Kicked off a new home build and looking at whole home audio solutions. Can I get some suggestions on hardware/setups for ~4 source inputs with 9 separate zones?
Was set to go with the Monoprice 10761, but wondering what other options I have and what others think here. Not looking at Sonos, I don’t like the closed ecosystem there or that pricing.
Hi Stephan, welcome to the forum!
This question has been asked numerous times: just do a search here on the forum and you will get your answers.
Agree, searching will get you some great answers.
Personally, I keep my library as CDs ripped to MP3, and I don’t like running wires, so I went with Plex+Chromecast Audio+bookshelf speakers. If I were to do it fresh today, I’d be looking to replace the Chromecast Audios with Wiim streamers.
I’m using a Monoprice amp coupled with Music Assistant. At the moment I’m happy with running Snapcast as the client player into the amp, but my experience with Music Assistant has been good at best and painful at worst. Due to its multiple player plugin architecture, I’ve found it quite buggy at times and chalked that up to not being in the Apple Ecosystem (I’m assuming that Airplay and Sonos get the most attention). I’ve found the Fully Kiosk plugin to be unusable. My chosen media server (Plex) was on life support and widely panned due to lack of a resource updating the code. It has gotten better; I think someone is maintaining the code. I mainly use the YouTube music provider for playlists. My next upgrade is to move the Snapcast client to a dedicated Raspberry Pi with a toslink HAT. Music Assistant is actively updated which can be a blessing and curse. I always make a Proxmox snapshot backup before upgrading.
The Monoprice integration is “ok” not great. It hasn’t gotten much love since it was released. It works reliably for what it is. It would be great if it took into account how many output zones you want to use instead of creating 18, or how many inputs you want to use instead of just creating 6. Someone forked the code to add mute support and some other features, but that version doesn’t support TCP/IP connections and hasn’t been updated lately, so I run the core version.
The web server and HA automation functions are very nice for Music Assistant. I have a dashboard with a list of playlists on our Patio Tablet that can be launched with a touch, very high spouse approval.