they are built like tanks and can be highly customized to fit your space and needs... Triad also makes nice stuff and on a budget Epsiodes are a good choice. 

 

[BraydonH]

I mean it would be expensive AF but how sweet would it be to have a Triad One + Triad Custom Soundbar + Triad Active Subwoofer in every room? You would probably want to put in Versa Boxes and Strong Mounts behind each TV and make sure you have ethernet for best performance but man that would be a superb system. Then the Triad Ones have IR output as well for anything else you might need to control behind the TV.

But as far as Soundbar system Vs. Ceiling Speaker the Triad Soundbar system would blow it out of the water. 

[lippavisual]

Exactly what I like to do for Master suites, Braydon.  Sounds fan-freaking-tastic and can play LOUD.

[Time2Jet]

On 8/10/2020 at 3:25 PM, Cyknight said:

Bluesound works awesome too, once setup no need to use the blusound app (as with Heos)

@Cyknight I brought Bluesound in to test.  With the new Atmos bar available preorder it officially ticks all of the boxes.  We only brought a single node 2i in for some reason, so I brought it home this weekend and integrated a Denon X8500 zone.  
 

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

The actual DAC (I am using the node’s DAC) is superior to a lot that are our there and significantly better with hi res (Tidal) than the Sonos port it could replace.  The DSP is not overly complicated and I was able to get an awesome front soundstage setup.  (Multichannel Stereo sound great as well for people that just want to fill a room with sound).  The node feels snappier than the Sonos Port and most importantly is that there are Bluesound drivers for each of the major streaming services (like native). In other words, I’m not stick with Playlists and Favorites only.  Seemingly, I will also need to use a trigger to wake up the AVR however (I have it programmed to wake on listen menu activity in the meantime). 

Next - I am not getting the metadata (testing Tidal) to change as tracks play.  It displays nicely, just seems to hang at the first track played.  And also I’ve noticed that if I search and find a Playlist in Tidal, I’m not able to set it to play the entire list shuffled.  I can only seemingly pick individual  tracks out of the searched list.  I could be missing something and Tidal has been the only mini app I’ve tried so far   
 

If this ends up working and some of these bugs (if they are bugs) get worked out, other than Triad and Heos, I don’t know of any other system that allows for a blend of wired and wireless, the key difference here is that out of the box Bluesound has a Wireless Atmos bar (preorder at this point).  To differentiate, I will also attest that the sound is superior to either (including Sonos).  In my case the big gotcha moment is that it allows for a single or pair of wireless speakers and a sub in a room can be the audio endpoint.  Sonos will not integrate that way, albeit Triad and Heos do   as well.  The benefit with Bluesound so far has been sound quality, and again ...the preorder Atmos bar. 
 

I’d like to hear other opinions of anyone that is using Bluesound.  
 

I could accomplish the same (2 Atmos zones and large Theater plus several mixed in-ceiling and wireless bookshelf rooms) in Triad or Heos if  I’d grab a few more AVRs, but I’m leaning toward Bluesound to avoid that.