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Starting out, have some basic questions


kossick

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Hello,

Thanks for reading this.  I REALLY like the interface of Control4 and have always wanted to use it for my whole home audio over any other smart audio system, it just seems very complex so I had a few basic questions if someone could help...   for starters I'm going to be using Control4 primarily for whole home audio which has 7 zones, all wires ran to the zones and back to central location.  In my research it looks like the C4-16AMP3-B 8 zone audio matrix is my best bet, I don't plan to have any keypads, just tablets and phones.  The main sources that I plan to have hooked up to this is;

-iPod dock (I have iTunes library and playlists and I assume this is the easiest way to get them into the system)

-Amazon Music

-Spotify

-1 TV audio

-Satellite Radio 

-Chromecast Audio

From what I can tell I will also need a Controller, and for apps like Spotify and SiriusXM they are built into the newer controllers like EA1 and not older controllers like the HC-300 for example, correct? Also, for Amazon music since it's not built into a controller I assume Chromecast Audio is the best way to go for that, or is there a better idea?

For things beyond whole home audio, I don't NEED anything else connected, but I do have a security camera system (with it's own app). I also have some smart bulbs/switches/outlets that are already running fine and mostly set on schedules or by voice commands with Alexa/Smartthings so I don't need to integrate them but wouldn't mind it if it's easy and cost effective.

Is there any integration between Control4 and voice commands through Alexa?  Figured I'd better ask.

So for hardware I figured I would need the 

-C4-16AMP3-B 

-Controller (likely the EA1 for use of built in apps) 

-iPod dock

What kind of cost am I looking at on the software/programming side?  Also is there anything I'm way off base on since I'm very new to this?

 

Thank you!

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1 hour ago, kossick said:

Is there any integration between Control4 and voice commands through Alexa?  Figured I'd better ask.

So for hardware I figured I would need the 

-C4-16AMP3-B 

-Controller (likely the EA1 for use of built in apps) 

-iPod dock

What kind of cost am I looking at on the software/programming side?  Also is there anything I'm way off base on since I'm very new to this?

 

Thank you!

 

1. Yes, good native Alexa integration with C4 is available, you just need to have an active 4Sight subscription.

2. Don't waste your time with the matrix amp, they are old and effectively an end of line product. The current Triad AMS8 audio matrix and PAMP8 power amp are a much better performing combination.

3. You'll want to get an EA-3 for the audio outputs, the EA-1 only has a single HDMI output for audio and video and no analogue or digital audio only outputs. You could use an EA-1 but you would also have to use a HDMI audio extractor to feed audio into the audio matrix and you would only have a single stream of audio available for all zones. 

4. Far better to have all your iTunes music stored on a NAS drive with Twonky or other DLNA media server on it to index the music and playlists and then use the Control4 DLNA driver to link to system.

5. How long is a piece of string, cost of programming is dependent on so many different factors it's impossible to even give you an estimate. Get in touch with a dealer and get a quote for supply and install/programming.

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I agree that the iPod dock doesn't make sense.  I assume you have MP3s on a network accessible drive?  You just have Control4 read the MP3 (or whatever) files and they are available through the native C4 My Music playback.

You might also want to think about an Echo Dot connected to the Matrix amp, since you have Alexa.  You can then request music and have it play back.  Depending on how you set things up you may need a second command to direct your music to the correct room.  You would need two Echo Dots if you want to play two different streams to different rooms.

If you want to do this super-cheap and don't carry about buying end of line equipment you could buy an HC250 BL-1 and use that as your controller.  It is a 3.5mm analog output - and you can get them on eBay for <$50.  But you are limited to Control4 version 2.10.  You could do that as a trial and then buy a more recent controller later on.  You can often get the matrix amp that you mentioned for about $600 on eBay. 

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I’m curious as to why people use locally stored music as opposed to having access to millions of streaming titles that are fully integrated into the control4 controller ? 

I know some people do it because they have a few thousand foreign music titles that are somewhat not available on the streaming services, but why would you want to play your couple of thousand local stores titles when you can play them and Millions more from the services ?

 

 

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1 hour ago, kossick said:

#5 - Sorry to be more clear I guess I was just curious what kind of ballpark to have a programmer configure an audio system like I described, I wasn't sure if it would be <$100 or >$500

I would have said >$250 would be a bare minimum, but it depends on if you are going to it a bunch of old/used kit second hand and then find a dealer willing to even consider programming it for you. Sure you can get remote programming services from some guys on here but that is then reliant on you being able to physically install and connect everything up yourself correctly. 
 

If you want it supplied, installed and programmed then you are going to need a local dealer and they are not going to want to touch anything they didn’t supply. 

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11 minutes ago, msgreenf said:
2 hours ago, kossick said:
Oh that's interesting to know, I like the idea of iPod interface :/    So if I were to use something like HC250 BL-1 that uses version 2.1 like discussed above, it would still be there?

2.1 is OLD you don't want to run that. Like over 9 years old

2.1 was probably a typo - they were being good mathies and dropping the trailing 0 from 2.10 

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2 hours ago, JSTRONG said:

I’m curious as to why people use locally stored music as opposed to having access to millions of streaming titles that are fully integrated into the control4 controller ? 

I know some people do it because they have a few thousand foreign music titles that are somewhat not available on the streaming services, but why would you want to play your couple of thousand local stores titles when you can play them and Millions more from the services ?

I totally agree but quality could be one reason.  Spotify Connect is awesome but in the old days using Shairplay it was annoying that your phone had to be on your LAN for it to work (if you were playing from your phone) and if your phone had sound coming from another app it would take over from the music.  I 

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1 hour ago, Crustyloafer said:

 

2. Don't waste your time with the matrix amp, they are old and effectively an end of line product. The current Triad AMS8 audio matrix and PAMP8 power amp are a much better performing combination.

3. You'll want to get an EA-3 for the audio outputs, the EA-1 only has a single HDMI output for audio and video and no analogue or digital audio only outputs. You could use an EA-1 but you would also have to use a HDMI audio extractor to feed audio into the audio matrix and you would only have a single stream of audio available for all zones. 

4. Far better to have all your iTunes music stored on a NAS drive with Twonky or other DLNA media server on it to index the music and playlists and then use the Control4 DLNA driver to link to system.

5. How long is a piece of string, cost of programming is dependent on so many different factors it's impossible to even give you an estimate. Get in touch with a dealer and get a quote for supply and install/programming.

Hello,  Thank you for your response!  For #2 and #3 I believe I understand what you mean,  If I wanted to play 2 different audio streams from 2 different apps built into the controller I would need at least the EA3 which has multiple audio outs, I hadn't thought of that so thank you!

#4 - I have an iPod laying around with all of my music and playlists on it so I just assumed the easiest way to make that a connected source was getting the docking station because Control4 interface allows you to control the iPod doesn't it?  I may have that wrong.

#5 - Sorry to be more clear I guess I was just curious what kind of ballpark to have a programmer configure an audio system like I described, I wasn't sure if it would be <$100 or >$500

1 hour ago, zaphod said:

 

You might also want to think about an Echo Dot connected to the Matrix amp, since you have Alexa.  You can then request music and have it play back.  Depending on how you set things up you may need a second command to direct your music to the correct room.  You would need two Echo Dots if you want to play two different streams to different rooms.

If you want to do this super-cheap and don't carry about buying end of line equipment you could buy an HC250 BL-1 and use that as your controller.  It is a 3.5mm analog output - and you can get them on eBay for <$50.  But you are limited to Control4 version 2.10.  You could do that as a trial and then buy a more recent controller later on.  You can often get the matrix amp that you mentioned for about $600 on eBay. 

Thanks for the response! So in theory I could get an older controller and just use dot(s) to play apps like spotify/sirius/amazon music?  Because the older controllers don't have any of those music apps built in do they?

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5 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

#4 the ipod interface is actually eol in version 3. I would not recommend using an iPod integration on a new install.

 

 

Oh that's interesting to know, I like the idea of iPod interface :/    So if I were to use something like HC250 BL-1 that uses version 2.1 like discussed above, it would still be there?

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4 minutes ago, JSTRONG said:

I’m curious as to why people use locally stored music as opposed to having access to millions of streaming titles that are fully integrated into the control4 controller ? 

I know some people do it because they have a few thousand foreign music titles that are somewhat not available on the streaming services, but why would you want to play your couple of thousand local stores titles when you can play them and Millions more from the services ?

 

 

I can't speak for others, but for me it is for the playlists that I have made over the years.  I don't always want my local collection but for the times I do it's nice to have access to it

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I would also say that if one of your primary drivers in this project is the interface of Control4, I would get something capable of running OS3 because it was a big upgrade in user interface and is most likely what you're looking at when you're doing your research being it's been out for greater than 6 months. 

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For #2 and #3 I believe I understand what you mean,  If I wanted to play 2 different audio streams from 2 different apps built into the controller I would need at least the EA3 which has multiple audio outs, I hadn't thought of that so thank you!


It isn't just that. Even if you wanted to use two different sources from among the ones connected to your matrix amplifier, you'd have to use an EA-3 or above. The EA-1 supports a single stream of audio throughout the system. You can turn zones on and off but you cannot have two of them playing two different streams. The EA-3 supports three streams and the EA-5 supports—you guessed it—five.

#4 - I have an iPod laying around with all of my music and playlists on it so I just assumed the easiest way to make that a connected source was getting the docking station because Control4 interface allows you to control the iPod doesn't it?  I may have that wrong.


