What Audio Solutions are You All Using?

[therockhr]

Curious what type of audio solutions most people are using out there. I figure most people fall into these categories:

• Control4 audio from C4 controller and other sources into a Triad Matrix and Amp
• Control4 audio from C4 controller and other sources into a 3rd party matrix/amp
• Third party streaming sources (Sonos, HEOS, etc) and other sources into a Triad Matrix and Amp
• Third party streaming sources (Sonos, HEOS, etc) and other sources into a 3rd party matrix/amp
• Wireless speaker solutions

Curious what is out there. I have a Russound MCA-C5 matrix/amp being fed streaming audio from a single Sonos Connect and a Dish Hopper. The Sonos connect also feeds audio to a Denon Receiver via optical and another Denon receiver via Digital Coax. Also have a Sonos One in my office.

[Cyknight]

? Are you asking individuals to state what they have?

[LollerAgent]

C4 native audio here.

EA5 Digital/Analog outputs -> Triad AMS24 inputs.

Triad AMS24 outputs -> Triad PAMP/Episode amps.

Several other things in my house are used as sources and are fed into inputs on the AMS24 including audio return from a few TV's, audio output from dedicated 5.1+ HT zones, etc.

I also run AMS24 outputs -> HT 5.1+ zones input so that my dedicated 5.1 zones can serve as WHA zones and play C4 native audio if needed.

Edited March 22, 2022 by LollerAgent

[therockhr]

2 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

? Are you asking individuals to state what they have?

Yeah

[buckeye]

I just added a Tidal subscription so I have:

• Control4 audio from C4 controller and other sources into a Triad Matrix and Amp

And have had 2 Sonos Connects as inputs into a Matrix/Amp for several years before that so also fall into:

• Third party streaming sources (Sonos, HEOS, etc) and other sources into a Triad Matrix and Amp

I'm really trying to migrate to the all C4 Native Tidal setup but the household is pretty trained on Sonos and prefers the search/queue/music services/alexa integration better.  I don't really mind the two app user experience to switch to the Sonos app once we start listening to music except for volume control.  I wish there was a way to control the volume via the Sonos app.  There might be a way to do this but it's not setup on our system so we either switch back to C4 app or use keypads/SR 260.

[eggzlot]

c4 EA5 control > Video Storm Matrix into C4 amps (the model prior to Triad)

given I have a Netplay distribution I went with the VS Matrix to assist with audio delay so video/audio sources are in sync.  And I have an 8 channel and 4 channel C4 amp 

[CTMatthew]

My main house has Bang & Olufsen Cores and a variety of standalone speakers. My weekend house has Sonos sound bars and standalone speakers. Both are technically controlled by Control4, but I mostly cast to both systems and use the integration to control things like volume and transport control from Lutron keypads. 

I love the Bluesound integration, but I'm not a fan of their standalone speakers so it didn't make sense. 

[zaphod]

C4 HC-800s or EA-3 audio outputs to various C4 amps - a few C4-8AMP1-Bs and a few C4-16AMP3-Bs.

[therockhr]

3 hours ago, CTMatthew said:

My main house has Bang & Olufsen Cores and a variety of standalone speakers.

Whoa I only thought people in movies had B&O. haha. What speakers from B&O do you have?

[CTMatthew]

13 hours ago, therockhr said:

Whoa I only thought people in movies had B&O. haha. What speakers from B&O do you have?

Lol, no it's fairly popular! It also has my favorite multiroom feature - "join" which just roams the network to join ongoing sessions and makes a great hard-key button on a keypad. 

For two channel I have BeoLab 9s and BeoLab 3s with some BeoLab 6002s in a closet waiting for some future use. Then I have a BeoPlay A6, BeoPlay M5, BeoSound 1, and BeoSound 2 around the house.

[Neo1738]

All C4 and very happy works great. 

[LollerAgent]

56 minutes ago, CTMatthew said:

Lol, no it's fairly popular! It also has my favorite multiroom feature - "join" which just roams the network to join ongoing sessions and makes a great hard-key button on a keypad. 

For two channel I have BeoLab 9s and BeoLab 3s with some BeoLab 6002s in a closet waiting for some future use. Then I have a BeoPlay A6, BeoPlay M5, BeoSound 1, and BeoSound 2 around the house.

I'm sure you already know this, but "join" functionality is easily achieved using native C4 audio as well using the "Room Control' driver.  Super handy, and we use it *all* of the time in our home.

Edited March 23, 2022 by LollerAgent

[CTMatthew]

30 minutes ago, LollerAgent said:

I'm sure you already know this, but "join" functionality is easily achieved using native C4 audio as well using the "Room Control' driver.  Super handy, and we use it *all* of the time in our home.

Now that's interesting - I've only seen the ability to join specific rooms, not rotate freely through active sessions. I'd be delighted to have missed something. Can you elaborate on how you're doing this?

[LollerAgent]

12 minutes ago, CTMatthew said:

Now that's interesting - I've only seen the ability to join specific rooms, not rotate freely through active sessions. I'd be delighted to have missed something. Can you elaborate on how you're doing this?

Ahh - yeah, I see what you're saying now.  I'm not sure if rotating freely through active sessions is an option or not, but it may be with some annoying programming.  I'll have to check.

I typically have programming in place that defines which sessions I want to join.  For example, if I'm playing music in my master bedroom, I may have a double-tap on the "Music" button in my master bathroom automatically join "Master Bedroom" (if there is an active session in the master bedroom).

[CTMatthew]

18 minutes ago, LollerAgent said:

Ahh - yeah, I see what you're saying now.  I'm not sure if rotating freely through active sessions is an option or not, but it may be with some annoying programming.  I'll have to check.

