Should I go there? Whole house audio and then some

Configuration
37

I appreciate your help. And you are right… I have no experience with Sonos. To be honest, I am having trouble reading through the hype on their website to get a picture of how this would work given my constraints:

  • Physical volume controls that are immediate… not an app… and a wall tablet would have to be on all of the time
  • Able to play Spotify, Pandora, and my library (which all 45,000 tracks I have now uploaded to Google Play)
  • Able to play on any combination of speaker sets at any time… for example the following combinations:
    ** Living room, kitchen, and family room
    ** outside pool and decks
    ** Master bed and master bath
    ** Living room, kitchen, and dining room, outside pool and decks
    ** All speakers in the house

Everything I read about the sonos and all of its fans say it can do this. And I kind of believe them. But to find out if this is true, I have to understand their website and possibly make an investment to determine for myself. Scary.

38

Really? That sounds very interesting. So I would wire a Zwave light dimmer switch as a volume control. Pressing down on the light switch would signal HA to lower the volume and HA would, in turn, tell the chromecast to turn down the volume? You are the first person to tell me this is possible. That gives me hope. Is this just speculation or do you have a working example? Can you post a video? THANKS!

39

Put an Amazon Fire 7 tablet in each zone running Floorplan in Fully Kiosk.

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40

Honestly volume control from The app bring used is best.

You may also use echo Dot and voice control on/off. If you have never used echo in this fashion you should test. I hated voice control but once used learned to appreciate.

As far as zwave, you Do Not wire amp to it.
The switch would be wired as normal AC switch, just with no Light/load connected. All audio volume control would be done in Software using HA automation.

I think volume control through app or voice is enough but if physical control really desired this is option

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41

@dk253

  1. For physical volume controls, every Sonos product has them, they only caveat is if you use the Connect or Connect Amp in the basement and run speakers to the rooms, you won’t have them in the room. But you do have options. Harmony Remotes offer Sonos integration, a dedicated tablet, Brilliant Light switches are coming next month and look quite interesting.

  2. You can use virtually any streaming service with Sonos. They are platform agnostic. I count 64 in my app and so yes all the big players are definitely supported like Google Play, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music etc. You can also use local music via a computer.

  3. Grouping speakers is dynamic, add or delete speakers, play everywhere etc. You don’t pre-configure anything, just group on the fly. With Home Assistant, you have services you can call to group them too so if you wanted to build scenes it will group and start playing a playlist.

I was also hesitant with Sonos so I bought a Play:1 at Best Buy over a year ago to see if it would work with my needs. I got instantly hooked and kept buying them til I filled my whole house. Give it a try with just one or two and see if it meets your expectations. Worst case, just return it within the 30 days. Hey, I’m sure someone else would love to pick up an open box at reduced price! :slight_smile:

42

a very cheap way to acheive local volume control of the ChromeCast Audio’s is to put a Xiaomi button in each room where you want the volume control and code them as volume controls dedicated to the CromeCast for that room (1x Xiaomi Hub also required). They are capable of 3 functions per button (single click, double click and click & hold) or you can create an automation that switches the function on the fly so that the first click and hold slowly increases volume, but if you release and do so again the volume will decrease. (others have done this for light dimming with these switches) This then solves the wife approval issue plus you can use the other unused button functions (single click) to turn a light on and off in that room… or whatever else your imagination desires!

2 Likes
43

Most of it is within the pulseaudio config. First, what i do is- i create a null sink within pulseaudio. This, by itself, simply throws away the audio stream, but it’s stream can be redirected after the fact with a loopback module. It’s really just a way for me to know, at design time, how to refer to the given audio stream. I can choose to send the audio somewhere, but i don’t have to, and mpd has no idea.

The second and 3rd module statements there in my example are just one of my outputs, as an example. So while audio is playing in the master bedroom, the chain looks like this:
mpd -> null sink -> loopback module -> equalizer sink -> sound card (only 2 channels)

system.pa (pulseaudio config)

load-module module-null-sink sink_name=MPDInput2 sink_properties='device.description="Kids Jukebox"'

load-module module-remap-sink sink_name=master_bed_raw remix=no master=SND1 channels=2 master_channel_map=side-left,side-right channel_ma
p=front-left,front-right

load-module module-ladspa-sink sink_name=master_bed master=master_bed_raw sink_properties='device.description="Master Bed"' plugin=caps l
abel=Eq10X2 control=7,5,0,0,-10,0,0,0,5,7