You won't be able to keep your playlists directly. There's no native iTunes or iPod integration that's up to date or properly supported, so your best bet is to give Control4 direct access to your local music files. You'd have to create all your playlists from scratch though. I would suggest that now's a good time to migrate to something like Pandora, Spotify or Tidal—not merely for the better integration with Control4, but to make your playlists more future proof and platform agnostic.

So in theory I could get an older controller and just use dot(s) to play apps like spotify/sirius/amazon music?  Because the older controllers don't have any of those music apps built in do they?


That's a bad idea for many reasons, as described by@msgreenf. To add to the list of reasons, while connecting Echo Dots (or even Echo Links, which have better quality) is a convenient way to get Alexa integration for on-the-fly music playback with Control4, you take a significant hit on quality that way. You'd get much better audio quality and control out of your system when using something like the native Tidal app for Control4.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

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For #2 and #3 I believe I understand what you mean,  If I wanted to play 2 different audio streams from 2 different apps built into the controller I would need at least the EA3 which has multiple audio outs, I hadn't thought of that so thank you!


It isn't just that. Even if you wanted to use two different sources from among the ones connected to your matrix amplifier, you'd have to use an EA-3 or above. The EA-1 supports a single stream of audio throughout the system. You can turn zones on and off but you cannot have two of them playing two different streams. The EA-3 supports three streams and the EA-5 supports—you guessed it—five.

#4 - I have an iPod laying around with all of my music and playlists on it so I just assumed the easiest way to make that a connected source was getting the docking station because Control4 interface allows you to control the iPod doesn't it?  I may have that wrong.


You won't be able to keep your playlists directly. There's no native iTunes or iPod integration that's up to date or properly supported, so your best bet is to give Control4 direct access to your local music files. You'd have to create all your playlists from scratch though. I would suggest that now's a good time to migrate to something like Pandora, Spotify or Tidal—not merely for the better integration with Control4, but to make your playlists more future proof and platform agnostic.

So in theory I could get an older controller and just use dot(s) to play apps like spotify/sirius/amazon music?  Because the older controllers don't have any of those music apps built in do they?


That's a bad idea for many reasons, as described by@msgreenf. To add to the list of reasons, while connecting Echo Dots (or even Echo Links, which have better quality) is a convenient way to get Alexa integration for on-the-fly music playback with Control4, you take a significant hit on quality that way. You'd get much better audio quality and control out of your system when using something like the native Tidal app for Control4.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, Aayush Arya said:


You won't be able to keep your playlists directly. There's no native iTunes or iPod integration that's up to date or properly supported, so your best bet is to give Control4 direct access to your local music files. You'd have to create all your playlists from scratch though. I would suggest that now's a good time to migrate to something like Pandora, Spotify or Tidal—not merely for the better integration with Control4, but to make your playlists more future proof and platform agnostic.
 

 

I just read up on the iTunes driver, my iTunes is on my dedicated media server (PC), with that driver does that allow navigating the iTunes library and playlists through the Control4 interface, or what exactly does that do?

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12 minutes ago, kossick said:

I just read up on the iTunes driver, my iTunes is on my dedicated media server (PC), with that driver does that allow navigating the iTunes library and playlists through the Control4 interface, or what exactly does that do?

This driver ceases to work in OS3.  Prior to that, it does work the way you'd expect. 

The next best thing is to set up a DLNA server (eg twonky) and point it to your itunes folder, whether you're on OS3 or not.  There is a DLNA driver in Control4 that will give you access to the music, including playlists.  Not all DLNA server's will have the search capability from the Control4 navigators.  The list of compatible DLNA servers are in the driver docs, or your dealer will know. 

Side note, If you're using Twonky on a PC and your itunes library is on a PC, it will require one more step to export your playlists in XML format and save them in the itunes folder (which can be done in itunes also).  Once the DLNA server and Control4 scans your library again, the playlists will be available on the navigators.  I don't remember having to do this extra step with twonky and  itunes for a mac.

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16 hours ago, dcovach said:

This driver ceases to work in OS3.  Prior to that, it does work the way you'd expect. 

The next best thing is to set up a DLNA server (eg twonky) and point it to your itunes folder, whether you're on OS3 or not.  There is a DLNA driver in Control4 that will give you access to the music, including playlists.  Not all DLNA server's will have the search capability from the Control4 navigators.  The list of compatible DLNA servers are in the driver docs, or your dealer will know. 

Side note, If you're using Twonky on a PC and your itunes library is on a PC, it will require one more step to export your playlists in XML format and save them in the itunes folder (which can be done in itunes also).  Once the DLNA server and Control4 scans your library again, the playlists will be available on the navigators.  I don't remember having to do this extra step with twonky and  itunes for a mac.

Thank you!  I appreciate it

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