Multi-Room across different backend

1

Hey Community!

I am thinking about how to best create a single Multi-Room system from different backends. Specifically, I have:

  • Amplipi main unit
  • Rotel C8
  • (to be) squeezebox or raspi as sources.
  • demon avr 3313

I’d like to have a system where I can do full party mode on all zones (incl. main stereo etc.)
Amplipi has an integration, rotel does not. I could write one, but it would still no be “one system” to HASS.

My thinking is to connect squeezebox / snapcast to the multiroom amps and then have a custom component that would handle the amp zone muting and volume.

I hope the above is a bit clear.

Key reason not to go with a Amplipi extender (which would get rid of this mess) is that the original price was 399$ and now it’s 1899$. And I got a super good deal on the rotel.

Thz

2

Snapcast server and clients is the way to go.
HA ha e full support for it already.
I use Rpi 0W as clients and I have a Debian VM on my proxmox server with 3 MPDs linked to 3 snapcast and 3 Icecast2 services.
The Icecast2 service is just to be able to play music over some devices I have that do not handle streaming or have input options, but these will then not be in sync though.

3

Hey @wallyr. Thanks. This is however not the gist of the problem. The gist is how do I best control 2 multiroom amps via home assistant so that from an UI perspective it looks as if it’s all on one system?

4

You need to get the Rotel amp into HA as a first step.
Next you would probably still need SnapCast to getusic in sync. There are a few other options still, but they all require a client device, like my Rpi0W, because the protocols that provide music sync are not standard, and therefore not built into the Amps.

5

OK, let’s try to ask the question in another way: Regardless of whether I use LMS or snapcast, my issue is, I have more outputs than I have (LMS|SnapCast) clients. So I will never be in the comfortable position where I can just hook one raspi to each pair of speakers and have (again, LMS or SnapCast) control the multiroom. There will be this additional layer of the multiroom amps. And my issue is that currently the only way out of that I see is to have the music selection (aka LMS|SnapCast) and the output selection (aka the amps) in two separate UIs (cards). And there might be some glitches due to that.

But ok, I will first get both amps into HA and play around and report back. Thx

6

You will need an UI for media selection too, so make an entire dashboard for it.