I’m trying to come up with a relatively painless multi room audio solution in new apartment i.e. I can easily lay down audio, ethernet and power cables wherever I need.
I’ve been looking into some other threads on the forum but none of them checks all the boxes I need. I can spend up to $3000-$4000 but can consider more.
My dream multi room audio setup:
has 4 zones: living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom
zones can be controlled independently or all at once, music can play synchronously in all or selected rooms
can be controlled via Home Assistant or some other solution (Google Home, Yamaha Multicast?)
able to cast music from mobile devices (via Chromecast and/or bluetooth)
can play music via Spotify Connect or YouTube Music
can play Internet radio
ideally is able to play music from some device in the bathroom and play tv audio in the living room at the same time without interrupting
a guest player (e.g. friend’s phone) can be easily added
1 major AMP (e.g. Yamaha MUSICCAST RX-V6A or similar that has various internet options like Spotify connect, Internet radio); this would be the main sound source (e.g. from smart TV, record player or Internet radio), this can be controlled via Home Assitant integration
set of speakers connected directly to the amp in the living room
ceiling speakers in kitchen and bathroom
standalone speakers in the bedroom - they may be connected to some other source like a separate tv in the bedroom
I’m not sure how to handle the last 2 points i.e. separate speakers in the other rooms - how to play music on all or selected speakers at the same time?
I’ve been also looking into Google Home speakers but I think I would like to have separate old-fashioned speakers that can be upgraded in the future and some of them would be integrated into ceiling.
Do you have some recommendations? Have you seen any good examples of similar systems? I’d be extremely helpful for any advice.
I’m currently in the progress of finishing my multiroom audio setup (you can follow my progress in my repo if you are interested, I’ll publish detailed guides and explanation once I’m done).
Hardware:
Office: Yamaha Stereo Amp, dedicated speakers, Pi Zero W + HifiBerry DAC
Livingroom: Denon AVR, dedicated speakers, Pi 4
Bedroom: Active speakers + PiZero W + HifiBerry DAC
Balcony: Passive speakers + Pi Zero W + HifiBerry Amp
Each Pi is running either Volumio (music only clients) with spotify and snapclient addon or Libreelec (audio/video clients) with spotify and snapclient addon. On my HA server I run Snapserver with Spotify support.
This way I can play music in the individual rooms through e.g. Spotify Connect directly or I can play perfectly synced music in all/multiple rooms through snapcast.
I’m currently working on a tablet interface inspired by another user here, but it’s still a huge work in progress:
Looks really nice! I’ve been observing your repo for couple days and investigating how you came up with your system. Can you share some more on how this works in real life? I.e. do you have some issues with connectivity or how the user experience looks like when you want to play something?
My father in-law recently got a new Yamaha Multicast amp and the Multicast system looks like a really convenient one. I tried their demo app and it allows to seamlessly switch between compatible amplifiers (or it looks like that).
For instance now I’m thinking about having 1 major amp in the living room and 2 small MusicCast WXAD-10 connected to ceiling speaker in bathrom and 1 connected to currently existing amplifier. This could look more or less like this (I have some columns and amp already).
I use multiple DIY boards and am happy with them but the intagration does not update the cover art all the time. At least in my use case. I only use it to stream webradio trough TuneIn.
As this is still a work in progress there’s not a lot of experience I can share. We mostly use spotify and spotify connect has been working flawless for us.
For the user experience I’m working on the tablet interface I showed and after that I want to implement something similar for the phone as well.
My Yamaha amp is actually also a Musiccast device, but I never used this feature. The thing is I prefer opensource alternatices, bwcause you never know what the commercial providers will do tomorrow. Maybe someone decides that they want to change their API and suddenly it doesn’t work with HA anymore. Or they decide to bring out a new line that is not compatible with the existing system and then you need to upgrade your whole system to the new line. Or they may decidee to ditch your favorite streaming service for something else.
+1
I’m have 2 in testing at the moment and they have been rock solid.
My house is being built (hopefully finished end of March) and then I’ll have a up2stream mini in each room with some active speakers.
Really happy with them, and you can’t beat them for price.
could you please provide the Link to your repo?
I’m moving in the next months and I want to go for Multiroom Audio in the Apartment
Bluetooth Solutions are currently not supported with HA, right?
Thanks!
P.S.: Lemon Tree ist einfach ein klasse Song
Greetings
For that budget you may consider Sonos. They have amps that you can connect to existing speaker systems, or you can just buy single speakers (ceiling/wall too). You will be able to integrate it with HA, or use independently with Spotify or YT Music - Sonos integrates with these services. The only problem is, it’s not local. It’s cloud dependent.
WOW! I am bookmarking your home setup, the step by step guides are amazing and I am going to use some of the tips there to improve my setup.
I have one question. Your system monitoring dashboards are impressive, is that some yaml lowelance config I can browse through as well to see how they are built ?
Thanks
I so far was reluctant to consider volumio as I understood that multi room sync play requires the volumio premium license. I am not willing to pay a monthly fee.
Does your multi room solution play in sync using snapcast using volumio community edition (non premium)?
Thanks picore seems to revolve around LMS as distribution system.
Volumio combined with snapcast seems to me to be more open and modern, but I have no experience with any of those.
Currently I am using Owntone with an Airplay 1 capable speaker and that works fine.
Owntone has its some other problems (e.g. you can reference songs only by ID in the HASS integration, but the ID changes if the library content changes…)
Ultimately I want to control the song selection, grouping, volume, stopping/starting through a HASS integration, using the HASS UI as the user frontend.
So I am currently overwhelmed by available solutions and unsure what works best:
Commercial solutions:
BlueSound
LinkPlay with LinkPlay capable speakers (no unnecessary DA-AD), or DIY boards (why go DA-AD?)
Yamaha MusicCast (API well documented, but does it distribute HDMI input signals? What can be used as media backend server?)
Sony (API is somewhat documented, but not as detailed as by Yamaha. I think it does not support HDMI input for distribution)
Denon HEOS (API information is hard to get, this seems like a dead end for HASS integration if Denon changes their software)
Ikea Sonos speakers (what can be used as media backend, how well is the HASS integration and UX?)
DIY:
SnapCast with Volumio on RPi0, but then you need a DAC hat (why go DA-AD when you use an active digital speaker?), or use a RPi 4b and use HDMI as digital output for a Soundbar
Owntone using Airplay capable speakers (will it play in sync on Airplay 1 - I dont think so, so will it with Airplay 2?)
piCore with LMS (how good is the HASS integration, does it support speaker groups?)
I would prefer do do as less DIY as necessary, but whats mandatory for me is:
API integration with HASS
Full control through HASS UI - the need to use a crappy vendor app for any control aspects (e.g. speaker grouping) is unacceptable
open backend media servers usable
KODI as source usable
signal feed via Wifi
all speakers in the same group play in full sync
preferrably support for more than 1 speaker group, each group playing a different stream
preferrably no unnecessary DA-AD rendering right at the input of the speakers, preferable the speakers take digital input and then render DA on their own
preferrably support for high def material in FLAC (24 bit, 96kHz, possibly 192kHz), no DSF support needed
Considering all this the following systems seem nice:
