Considering C4 for new home - what about s/w

[ckmic]

Hi - I am building a new home - electrician is installing wiring this week. I am thinking about putting in a C4 system - primarily for audio distribution now.

I plant to use a HTC; amplifier 16; 2 touch panels and 1 LCD panel

I have eight "zones" I would like to distribute audio to.

One touch panel will feed 3, one will feed 2 and the LCD will feed 2

I have run speaker wire back to the rack and CAT5 back to the router already

My concern is that the dealer I will be buying from lives about 1500 KM from where I live - there is one closer but they have never sold a C4 and know little about it and they still would have to travel 3 hours to commission the system

I was looking to C4 because of it configurability - however it sounds as though as a consumer I really can't do much with the system as only dealers can access the s/w?

Is there a way to buy the dealer s/w - I would like to use the system but I don't want to depend on a dealer that can't get a quote together in under a month ...

Maybe for what I am trying to do C4 is overkill??

Any suggestions

Thanks

C

[RyanE]

C,

I don't quite understand what you mean by 'one touchpanel will feed 3, one will feed 2, and LCD will feed 2'. The audio isn't actually fed through the keypads / touchpanels, but should come over your speaker wiring in traditional multi-room audio.

Do you mean that those panels will provide UI for multiple zones? Generally, you do multi-room audio by having audio zones for each location (room) you want to have audio in, then you put UI in each (touchpanel / LCD Keypad on the wall) room.

As far as you being able to setup your system, Composer Pro, which is the Dealer Install tool, is generally not available for homeowners, but Composer HE (Homeowner Edition) will be available shortly, which will allow you to do most programming / scene changes / etc. on your own system, but will not allow you to add new devices to your system, since that's the most complicated part of the setup.

Control4 is definitely not overkill for a small multi-room audio setup.

RyanE

[perkypete]

Where in the world are you ...we are in the UK and can help if need be?

peter

[read99]

We have a C4 system and it works great. The dealer that we ended up selecting was located 1000 miles away but that has not been a problem. If there is a change that is beyond your ability or if desired then the installer can make the changes from a remote location.

Some installers will also allow you to keep the dealer software as well if you are more of a do it youself type or if there is a change beyond the media and home versions. Just ask. Personally, other than media changes which are easy, I have just had my installer make the changes from remote.

Last, the interface is such that any location (touchpanel or lcd) can control any zone. It is very flexible and not dedicated. If you have any questions, please ask.

[ckmic]

Thanks for the feedback guys - after speaking with C4 they found a dealer a couple hundred miles away but he has an office in my city - this will work well. He has quoted me a system and we are going to go ahead.

One thing I am trying to determine is if there is a cheap tuner that works well with the system - the C4 tuner is about $750 Canadian - a lot of money for a radio - does anyone have an alternate solution or know of other models that would work - I can just buy a used one for the 4 or 5 channels I listen to

Thanks again

[RyanE]

ckmic,

As far as I know, you can use any IR-controllable tuner with the system, although one that can do 'direct select' of stations will work better, since then the system can send the IR codes for doing direct select of the channels from the UI.

I haven't done it myself, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

RyanE