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JoeTurksta

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#171336 14-Apr-2015 12:21

My wife has given me permission to put a system into the house later on this year.

My (Dream) Requirements are:

3 - 4 Zones: (Outdoor, Lounge, Bedroom, Bathroom - Music while having a shower/bath)
Multiple HDMI Inputs
HDMI Outputs: 2 or more so TV/SKy can be broadcast in multiple rooms at the same time)
AM/FM Tuner
Internet Radio capability (Spotify etc)
Airplay

What's good, what's not good, etc.

Thanks Guys :)

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#1282869 14-Apr-2015 12:32

This will do most (if not all) of what you want and Yamaha are a great brand in this area - http://au.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/av-receivers-amps/aventage/rx-a3040_l/?mode=model#tab=product_lineup

Jase2985

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#1282900 14-Apr-2015 13:03

whats the budget? that will be the biggest limiting factor in all this

geekiegeek

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#1282957 14-Apr-2015 14:28

Jase2985: whats the budget? that will be the biggest limiting factor in all this

Good question, also what do you need/what do you already have - i.e. speakers for 4 rooms?

JoeTurksta

61 posts

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#1282968 14-Apr-2015 14:34

Thanks guys,

Yeah, budget - not a heck of a lot at the moment, say maybe $2k - 2.5k

I'll like to allow for speakers, except my house as those horrible MichaelAngelo Ceiling tiles from the 70's (Except bathroom which has gib ceiling) so I'm wondering how mounting speakers in those would work. Considering something decent, but not crap like maybe some Polk Audios or something?

At the moment I have nothing, just my 50" LG Plasma with Freeview built in and My Sky +

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#1282971 14-Apr-2015 14:40

JoeTurksta: Thanks guys,

Yeah, budget - not a heck of a lot at the moment, say maybe $2k - 2.5k ...

I would suggest spending all of that on one room (should be just enough), and expand later when you're rich and famous.

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Jase2985

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#1283003 14-Apr-2015 15:37

highly doubt you will be able to find a 4 zone amp that does 2 zones of HDMI, and including the price of speakers for the price you have listed.

Generally 5.1 speakers for the main zone and then 2 each for the other zones so thats an 11.1/2 system to do what you want. the one linked above is a 9.2 system and its just under 3k Australian (will be more in NZ)

if your budget is that low your going to need to be realistic about that you are going to be able to get for that money

JimmyH

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#1283154 14-Apr-2015 19:17

$2.5K isn't remotely sufficient to do what you want. It will get you a decent receiver and a pair of decent front speakers, and that's about it.

I suggest you don't compromise on those. Just get the receiver and main speakers, and start on one room. Add the rest of the speakers as budget allows, and then add the rest of the rooms as you can afford them.

Don't try and do more within a limited budget by cutting corners on the receiver or main speakers. They are the cornerstone of your setup, and I guarantee you will regret doing so later.

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Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

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#1283160 14-Apr-2015 19:33

JimmyH: ... Don't try and do more within a limited budget by cutting corners on the receiver or main speakers. They are the cornerstone of your setup, and I guarantee you will regret doing so later.

+1

Excellent advice

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Masterpiece

247 posts

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#1283195 14-Apr-2015 20:10

My budget for AV was just shy of 10k for a new house build which I've just moved in too.

With that I had 3 runs of Cat6 to bedrooms, living area 4 Cat6, media room 6 runs plus a loop of Cat6 from one end to the other to run video if needed.

RF TV for freeview in 1st and 2nd bedroom, 2 RF in living for alternate locations and 1 in media with another loop from one end to other.

The above was relatively cheap to do, Cat6 is cheap to run and allows Audio, Video and Ethernet to transmit so the most flexible.

Note, I allowed some of the budget to treat the media room, acoustic windows with motorised blockout blinds, double 13mm soundline gib both sides of walls (internal) and soundline Gib on the roof and a solid core door to the room. The walls have sound bats, with a layer in the roof doubled up with 3.6 insulation as well. This was about $1500 upgrade to the components to build the room if normally constructed. The design is more about lowering the noise floor from outside than limiting the inside getting out, but it works both ways.