I then configure my mpd service to output to that sink- like so:

mpd configuration:

audio_output {
        type            "pulse"
        name            "MPD Player 2"
sink "MPDInput2"
        format          "44100:*:*"
}

Finally, in my configuration.yaml for hass, i have a pulseaudio loopback switch, and what this does is- it takes the audio from the null sink, and loops it back to a real output:

Configuration.yaml

switch:
- platform: pulseaudio_loopback
  name: Kid's Jukebox -> Master Bedroom
  sink_name: master_bed
  source_name: MPDInput2.monitor
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44

Wow. I’ve never thought of doing that but I know with my system (not zwave) it would definitely be doable. It would require some custom programming. I don’t think I’ll ever get to this though as I don’t have extra dimmer controls and I’ve been fine with voice and an RF remote so the effort to get it working probably wouldn’t be worth it for me.

Great ideas!

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45

I just went through this a few months ago. I almost went Sonos because I didn’t want to deal with it but price and lock in suck. I use Chromecasts at the lake house and they work there but for for whole house I didn’t like the interface and it was flaky at times. I ended up on raspberry pi’s with DAC hats. It’s way custom but fits with everything I wanted plus I can extend and expand to other things since it’s a PI. I use wall mounted tablets ($40/each) to control everything.

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46

I had a shot at playing different music in separate rooms (ie: on individual Google Homes) but it wouldnt let me use the same Google Play account. I could play music from Google Play Music in one room and Spotify in another without any trouble. For me this is not a concern as I would never really have the need to play different music throughout the house. One work-around I thought of for those that do would be to use different Google Play Music accounts in each room. It sounds silly but when you think about it, it would be more normal. If one person wants to listen to music in the lounge for example, they use their account and if they have kids wanting different music in their bedroom, they would use their own Google account. I know if I had kids I wouldn’t want their $#!tty Justin Beiber on my Google account!

47

Here’s an article that may help researching this topic:

48

I’m a little late to the party but wanted to chime in on the earlier Sonos discussion. I have a ZP90 that I’ve had since 2007/2008. The thing is a rockstar. The biggest problem with Sonos is price and innovation. They’ve been incredibly slow to innovate in a space they basically created and their prices are high and don’t move. I could probably sell this ZP90 for what I paid for it.

When I did my WHA setup I spent a lot of time debating between a Sonos architecture vs a matrix amp. My wife really wanted Sonos. I went with the amp setup and kept my ZP90 as a source along with a couple chromecasts, dots, etc. I liked the flexibility. The problem is, six months later and I still don’t have my panels up on the wall and while the system is usable it’s not intuitive or easy. I’ve had to throw a couple Play:1 around the house for her. I will get there eventually (or I’ll give up and move to a closed ecosystem like Sonos or Heos).

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49

I love my logitech/squeezebox whole house system.

50

Umm wasn’t squeezebox discontinued 6 years ago?

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51

If you’re open-source inclined, absolutely check out snapcast. It handles source control, synchronization, distribution, etc. You provide your own hardware. I run a bunch of Raspberry Pis connected to speakers. I have one hooked to my soundbar via HDMI, one with a simple desktop usb speaker plugged in, and two with a hifiberry class 4 amp wired into big speakers + sub. It’s a very flexible setup.

52

The server software is open source and still developed.

The hardware is available second hand, or you can build your own with, eg, raspberry pi.

53

Sorry for the question but what about sound quality?

I mean, I tested snapcast on my old android device and the sound is not fluid. It requires costant micro syncronizations… I also noticed that may depends on network traffic. Do you have or had the same issue?

54

I occasionally get synchronization gaps during playback, but it’s very rare.

55

Uhm. So I think I have an issue then.

56

Interesting that you didn’t come across Heos (Denon) when you were looking… pricing is a bit below Sonos. with similar functionality. The newer models (HE2) fully support Alexa voice commands BTW, not sure about Google Home.

The selling point for me (as an integrator / installer) is connectivity: Sonos uses its own mesh network, where Heos using existing Ethernet or WiFi networks. Although a signal booster isn’t that big of an expense, it’s still another piece that may fail or need to be reset, and it’s yet another frequency you may have to plan around to avoid interference.

Also, with Heos devices residing directly on my IP network I can use DHCP reservations to shape the network topology. This honestly doesn’t gain me much, but it appeals to the geek in me :slight_smile:

Everyone has different needs, wants, etc. so it’s tough to say “this is the way you should definitely go”, but I’m always picking up good info from all you guys!