sound around systems for new build

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Roundy#

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In the process of building a new house. Would like to install some sort of sound system for the various rooms for the house e.g. system for which you could link in radio/tv/cd etc., with central control panels. Have looked at various systems on the internet and am wondering if anyone out there has any recommendations/ rough prices etc.??

thanks
 
We've just purchased the Philips Streamium which is a wireless system - just plug in, copy CDs to it or from a PC and the other stations pick up all the music. Cost €800 (for centre and 1 other station, with each additional station costing €250) but well worth it. You can play different music in each room or have same in all rooms. Has radio also.

However, if you want to get the whole lot wired into the house walls etc try

http://www.digisound.ie/?gclid=COudpbvDvIcCFRQbUgod0lajIA

It proves costly but may be well worth it if you're only at the building stage.

Best of luck with it.

Benny200
 
Try [broken link removed] - I found this company very good to deal with - decided not to do it in the end as it was costing around €4000 or more. I've heard mixed reviews about the Phillips system - The best wireless system on the market seems to be the SONOS system - www.simplySONOS.co.uk
 
I recently bought an amplifer and CD player www.rotel.com I'm toying with the idea of hooking it up so I can extend the speakers to the kitchen / diner. The sound off this is amazing and it would be nice to have it going in annother room, with a key pad where I could choose what CD tracks to play / adjust the volume / fwd / rwd, etc. I was browsing this crowd - they're Amertican and seem to have a good range of equipment for hooking up this kit www.xantech.com - they come recommended by the amp manufacturer in their literature.

IMHO, the amp is the heart of the system and a good quality multi-channel amp (i.e. one that can run at least 2 sets of speakers i.e. in two separate rooms) will cost in the region of €600 - €700. It's then up to you what you want to add - music servers, CD, DVD etc. You can also buy amps that will run any multiple of speakers, 2, 4 & 6 sets seem to be common. However, make sure your kit is compatible, for example that the amp has pre-outs for running a multi channel power amp.
 
Hi, I've been considering sound around systems too and just wondering if they're worth it, regardless of the cost. i.e. would you actually use it - how often do you need the same music/radio all over the house or am I missing something here. Would be interested to hear from someone who installed it.
 
Personally, I love music and would gladly sit and listern to music for hours. If Mrs Quinno is watching, or Junior Quinno sleeping, then I'll put on my headphones.

It would be nice to have speakers in anotehr room, then I could listen at my hearts content, provided it's not too loud. A wall mounted control would then allow me to adjus the sound as necessary.

As with everything, horses for courses
 
Ya got a returned quote from soundaround; varly costly - €3,200 - this includes:-
  • 5 audio sources distributed throughout the house - connect your own devices e.g. computer/MP3, CD, DVD, Sky Digibox etc.)
  • Completely independent control in every room
  • Paging and intercom throughout the house, to specific zones and room to room with room monitor function and auto-responder
  • Independent FM tuner in each room
  • IR-remote relay to 3 audio devices around the house.
Not sure if i'll go for it........
 
Roundy,

I have had two multiroom systems to date in my house (the older one got damaged by lightning and had to be replaced), so here is my two cents worth.

The first system was a KUSTOM 6640 (now NUVO Technologies) and was a wired system with wall mounted keypads in each zone or room.; It gave me 6 zones and I could hook up 6 sources to it. As with most multiroom systems, I could play any source in any room and combine all the sources to. System would cost around 6k now a days I reckon. Pros: It was easy to install for anyone anyway technical minded. Sound was good, and keypads in each room were good.
Cons:- Becomes outdated quickly whcih is a lot of money basically. System no longer made (after only 2 years of me having it) and is superseeded with a newer incompatible model.
One size only (i.e you have to buy the 6 room solution), you cant start small and scale upwards.
As it was a one box solution (the amp was one unit for all six zones), if the main unit gets broke your up the creek without the paddle!!! If this happens, you are left with some funny looking redundent keypads in your walls also.

Based on the above, I would say you should look at the following criteria if possible (and I will say in advance that I now have a sonos system whcih I think meets all of these criteria)

1) Try and stay away from one box solutions. A distributed system is a lot more redundant. If one zone goes, your whole system is not gone. Two systems that are distributed are sonos and QED as far as I remember.
2) Keypads are great, but as they generally only work with the main system, they are not future proof, and hindsight would teach me not to go for a wall mounted keypad
3) Go for a scalable system. In addition to the benefit of the first criterea, you can start small and work your way up to suit needs and budget
4) Go for a system that works well with a hard disk storage device. Ie, something that can read and distribute recorded music rather than cd juke boxes etc, as these are very hard to manage your compilations.

If you were to ask in my opinion which of the above was the most important, I would say item 1. I lost my origional system due to a lightning strike and it cost me thousands to replace it. If it had of been a distr
ibuted system like QED or sonos, this would not have been the case. (thank god for insurance though)

Now I will plug SONOS

The pros:-
Wireless or wired, which ever you want, and so is also very flexible.
Set up each new zone in minutes
Completely scalealbe. Start with 1 or 2 zones and work your way up if you want.
Intnernet enabled. Rather than have a tuner you can stream internet radio from anywhere. You can stream a different station to any room you want. With similar systems (like the kustom or nuvo), you would need a seperate tuner for each seperate station you wanted to listen to.
Software upgradeable (I just got an automatic software upgrade that added loads of new software features to my system (alarm clock etc), for free.
No keypads, uses wireless lcd controllers instead.
Album art with controllers, and also great compilation management, with custom playlists etc.
Great support, forums, and as I mention continious updates and upgrades on an ongoing basis.