Audio is media room with 2nd stereo zone outside for deck area.
In the media room is where it all happens, I've pre wired for Dolby Atmos 7.2.4 where I've started with 7.1
Note I fitted conduit to feed all the wiring through should I want to run something else later. Although my 50mm tube is full with wiring already.
In the media room I already had a projector and screen from old place so wasn't in my budget but I upgraded the audio side of things where I got a Yamaha Aventage RXA3040, running pairs of Paradigm monitor 9 fronts, surround 3 for sides and atoms for rears plus a paradigm sub. The atmos is waiting to I finish other things of a new house like a wood shed and deck.

As you can see the my audio side was higher cost than your budget, if I was limited to a lower budget some things would drop out.
If say I was limited to say 3k, the AVR would of been first to go as this was the budget alone. So a sub 1k AVR would be the target in this case, so would the speaker package, maybe a quality brand of 5.1 so here I'd go for a package deal AVR and 5.1 setup somewhere in the $1500 range.

Then you would have about $1000 to spend on wiring and stuff, HDMI can be expensive to run long lengths. Keep the player and AVR near the display then no need to run HDMI but run Cat6 for other rooms, but do consider where the start point is going to be for all the runs. You need to be able to patch and run a switch and Ethernet from this location.

Just a few tips to consider

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Me "That sounds like a program with no freewill?"

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Dunnersfella

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#1283242 14-Apr-2015 20:58

Hmmm - thinking about it...

The best way you can achieve what you're looking to do, and keep within your budget could be this:

Pioneer VSX924.
Mulitple HDMI inputs, 2 x HDMI outputs - one of which is an 'HDZone' so you can send a video feed that is separate from the main zone, to a screen in another room... with audio. This means MySky in both rooms, or just one, while someone else watches a BluRay in the other zone.
The TV in the 'HD Zone' could have a soundbar attached if you like.
The amp also has Zone 2, meaning you can play audio that is independent of Zone 1 or the HDZone.
If you're running efficient speakers, you can split the Zone 2 using an impedance matching speaker selector box - then run cables to in-wall volume controls, so people in the house can simply turn the volume control up or down as they walk around the home.
The amp will have Airplay, a phone/tablet app, interweb radio, FM radio etc... but no built in wifi. So you'll need to hardwire it to your network.

Let's say $1200 for the amp.
$200 for the speaker selector.
4 x in-wall volume controllers $700.
In-ceiling speakers for the bathroom... I'd recommend a water resistant single stereo in-ceiling speaker - $250
Outdoor speakers = $350 for something nice.
Basic speakers for the bedroom or lounge would be $300 per pair ($600)
5.1 speaker pack $1500.
That's $4800.

It's not top of the line gear, but it's not cheap crap either.

The rest of the budget could go onto cabling, a network switch, speaker brackets etc...
My $0.02.

richms

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#1283270 14-Apr-2015 21:14

I tried a 2 zone onkyo amp briefly between upstairs and downstairs in the garage since I had the cables thru already.

Didnt like it one bit.

Second HDMI can only show what the first one shows, it was not a matrix switch. Audio on the second zone could only come from the analog inputs or the inbuilt streaming player, no HDMI audio would come out the stereo RCA out or from the speaker outs that were set to zone 2.

Remote control was alright in that you could press zone 2 and then it changed input etc for the audio, but not video. but only had one remote. There was an onkyo app but it was too slow to open etc to change things. Using the spotify connect to it was better in responsiveness and ease of controlling, but again, still a pain to use a phone.

When playing the same internal streaming source to both zones, there was a lag between them so if you could hear both then it was all echoey sounding. Never progressed far enough to see which was the actual in sync one because there was no way to have it play the same HDMI source to both zones and I didnt have anything with RCA out within easy reach at the time.