I typically have programming in place that defines which sessions I want to join.  For example, if I'm playing music in my master bedroom, I may have a double-tap on the "Music" button in my master bathroom automatically join "Master Bedroom" (if there is an active session in the master bedroom).

Yes, that's been my experience. I have that set in our showroom because we always start demos from the same place and it's fairly choreographed. 

I'm actually surprised that B&O is the only company (that I've found) to have this feature. Sonos has something similar, but only for a hard press on the physical product. It's not available in the driver for programming. 

B&O has a principal called "one touch to music" which means that there's always going to be a way to press a single button or issue a single command and hear something, whether it's stored or random. 

When I tap the Join button on my keypad it will either pick up where I last left off (maybe Spotify, TuneIn Radio, etc.) or if there's another active session on the system it will join that. If there are multiple active sessions each tap will cycle through them.

[Amr]

Well, I have native C4 streaming to my 4x4 Russound Audio Matrix, Ovation in the way to connect to the crowd for additional streaming sources. For the other 6 Zones I have 2x Sonos, 2x triad one’s, 2 x VSSL1’s.

[CTMatthew]

I'm very interested in systems that have more than one streaming ecosystem at play. 

We go to great pains to unify the various rooms, but oftentimes an Arc or Beam are ideal for some use cases and a matrix and amplifiers work better for the rest of the house and never the tween shall meet. 

Obviously if rooms aren't adjacent or client interest isn't a factor we can splinter, but it would be great to have the sort of sound bar solution that Savant offers.

[Topspin14m]

I use Sonos + Denon Receivers + Roon (to tie the integration together/get a full tidal interface on C4).  Super happy with it/the integration in C4. 

[Topspin14m]

4 minutes ago, CTMatthew said:

I'm very interested in systems that have more than one streaming ecosystem at play. 

We go to great pains to unify the various rooms, but oftentimes an Arc or Beam are ideal for some use cases and a matrix and amplifiers work better for the rest of the house and never the tween shall meet. 

Obviously if rooms aren't adjacent or client interest isn't a factor we can splinter, but it would be great to have the sort of sound bar solution that Savant offers.

Roon allows you to integrate different systems together as long as they are each supported by Roon.  E.g., you don’t need a Sonos Port to connect a Denon receiver to a Sonos room.  You can create rooms in Roon and then group them. 

[therockhr]

5 minutes ago, CTMatthew said:

I'm very interested in systems that have more than one streaming ecosystem at play. 

We go to great pains to unify the various rooms, but oftentimes an Arc or Beam are ideal for some use cases and a matrix and amplifiers work better for the rest of the house and never the tween shall meet. 

Obviously if rooms aren't adjacent or client interest isn't a factor we can splinter, but it would be great to have the sort of sound bar solution that Savant offers.

Good point. from the integrators I follow on Instagram they almost always show a room or 2 with a soundbar and then look to have some sort of matrix for the rest of the home.

I would think Control4/episode/Triad would work to make a line of wireless speakers. More for the soundbar than anything.

[CTMatthew]

1 hour ago, Topspin14m said:

Roon allows you to integrate different systems together as long as they are each supported by Roon.  E.g., you don’t need a Sonos Port to connect a Denon receiver to a Sonos room.  You can create rooms in Roon and then group them. 

We've sold a few Roon systems and love them! You're right - it's a great way to knit together a variety of manufacturers (I wish B&O was fully Roon compliant). 

I wish Control4 offered a similar ability!

[SpencerT]

I'm using a mix of BluOS (NAD ci-580) and native c4. A couple players from each dumped into a Parasound 4dax and then directly into a Zektor 16x16 matrix, the rest using the respective built in DACs into the Zektor. Stack of audio control and Rotel amps being fed from the zektor. 

I use Roon (not integrated with C4) standalone to a Bluesound player (also not integrated with C4) in a dedicated listening room. 

Qobuz primarily, Pandora, NAS stored music, some internet radio and a little Tidal. 

On my previous Elan system I used Sonos Connects and an Autonomics MMS and was largely on Spotify, locally stored music and Tidal. 

 

[flyingron]

I have an EA5 -> TRIAD -> 3xPAMP-8 delivering to 18 zones.

The audio source is Pandora and a few other apps on the EA, as well as the output of the mixer being fed by some microphones on my grand piano as well as a scanner set to the local airport frequency (I live on an airpark).

One zone feeds the audio input of the Kohler DTV in the master shower.   This was sort of silly, because another is fed straight from the PAMP-8 in another shower.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

[macosr]

Kinda all the options you listed but I don't use wireless speakers...mostly C4 stuff with a C4 matrix and amps but also have non-C4 amps in the mix. I have two non-C4 amps for part of the pool to drive two subs and six of the nine speakers. But then again I have 24 audio zones switched by a Triad 24 Matrix and powered by 3 Triad Amps, a JL Audio Amp (Pool Subs) and a Sonnance Amp (4 Main Pool Speakers) and a theatre amp. I am mostly leveraging Apple TVs for streaming, TuneIn, SiruxXM, Pandora, iHeartRadio, etc C4 apps for streaming as well. Honestly we mostly use AirPlay for playing music. Klipsch and Triad speakers / subs throughout. Again, everything is hard-wired...I am adamant about hard-wiring everything so it's absolutely trouble free and "zero" latency although some of my longer speaker wire runs (200'+) forced the need to "sync" all the zones so to speak.

It's very common during the summer for us to have three different music streams going on throughout the system at the same time: Kids at the pool, wife in the house and me in the house or garage, etc.