Multimedia System

Hello everyone,

we would like to integrate a multimedia system into our house, which is still in the planning stage, and already take the necessary costs into account.

the system should be able to do the following:

[*]Equip every room with speakers
[*]These should be controllable from a central location (tablet), so that the same music (or sometimes an internet radio) can be played simultaneously in several rooms
[*]Additionally, we want to connect the TV to it, i.e. to be able to play the TV sound in another room as well.

Which systems are recommended for this? What costs should we expect? Does it make sense to lay cables for this, or is it better to control everything wirelessly?

Many thanks for your tips and also experience reports.
Teufelchen

The costs depend quite a bit on how much you want to spend. What is your approximate budget? Then I can name a few systems that fit!

Regarding the question WLAN vs. cable, I would say from my own experience that you should choose cable if you have the option. It is less prone to interference and also in terms of electromagnetic pollution, there is no empirical study yet for WLAN that proves it is harmless.

Hello Omega,

so far we do not have a concrete budget for the system. That’s why we are asking here in the forum what we roughly need to include in our overall budget. Since we want to go with the wired option as you prefer, we have to include this in the house planning.

Since you seem to be knowledgeable in this field, it would of course be very helpful to get a few names and the corresponding price ranges. Maybe you also have the respective pros and cons ;-)

Hello little devil, I can contribute something. I have no experience with it myself, but I am currently dealing with it in our house planning as well. First, I looked into a complete home automation system via KNX. However, the additional costs of around 30,000 EUR were too high for me. You can do a lot with it, but the question is always what you actually need and what is just "playing around." For the music, I then thought of a multiroom system. In the utility room, a multimedia server + amplifier where speaker cables from different rooms (living room, bathrooms, office) come together. In the respective rooms, a corresponding control panel. I came across Revox, for example, which works with Gira. Or also Russound. But from what I have seen so far, you end up quickly at 10,000 EUR at the end of the day. Just for music, that is too much for me. Here too, the cost/benefit ratio is not balanced for me. Alternatively, there are WLAN solutions. For example, look up "Sonos". They are significantly cheaper. But WLAN scares me off. As things stand now, I will probably go ahead and install flush-mounted radios in the bathrooms + office + connect 1-2 ceiling speakers to each. The others are certainly better solutions, but you have to have the money first when building a house .. I might rather invest it somewhere else.

If you start with something like this, you are really quickly dealing with home automation systems to actually turn the high costs into added value. If possible, then definitely wired.
Completely ready-made solutions are available from Sonos and Raumfeld. Both are good but also have advantages and disadvantages as well as limitations. However, they are easy to implement and expand.
If you want to be very flexible, then lay standard speaker cables in all rooms and bring them together centrally in a utility room or technical room. There you can either connect "normal" speakers or flush-mounted or ceiling speakers. Then you simply connect inexpensive digital amplifiers in the technical room and choose a media server. These are available ready-made or as DIY devices, as you prefer. The advantage is that you don’t have to connect everything at once and can upgrade later or afterwards. Such a system can be controlled by smartphone or tablet. The disadvantage is that you have to do a lot yourself.

Nowadays, there is practically a streaming system from every hi-fi manufacturer. At Yamaha, it is called Musiccast; at Denon, Heos, and so on. You will surely find something there.