In the end went back to the old sony reciever for downstairs garage and a second PC as a source. So while yeah there is a second and third zone output on the reciever, effectivly they are pretty damn useless at doing that.

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#1283272 14-Apr-2015 21:17

Dont go passive in wall volume controls. That is a really horrid old way of doing things. Ones with remote are getting up to the cost of a cheap reciever.

A cheap remote controllable stereo amp per zone is the way to go. If you get a reciever then you have another tuner per zone too.

Richard rich.ms

Dunnersfella

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#1283273 14-Apr-2015 21:18

Simultaneous video output (typically for a projector in the same room) tied into a second zone of audio is almost always, annoying... at best.
The analogue audio output is often out of sync with the HDMI audio... and a lack of independence is annoying at best.
Controlling amps like the Pioneer with their HD Zone can be annoying when using the remote, but the app. is pretty well received.
The LC58/78/88's are more powerful and certainly capable of blowing peoples hair back! But the budget would be blown pretty quickly!

JoeTurksta

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#1284430 15-Apr-2015 08:43

Thanks for the feedback.

It's probably worth me importing the Yamaha Receiver as posted above. On Amazon.com you can get it for around $1300 - $1400 USD. I obviously need to aim a bit higher in Budget and will,

What speakers do you recommend? I'm not a HUGE audiophile, but want something decent that's entry - mid range. Preferable Ceiling Mounted Speakers too. Interested in your feedback.

jonathan18

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#1284453 15-Apr-2015 09:15

Dunnersfella: (snip) The analogue audio output is often out of sync with the HDMI audio... and a lack of independence is annoying at best.

Another thing to be careful of is a similar problem with multiroom sound on some (probably cheaper?) receivers - the Onkyo receiver we have in the HT has its second zone set up for speakers in the HT's veranda which leads on to a large deck. There was a huge audio sync issue between the two zones, meaning it was really unusable.

This may not sound like a big issue, but if you intend to have audio in two or more zones that overlap the problem MUST be solved.

The solution I found (which is a total compromise, but given it's only for background music so not a big issue) was splitting the RCA audio output of the primary source (a Squeezebox Duet) so that it fed into two analogue audio inputs in the receiver, thus allowing each 'zone' to be fed by the same analogue audio signal (with each zone set to a different input).

More generally, I agree with the advice for the OP to start small and build up from there; it's often amazing what can be acheived on a limited budget (as I was in a similar boat, wanting to do it with as tight a budget as possible), but there's just no point trying to spread your money across so many needs. Do you have any existing components or speakers that you can use at least initially? I had a good pair of fronts (Paradigm 9SEs still going strong) plus a Paradigm centre already, and then bought two pairs of Wharfedale 9.1s for surrounds (one pair second-hand) and a second-hand Velodyne CHT-10 subwoofer. I picked up the receiver at about half price from JB for less than $600, and while it's not fantastic it does what I need to do for the moment including two zones (but with the issue identified above).

I've since replaced the sub (which gave up) with a SVS PB-2000, and the change has been radical (but its arrival have shown the need to ensure the right gib is used in a room used for HT - I wish I'd either double-gibbed the walls or used a more appropriate product, now the system has such a deep and loud bottom end resulting in undesireable resonances - something to be mindful of if you're building the space from scratch). If I had the money the next thing I plan to do is pick up some (s-h) Rotel power amps to replace the relatively feeble amplification of the receiver; later on, I'd imagine I'd look at upgrading the receiver, though I doubt I'd move into Atmos for a while as I'm not keen on having to retrofit speakers in the ceiling (and until proven remain sceptical of the 'bouncing' type).

This is just to demonstrate you it doesn't all have to be done at once or at a really high cost; just do some level of future-proofing like cabling where you are likely to put in additional zones that you may not be able to support from day one, or for ceiling-mounted speakers if you think you'll want Atmos at a later date.

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