Anm3910

This has been a bit of a concern for me as well. When I say not an audiophile, I guess I meant that I don't need top of the line speakers for a dedicated listening room. I just want something that sounds good for everyday listening, parties, and movies. Music will almost ALWAYS be on at the house. I've come up entirely on Apple Music and Spotify, and I would love to continue using them, but want to maintain a seamless experience Are you saying that if I go with a sonos system for AM/Spotify, I'll need to do all of the controls through my phone, and the touchscreen is completely useless? or the touchscreen has limited functionality with these services? Exactly how hampered are you? I have nothing against Tidal, I've just never used it, so am inclined towards the more familiar option unless it hamstrings me.

Thank you for this really detailed write-up. This is exactly what I was looking for, and helps put into perspective some of the potential hazards of going my own way. I'd definitely be looking for support and so I think it might be best to go with the dealer supported brands (even if I end up going with a different dealer.) When I make a service call I want to be able to have the issue resolved relatively pain free, and it sounds like sourcing my own products could really hamper that. I'll take your advice to call around to a few different dealers as well and see if they have any more flexibility than the dealer I was working with. Copy on the speaker comments as well. Luckily, thats a conversation for later in the year, so I have some time before making a decision on brands etc. the prewiring is already all there.

Well there was a conversation with my dealer, who essentially gave me a sales pitch about why I should 100% go with their Araknis labeled gear. That conversation is the reason I ended up coming here looking for opinions other than the guy making money off of me. Would you mind outlining some of the things to watch out for? And in your experience, have the added complexities of installing a brand outside of dealers preferred brand been worth the cost savings? I don't mind doing a bit of work myself, but as mentioned in the post what I dont want is to be constantly messing with settings and tinkering around. If you're telling me my best option is to just bite the bullet and pay for the expensive brand then I'll probably do it. But if you're suggesting that I can source some of my own parts without an excess headache in terms of maintenance, then obviously I'd rather go that route.

Thank you, this is more or less the type of input I am looking for. I don't doubt that the Araknis gear will be easier to troubleshoot for my dealer, I just wondered if it was worth the significant markup. If you ask him, of course, it's worth it, but he has a vested interest. It's just good to know that other options are pretty viable. As far as Origin goes, appreciate the opinion. I'm not an audiophile or anything and just want a quality speaker that wont sound tinny or rattling when we play music or movies.

Hey everyone, I've done a bit of digging on here and in the C4 subreddit. There have been a lot of good pieces of info to grab, but I wanted to make this post to hopefully get more (and more up to date) input from those more familiar with C4, since this would be my first experience. To make it clear, i'm pretty committed to using the C4 ecosystem, functionally it seems fantastic. I'm no dummy, but I just want something that will work without me needing to go in and tinker all the time, and it seems like C4 meets that need. I'm having a new house built, should be ready in april, and as part of "Stage 1" I had the A/V dealer that's partnered with the builder drop a ton of prewiring and conduit into the house. He is also going to to set up the networking and security cameras for the house. Future steps will involve actually putting in the C4 controllers/screens, then audio, lighting/shades etc, so really the full package. I understand that there is a premium associated with C4, the dealer network, and a lot of the products/brands in the ecosystem. I understand this is all a "closed system" and therefore pricing and information is kept intentionally opaque from the public. I'm willing to pay that premium where it makes sense to do so. I guess what I'm hoping to get here is really an honest opinion of some of these products being recommended to me from someone other than the sales guy that stands to directly benefit from selling me more stuff. As an example, take the Araknis networking equipment I was quoted. The house is 2,400 sqft and 4 stories, do I really need four $746 WAPs? Can I tell him I'll just set up Ubiquiti WAPs for a fraction, and if so what issues am I looking at down the line? Should I really spend $362 on a 16 port unmanaged switch when Cisco sells them for $77. Do I NEED their $2,700 27u rack, or can I buy my own for ~$1,200. I truly don't know. What are areas where I can push back, and what are some areas where, for the sake of having the system "just work" I should just pay the extra cost. Even things like audio. They're heavily pushing Origin "because it works well with the system." Is that just them promoting a high margin product or is it actually the best tool for the job? I hope this didn't come off as a rant; I'm excited about getting this going and I'm willing to spend money on the system, just not willing to throw money away for no reason. I'd be happy to go into more detail about the house, what I want out of the project, or the $80k quote I was given for the full package. Also open to PMs to get into the details. Thanks everyone!