OT: whole house audio

[Guest]

Sanj, feel free to move this to the appropriate area (if there is one!)

 

We bought a home a few months ago that has a whole house audio system. It has 11 zones with 22 speakers. The current set up only partially works (one of the amplifiers died) but it was a B&K system with wall controls. I was told that since B&K went out of business the wall controls and system are proprietary so it's best just to replace the components. 

 

I got a quote from a locally company and the guy is suggesting two Yamaha QS5400 (quad streamers) and a new receiver for  Yamaha RXA6A. He said would total about $8,200 (plus installation).

 

Best Buy is suggesting Sonos. It would be 2 Sonance amplifiers. 

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sonance-sonamp-600w-12-0-ch-digital-power-amplifier-each-black/5683420.p?skuId=5683420

 

And the 11 Sonos ports

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sonos-port-streaming-media-player-matte-black/6371154.p?skuId=6371154

 

 

The total on these would be about $7,000 (installed). 

 

They both said I could reduce a quadstreamer or ports if I were okay with fewer zones. So the quad steamer will do 4 zones and each port would do 1. So technically if I wanted to do 6 zones (which I'm leaning towards, the total would be closer to $5,200 (plus installation for the local guy) or about $5,000 for Best buy. 

 

I'm certainly out of my "circle of competence" on this so I'm looking a decent system but it doesn't have to be very high end at all. 

 

Which offers best quality? Why would one system be superior to another? Any ideas or suggestions are much appreciated. 

 

[Spekulatius]

I would sign up with Audiogon or AVS forums and read the forums and then post your question here.

 

Way back when I bought my subwoofer etc, I used to frequent AVS forums and there was a lot of helpful material there.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Spekulatius

[LC]

Check audiokarma. They’re my “go to” for audiophile needs.

[james22]

audiosciencereview.com

Edited January 2, 2022 by james22

[Guest]

I'll check out those sites. Thanks for the suggestions guys! 

[keerthiprasad]

My house came with a control 4 system with in-ceiling speakers throughout the house. It was terrible. All the speakers are wired to one central location in our basement. I switched it out for a simpler set up with amazon echos and monoprice amps. 

 

In the basement: I plugged the speakers for each room in to an amplifier from monoprice (~$120 each). I then added an amazon echo dot ($20) to each amplifier. Each echo is named for its respective room. In the actual rooms we have echos. We just tell the echo to play music and it plays through the built in speakers. It sounds complicated because I am probably not explaining it well, but I really like how it works and it was simple to set up. 

[Spekulatius]

We also use Echo's They are quite versatile to play music, make announcement (too our teenage son mostly) and even control lights (inside and outside). We have and Echo studio (with a small subwoofer) and a couple of Echo's from several generations. My wife likes the Echo's show (with a screen). We typically buy them on Black Friday for substantial discounts.