Distributed Audio wiring split locations?

[noodlephoto]

New to forum, first post.  Have someone coming tomorrow to discuss a C4 installation in my home.  What I'm trying to reconcile is how some of the wiring was done when the house was built and what can be done to make the configuration I'm thinking of work.

The main issue I have is that we had wall and ceiling speakers wired for distributed audio, but each run did not home run back to a single location, they were in a weird daisy chain.  This was somewhat "fixed" in that we traced all the wires, looked at all the pots controllers in the walls and managed to cut the "chain" and home run each room.  However, due to the finished basement, half my rooms are home run to one side of the basement and half to the other side.  In the past two years that hasn't been an issue as I was running them off of Sonos AMPs.  

In upgrading to C4, I am considering ditching the Sonos and going native C4, but I'd need two matrix amps in two areas of the house.  

SO MY QUESTION...

Can you have two Martix amps and have them share the same input sources?  Or is there something else that you'd do and my general lack of understanding of the C4 product line is limiting me from seeing how this works?

TIA.

[SMHarman]

What is your goal of sharing the same input source. To be able to play the same music in room a, home run to one side of the house and room b run to the next aide of the house.

In this case the source gers computationally fluid. You can have the same music going to both rooms but the source and distribution and timing is all handled by C4 to get a seamless distribution.

Sounds like you may need an extra controller, an older HC800 or a EA3 in each of those locations with a cat cable attached to it as a source (or 3 or 4) for each location but then you would be all set.

[KWD]

Or continue to use the Sonos controlled via C4. Not sure what you really gain on the audio side if you already have Sonos set up for each room. 

[noodlephoto]

1 hour ago, SMHarman said:

What is your goal of sharing the same input source. To be able to play the same music in room a, home run to one side of the house and room b run to the next aide of the house.

In this case the source gers computationally fluid. You can have the same music going to both rooms but the source and distribution and timing is all handled by C4 to get a seamless distribution.

Sounds like you may need an extra controller, an older HC800 or a EA3 in each of those locations with a cat cable attached to it as a source (or 3 or 4) for each location but then you would be all set.

Yes, as my first floor (which is very open) is split between these two locations.  My family room, office, sunroom, and dining rooms all run to one side of my basement, while my kitchen, eat in, master bed/bath all run to the other side.  I'd want one source to be able to be played across most of these at once.

I was looking at the connections on the matrix and not making sense of how to connect one source to multiple matrixes.  I'm gathering from your feedback that multiple controllers would be how that is handled.  

It's a long run between both open spaces with just over 2000 sq ft of finished basement with drywall ceilings.  Fortunately I have Cat5 run between each.  But I don't think I could easily run the wires back.  I will certainly ask the contractor tomorrow about how feasible pulling the wires back would be.

[noodlephoto]

1 hour ago, KWD said:

Or continue to use the Sonos controlled via C4. Not sure what you really gain on the audio side if you already have Sonos set up for each room. 

I wasn't sure how well this would integrate.  Can you mix Sonos native rooms with C4 powered rooms or am I best off to leave all the amplification (wired and wireless) to the Sonos AMPs and have the C4 be the backbone and control it all?  I do have some issues with the AMPs dropping out during higher bit rate streaming (Qobuz).  I was hoping that the C4/Triad pieces would be able to handle that and be stable.

[SMHarman]

Yes, as my first floor (which is very open) is split between these two locations.  My family room, office, sunroom, and dining rooms all run to one side of my basement, while my kitchen, eat in, master bed/bath all run to the other side.  I'd want one source to be able to be played across most of these at once.
I was looking at the connections on the matrix and not making sense of how to connect one source to multiple matrixes.  I'm gathering from your feedback that multiple controllers would be how that is handled.  
It's a long run between both open spaces with just over 2000 sq ft of finished basement with drywall ceilings.  Fortunately I have Cat5 run between each.  But I don't think I could easily run the wires back.  I will certainly ask the contractor tomorrow about how feasible pulling the wires back would be.

Then without seeing it I'd have an amp and a controller on each location and then bind that all up and let C4 handle the pathways.

The same source on both sides would be transmitted across the cat / network and then decoded to analog in time on both controllers to get synced audio.

I don't know what else is in your system. One of these could be your main controller.

Both of these could be HC800 if cost is an issue but that won't get the hires audio of the EA chipsets.

[Unsocialtoaster]

Agree with SMHarman. You would want as many audio outputs as required at Side A and Side B, have both sides on the same network and C4 will handle syncing/switching between rooms as if it was all in the same place. 

You cannot sync Sonos zones and Control4 zones together, IMO you would be best picking one or the other for the whole house. The user experience of Sonos within C4 is limited to selecting Sonos Favourites (due to Sonos local APIs not allowing further integration), whereas with Control4 native streaming you can search and browse. 

 

Worth noting that if Spotify is your thing, Contro4 is Spotify Connect only, you have to use the Spotify app on a phone/tablet/pc to choose the music, which can be a bit clunky IMO if grouping rooms together. Sonos handles Spotify much nicer with browsing and searching, although it is not guaranteed that this will always be the case as it seems Sonos is the only service which works like this now.

[RAV]

How many Cats run between location A and B?

[noodlephoto]

5 minutes ago, RAV said:

How many Cats run between location A and B?

Just one.  But today it uplinks a small 8 port switch back to my main switch (idf/mdf) as I have an AP and SONOS AMPs hanging off of it.

[noodlephoto]

15 minutes ago, Unsocialtoaster said:

Agree with SMHarman. You would want as many audio outputs as required at Side A and Side B, have both sides on the same network and C4 will handle syncing/switching between rooms as if it was all in the same place. 

You cannot sync Sonos zones and Control4 zones together, IMO you would be best picking one or the other for the whole house. The user experience of Sonos within C4 is limited to selecting Sonos Favourites (due to Sonos local APIs not allowing further integration), whereas with Control4 native streaming you can search and browse. 

 

Worth noting that if Spotify is your thing, Contro4 is Spotify Connect only, you have to use the Spotify app on a phone/tablet/pc to choose the music, which can be a bit clunky IMO if grouping rooms together. Sonos handles Spotify much nicer with browsing and searching, although it is not guaranteed that this will always be the case as it seems Sonos is the only service which works like this now.

This is basically the conversation I had with the integrator.  Given this challenge and the fact I don't have any wiring on the second floor at all (4 kid bedrooms all of which have SONOS speakers today) we are thinking to keep SONOS as the audio distribution and focus the C4 build on my needs with doorbell, lighting, etc.  I don't use Spotify, but the kids all use Spotify and Apple Music, so both limitations with C4 for them.  I'm only using Deezer and Qobuz, so I have options

[SMHarman]

This is basically the conversation I had with the integrator.  Given this challenge and the fact I don't have any wiring on the second floor at all (4 kid bedrooms all of which have SONOS speakers today) we are thinking to keep SONOS as the audio distribution and focus the C4 build on my needs with doorbell, lighting, etc.  I don't use Spotify, but the kids all use Spotify and Apple Music, so both limitations with C4 for them.  I'm only using Deezer and Qobuz, so I have options

You could solve by floor then. Sonos upstairs. C4 downstairs. Aligns nicely with the users and use cases as well which should always be a consideration.

Timing issues between the two floors won't be heard.

[Cyknight]

On 12/11/2019 at 9:15 AM, Unsocialtoaster said:

Sonos handles Spotify much nicer with browsing and searching, although it is not guaranteed that this will always be the case as it seems Sonos is the only service which works like this now.

Recent update already messed a lot of that up though. Looks Like Spotify is bearing down on Sonos, and they're hard at work trying to keep what they can.