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[Snickering87]

 What is the best way to have 3 totally and completely separate zones.  I have a single server with the music, and J River media center on it.  I definitely want to have one central location for all the music.

Each room has its own stereo with analog inputs.

None of the zones will ever need to sync.

The current server has an Audiophile 2496 and onboard sound.  The bad thing is I don't have any stereo components with digital input. 

Is it better to run 3 totally and completely separate MCs?
or Use an app like net remote.

Playlists will be important (so does this rule net remote out)??

If I chose to run 3 separate MCs, is it possible to share the playlists among the different instances of MC??

Thanks

[Bill Kearney]

An easy way to do it is just add more 'soundcards' using the USB port.  I've got three hanging off USB ports and MC11 handles them each as indepedent output zones.

[Snickering87]

Thanks for the reply.  Now if I did that, how do I get the sound output back to the rooms.  Would I use cat5 and some kind of terminator???

[Mastiff]

No, you would use either phono cable to your amp, or speaker cables from an amp you have in the same room as the PC or best: coax SPDIF cables to receivers/amps with digital inputs. Then you can go as long as you are able to get signal without any loss of quality. I have runs with well over 60 feet cable that way (big house, and they first run up to the attic and then down again...) and I have no dropouts or other problems. But that also depends on the sound card. Some cards have bad dropouts even on short runs. Generally it seems that newer cards are better. I have Audigy and built in cards on newer mobos without any problems, but older Live! cards can have more problems. It also varies with the amp. Some amps, like my Onkyo 939, are too sensitive to work well that way.

[JimH]

Snickering,
You should check out Mastiff's web site.  The link is in the signature on his post.

Mastiff,
Thanks as always.

[Bill Kearney]

I use a whole house system, a CAV6.6 from Russound.  It combines everything in one package.  The central unit does all the switching and amplification and each room has a wall mounted control pad.  Otherwise you're faced with cobbling together pieces that end up being less than user-friendly. 

[Mastiff]

No problem, Jim. I pop in when I can, and the words "multi-zone" always wakes me up! But my website is quite old, I'm in the middle of a full re-design and update of it.

Bill, the user-friendlyness is entirely up to how you program your systems. Period. I can teach anybody to use my system in one minute, and the same logic counts every place in the house. Not everybody can afford a $ 2000 + unit, especially when used cheap amps can do the same job.

[cncb]

You might want to check out the RCA Lyra Wireless device.  It basically is a USB soundcard that sends the audio wirelessly (900 MHz) to the Lyra receiver with analog outs at the receiver.  I use it for one of my zones and have found the sound quality to be very good.  There are 4 different channels to use so potentially you could use up to 4 of them for different zones (but I can't guarantee this as I only use one).  It also comes with a wireless remote.

[Bill Kearney]

I've found the notion of cobbling together a number of amps and trying to get everything coordinated to be far more trouble than most folks will put up with.  There's NO training need for a CAV6.6 beyond pushing the power button and reading the screen.  It handles everything else, source switching, volume controls (remembering it from last time) and forwarding IR signals.  By the time you bodge together enough of the other pieces necessary it often ends up being as expensive, if not more so, than the CAV6.6.   If I thought it was worth the headaches I'd have gone that route.  But for me, the money's been well-spent in ease of use and wife-acceptance-factor.

[jrj]

Is there a way to use the Lyra remote with MC? That would really be nice!

[Bill Kearney]

If it shows up as a soundcard and a regular windows app need do nothing other than 'play' to use it then it would stand to reason that MC11 would work with it.  I've added all sorts of different USB devices to my MC11 setup.  As long as windows sees it as just another soundcard it's worked with MC11.  Even a Linex USB FM transmitter works, it's seen as a soundcard and MC11 can use it as a zone.  So if the lyra works that way then it'd work.  But if it requires it's own player program and can't be used by other windows programs then MC11 won't use it, at least not without something extra being developed to support it.

I've always found most 2.4ghz and 900mhz devices have terrible fidelity.  That and they're plagued with interference issues from cordless phones, wifi or even microwave ovens.  Some are 'less worse' than others but none really sounded good enough to put up with.

[cncb]

Is there a way to use the Lyra remote with MC? That would really be nice!

Yes, I am doing this but you need a program like Girder to respond to the button presses (it shows up as an "HID" device).

I've always found most 2.4ghz and 900mhz devices have terrible fidelity.  That and they're plagued with interference issues from cordless phones, wifi or even microwave ovens.  Some are 'less worse' than others but none really sounded good enough to put up with.

Not so with the Lyra device.  There is no interference whatsoever and the sound quality is very good (and I'm even going through 2 floors).  It claims to use "Digital Sound Mix Technology" which whatever it is results in very good fidelity.  Also,  since most phones, wireless networks, etc. now use the 2.4GHz range there is less potential for interference since it uses 900MHz.

[Alex B]

I believe in PCs and Media Center.

I use only a wired LAN and a PC at each of the three zones. In my opinion the best remote interface for MC is another MC. I don't have a big house, but my apartment has two floors. For synchronized whole "house" playback I have a long coaxial SPDIF cable that runs through the staircase opening.

For controlling the zones I can use three different systems: Library Server and clients, independent local MCs with copies of the main media library (all media files have identical paths on each PC) and RealVNC server/clients (for remote desktop). With this system any one of the three PCs can be a server or a client and also control the other zones.