Multi-Room Audio & Video
Multi-Room Audio & Video used to be a lot more difficult and expensive. Ideally you needed a matrix box and a control system and an expert to program the system and lots of cabling specially installed going to every room you needed picture and sound, and heaven help you if you change your mind about what you want where later on because that will be both difficult and expensive.
Fortunately, those times are years behind us and, in this day and age where streaming music and movies is a given, multi-room audio and video is, by comparison, a piece of cake.
Start With A Smart TV
These days you can start with one Smart TV & a Smart Soundbar and basically build it all from there. Now there are a few provisos which are relevant now which didn’t use to be. Namely you will need network coverage wherever you need picture or sound. This can take the form of ethernet points in every room, most likely installed when a new house is built, or at the very least, really good Wi-Fi coverage, which isn’t so hard to achieve these days.
From there you can start adding smart TVs to every room where you want to watch and smart speakers to every room where you want to listen. Obviously, you can listen to a TV without a smart speaker or soundbar but this is Audio Trends and we know how atrocious TV sound is and we would never recommend that for a good outcome.
TV’s can be mixed and matched, as long as you’re ok dealing with the different menu’s, remote controls, App layouts etc so having a Sony in one room, a Loewe in the next and a Samsung down the hall is all good. These TV’s basically operate as stand alone units connected to your streaming services, YouTube and live TV channels and they can all be operated independently, all at the same time even.
Stream Audio All Over Your House
Smart speakers and streaming components are not quite as independent as Smart TVs. You may have a Home Theatre Receiver in your main cinema room connected to a TV or Projector with a complete surround sound speaker system including Dolby Atmos ceiling speakers. If you want to add multi-room audio to this setup you may choose to add a streamer from Sonos or Bluesound or Yamaha. These streaming units will not only play music from streaming services like Spotify, Tidal & Deezer but will also play thousands of internet radio stations from around the world.
But please choose carefully because all three brands just mentioned can only communicate with other models of the same brand if you want to go multi-room with your audio. So, if you have a Sonos Streamer plugged into your home cinema room then will want to choose a Sonos Soundbar for each of the other TVs in the house and maybe a Sonos Speaker or two for the kitchen dining area and then a Sonos Speaker for each of the kid’s rooms. You get the idea. You can do the same sort of thing with Bluesound and Yamaha.
Centralised Whole House Audio Hub
The other way to play this whole house streaming game is to have a central location for all your streaming audio equipment, often a cupboard or utility room. This means, sticking with Sonos to keep things simple, you could have four Sonos Streaming Amplifiers hidden in a cupboard and wired to four or more rooms using In-Ceiling Speakers in the dining room & kitchen, In-Wall Speakers in the study or even Outdoor Speakers under the eaves on the back porch or near the BBQ area. This means your whole house audio system is almost invisible and yet totally controllable as far as your Wi-Fi reaches using a smartphone or tablet. Pretty cool huh?
This centralised music streaming concept will obviously need a bit of forward planning and will almost definitely require our installers to come out and wire everything up for you, but the benefits are unmistakeable.
What Is The Matrix?
Now, there are still some who want a matrix box with a Control System allowing old school Blu-ray content to be streamed to 20+ rooms but they are now few and far between. However, if this is an avenue you want to explore than we are very happy to discuss this as we have many years’ experience in these sorts of setups. – Maybe we can even talk you into new technologies 🙂
How We Can Help
Since we began trading as AV Design in the 1980’s we have developed into a lot more than a specialist home entertainment store. Since 1995 we have embraced multi-room audio and video and our Gold Coast showroom was purpose built in 2023 to cater for the increased consumer demand for quality home theatre design, home automation and energy-efficient power and lighting technologies.
If you are planning to start your ‘dream’ home or are simply extending or renovating, then pre-wiring your home at frame-stage is a smart idea and could quite possibly mean less expense later. AV Design can work closely with your builder, architect and interior designer to achieve the desired outcome
Our Project Manager’s have had extensive experience on a wide range of commercial and domestic projects! So, whatever you’re planning, we can manage everything with the high level of personal service and professionalism that has made us successful for over four decades. We therefore cordially invite you to make an appointment to come and discuss the possibilities.
P.S. Architects, Builders & Electricians – if you are looking for a company to work with you on any of your projects – big or small – we invite you to contact our Project Manager at project.manager@av.design