Cons
Controllers are expensive, but you dont need one for every room. I have two controllers for my six room set up and it works great.
a six zone system with 2 controllers will cost you about 3,400 yoyos. But thats actually quite good in my opinion. Again, you can start small and build it up as your budget and needs allow.

My two cents worth. They can be bought locally also rather than over the net, whcih I now think is a good thing when you are talking about somehting around this price range.

I may sound liek I am trying to sell the system, but I am not, I just think its a fantastic system and would be my top recommendation regards any media product I have ever bought. Do look around though, but my basic advice would be along the lines of the criteria I mentioned above.

Phew!!! long post, sorry,

Regards,
Eamon
 
Second the sonos - work with a major player in this area - not Sonos and think what they offer is great for the normal household.

We still haven't decided on our end system BUT we wired for speakers and cat 6 to points near switches which we can hack into later IF we need to.

Be careful with concrete walls - wireless doesn't always work!!

In our current house - I get great wireless cover from upstairs to downstairs and even in the garden - but NO reception in the opposite part of the house!

Coppeen
 
HI
not sure if your area would be covered try [broken link removed] they do all that wiring built in
 
Copeen,

The wireless and concrete walls is less of a problem with sonos, as each zone acts as a repeater for wireless as well. So its not the same as having one wireless router say to cover wlan all over the house. If you have 3 zones, you have 3 seperate wlan transmitters. I have concrete walls and have absolutely no problem with coverage.

Wiring for speakers is a definate advantage if you can in advance, and of coiurse, you can NEVER have too much cat5. There is ALWAYS a use for CAT5
Eamon
 
Eamon

Agreed on the Sonos and wireless not so much an issue!

Then again, don't know why I'm giving advice because mine isn't working yet!!!!:eek: :eek: :)

Is technology wonderful??? Now if only I could automate the plasterer!!

Coppeen
 
Benny200, how are you finding the Philips Streamium? I am thinking of getting one but heard bad reviews re compatability with certain music files and the ripping of cds being pretty slow, is that right?

Do the stations work well if they are far apart from each other?

I have a Philips freeline pc so thought getting the Streamium would make sense as I already use the Philips media manager.
 
Hi Wexfordman!

I too am toying with the idea of a Sonos set-up. Firstly I have a couple of questions if you wouldnt mind.

Can you plug a set of headphones into the sonos box itself?
Also if you have the first Sonos box plugged directly into your broadband enabled p.c, does this mean that you have an internet network point in all the different Sonos units? An example would be if you had your sonos unit connected to a pc in your study, could you access the internet from a laptop through a sonos unit that you may have in the kitchen.

Also what were the new features that they added to improve an already good package?

Many thanks and as always any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Thumper,

1) Cant think of how you would connect up headphones, there are two outputs, one for normal speakers and another for line level out if you want to use it. I would imagine maybe one of those wireless headphones might be possible to hook up alright.

2) Each sonos box (on the zp100) has 4 lan ports, effectively giving you an extension of your broadband through these ports. I am using one of them to connect my xbox360 to my BB. Just plug it in and it works!!


You could connect up a laptop, as you say, but if I would rather use a laptop wirelessly with a wireless router to be honest.

3) The new features added last week were improvements to the overall music management on the controller, improvements in scrollwheel sensitivity, and best of all, alarm clock functionality. I now wake up in the morning to my sonos playing either a pre selected play list, or else streaming radio, which ever I want. I time my kitchen zone to com on about 5 mins after the bed zone as well (as long as its a weekday).They also added snooze functionality etc as well. One other thing they added was I think Rhapsody, whcih is a service which basically is an internet jukebox. It is a subscription service, but sounds pretty cool (not availalbe to subscribe to outside the US yet though).

My set up is 6 zones and 2 controllers. I have as I mentioned connected my xbox to my broadband via a sonos box in the living room. I also have a wireless router, whcih I use for the laptop, so my first sonos box is hooked up to this too. My music is all stored on a desktop pc, but I plan to move all this to a Networked hard drive eventually so I dont need the desktop anymore.

One otther hany feature, is that controller software can be installed on any pc/laptop on your network giving you full control from that pc also.

Hope this helps, do have a look at www.sonos.com the forums are very very good too for info. Let me know if you need any more info.

Regards,
Eamon
 
It's the business - no problems with any music files and transferring to the Streamium is pretty simple. Sound is fine too. The smaller station works very well - its downstairs on the other side of the house and the reception is excellent.
 
Hi, have read this thread and would be interested in getting a quote from Sonos but not sure how it works. See they're based in the UK. Do they have an agent in Ireland? or do you buy direct from them in the UK. They seem to just have an 0800 number which I'm presuming won't work from Ireland. Just wondering how others got their system. Haven't a clue about electrics so would be using an electrician to do the installing (if we go for it) or do they install as well? Thanks.
 
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