Simple (ie. CHEAP) audio options

[Rob_in]

Hi,

I have installed ceiling speakers in our bedroom and open plan living area, and also anticipate a further 'proper' hi-fi in the lounge at some point (the ceiling speakers there are positioned so they could be used for rear surround sound in such a scenario).

The 'proper' Loxone audio solutions are simply too expensive for us so am going to do something else. The question is, what? ;)

Our house is small so we have no requirements to listen to different sources in different rooms. So same source everywhere. I also would like to be able to interrupt any audio with doorbell or other notification sounds - or at least mix these in.

Ceiling speakers are not 'audiophile' so for an audio source I'm happy with a Chromecast for streaming and/or a RPi with external DAC and system like Volumio to play local media from a NAS. I would also use the same RPi to play audio notifications triggered by Loxone - that's easy. If/when there is another audio source in the lounge (or those ceiling speakers are to be used for rear surround) it's easy to plug that source in too. Mix all these (and anything else) together (there are a lot of line level mixers cheaply available) and there's all your sources handled. Yes - why bother trying to select one when you can just always have them all on (hoping the various outputs aren't noisy when off!) ;)

We then need an amplifier to drive the two sets of ceiling speakers, either A or B or A and B.

This could be achieved with an off the shelf amp with IR control and two sets of speaker outputs. However, as I just discovered, Loxone IR support is wireless and expensive. Would it be better to control speaker activation with a pair of standard Loxone digital outputs? These could be relays (see below) or could that trigger something in the RPi onto which an IR blaster can be added for next to nothing.

Alternatively... cheap dual zone amplifiers just have relays in their output path anyhow, so why not get a super simple yet powerful single output amp and use your own relays (activated by Loxone) to switch speakers. I found Phoenix Contact 4PDT relays with 12A current handling, gold plated contacts and 24V coil for 11EUR at RS. A couple of those should do the job nicely.

The problem with either of these is that you end up with two control mechanisms from your smartphone/tablet/whatever:

1. 'cast' content to the Chromecast or you'd be controlling Volumio. Both would be doing media selection and volume control.

2. The speaker A/B selection would be done via Loxone (relays or virtual output to the RPi blaster).

This isn't as elegant as I'd like though so am keen to hear if anyone has any better ideas?

Cheers,

Robin

[Duncan]

Take a look at musicserver4lox
https://www.loxforum.com/forum/projektforen/musicserver4lox
Use chrome to translate
If you have speaker wires to a central location then this is a very cheap way to implement multiroom audio that can be integrated into loxone, used with remote apps or real remotes via Logitech duet controllers.
The multichannel amp is the only expensive bit.

[Rob_in]

Good idea. If all our media was local then think it could work, but... can I just pull out my phone and 'cast to everywhere'?

I don't think so :( Where does one mix in other sources (like a Chromecast) to this system?

[Duncan]

The underlying squeezebox server supports streaming and casting music to individual players eg from phones.

It can treat apple, upnp and Chromecast as players

[Rob_in]

Yeah, but I want to be able to 'cast to...' something from my phone. And I mean direct from any app that supports 'cast to', not having to use something else.

So does the music server act as something that can be 'cast to'? 

[Duncan]

Yes you can cast to any of the players attached to the music server from your phone. The players can be virtual ones created by the music server or real squeezebox players such as the portable squeezebox radios

[Rob_in]

OK.

This sounds promising then. I seem to recall having a look at ms4l a while ago and getting no-where but probably wasn't really motivated at that time. Will have another go putting it on a VM.

For the purpose of having 2 zones that are actually outputs from the same amplifier just controlled with relays... do you see any problem with that?

Thanks :)

Robin

[Duncan]

No problem. I run all my zones mono so each stereo channel does 2 zones. The ms4lox can split a typical 7+1 sound card into any mix of zones with 1,2 or 4 channels. Relays switching speakers might cause some loud thumps though.

[tkn]

I am planning on doing a music server build and have an amazon wishlist PC build sitting around ready to go when I get there. If you find this helpful. I am always trying to balance cost on it so I may update it periodically with better priced processors, etc.

A lot of people just use an old laptop or whatever, but I want something I can tuck away in a rack.

http://a.co/56MQrMR

The Loxone amp is just a rebranded Dayton. So you can definitely pick it up cheaper.

[Duncan]

You can get the 60w version of the Dayton for less than the 40w version sold by loxone.