Amps for multiple rooms

[MrMoonyMan]

Hi there,

My brother has recently bought a new flat that appears to have speakers in each room with wires all coming out in the living room. It all looks very well done and the speakers are of decent quality too so it'd be great to get it running well.

Would any of you recommend any particular amps to have a look at that would take advantage of this set up?

There are 5/6 separate rooms.

[megaphone]

Does he want separate sources and control for each room? Or is he happy to have the same music playing all over?

Sonos Connect amps are ideal, but expensive, £350 each.

[paralla]

Six Sonos Connect Amplifiers will work great but will cost 2400 pounds

A 12 channel power amp and six Chromecast Audio gadgets will give you similar functionality to the good but pricey Sonos setup for a far cheaper cost.

Six of these https://www.google.co.uk/chromecast/speakers/

Plus one of these

Cheapest
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sonance-Sonamp-1230-UK-1...

Cheapish
http://shop.loxone.com/enuk/loxone-12-channel-amp....

More expensive
http://www.superfi.co.uk/p-14209-rotel-rmb1512-12-...

Edited by paralla on Thursday 1st September 13:22

[NorthDave]

A decent surround amp for the living room (assuming he wants surround?) may also have zone 2 and zone 3 amplifiers built in - Denon mostly do. I guess it depends on the size of the flat and requirements.

If not then I would go Sonos all the way.

[MrMoonyMan]

Thank you all very much for the replies. Will get him looking at some of your suggestions this weekend.

megaphone said:

Does he want separate sources and control for each room? Or is he happy to have the same music playing all over?

Sonos Connect amps are ideal, but expensive, £350 each.

I think he will be happy with one source but the ability to run it throughout.

[MrMoonyMan]

Just spoken to him and as I thought the main thing he wants is the same music in every room it the ability to switch it off / control the volume.

Surely for an amp that will do that nicely it needn't run into the thousands?

I've been looking at the Denon Heos multi room one which looks good but at £2k is possibly over kill for what he needs!

[rex]

I've done a similar thing. Used a sonos zp90. Connected the RCA leads to a 4 way RCA splitter and then connected it to 4 separate amps. I just turn the amps on for the speakers I want to use. You could use a single box multi amp to save space.

[paralla]

6 Chromecast audio + the eBay amp will allow him to control the volume seperatly in each room from a single source using a smartphone or tablet, or have different music (and volume) in each room as well.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sonance-Sonamp-1230-UK-1...

Whole house, multi-room audio for £600 + existing speakers and cables. You won't do better than that.

[lostmotel]

This http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Arcam-MZ8-8-channel-home... just popped up in my eBay feed, if he wants to do it properly.

[MrSparks]

MrMoonyMan said:

Just spoken to him and as I thought the main thing he wants is the same music in every room it the ability to switch it off / control the volume.

Surely for an amp that will do that nicely it needn't run into the thousands?

I've been looking at the Denon Heos multi room one which looks good but at £2k is possibly over kill for what he needs!

You could do that with the Systemline Airway system, individual room control of volume and on/off but only one audio source.

Otherwise for budget you can use a single amp, speaker selector switch and volume controls in each room (PM me if you want more info) or for better control then use Sonos or Denon Heos, much better but higher costs.

I'm just specifying a very similar system for someone, I think we're going Heos with a couple of split rooms to keep the costs down.

I've also been testing bluetooth ceiling speakers with Google Chromecast Audio, creates a really good multi room system for as low as £200 per room.

[JEA1K]

I'd recommend Denon or Sonos .... unless he can be bothered to cobble stuff together, I really wouldn't bother.

Perhaps having 2 or 3 rooms costing £1k approx would be a better way to go? before going the whole hog?