# setup multizone audio and home theater recommendations needed



## techray (Jan 31, 2010)

What equipment i would need and any recommendations would help.


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

techray said:


> What equipment i would need and any recommendations would help.


Hello,
Welcome to HTS. Many AVR's offer additional zones and most of those also allow you to repurpose 2 of the 7 or 9 channels of the AVR to power Zone 2.

Without knowing your budget, number of Zones, what if any preexisting HT gear you might have, and so forth it is really hard to know the scope of your ambitions.
Cheers,
JJ


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## techray (Jan 31, 2010)

Jungle Jack said:


> Hello,
> Welcome to HTS. Many AVR's offer additional zones and most of those also allow you to repurpose 2 of the 7 or 9 channels of the AVR to power Zone 2.
> 
> Without knowing your budget, number of Zones, what if any preexisting HT gear you might have, and so forth it is really hard to know the scope of your ambitions.
> ...


I'm new to multizone audio, this home have no HT, a new home, looking for mid-end system not to expensive. 6 different zones for audio and 3 bedroom and family room with independent basic HT system. Is it possible to have a network storage with audio and video files and each HT pull files from network storage or central multi cd player?


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

techray said:


> I'm new to multizone audio, this home have no HT, a new home, looking for mid-end system not to expensive. 6 different zones for audio and 3 bedroom and family room with independent basic HT system. Is it possible to have a network storage with audio and video files and each HT pull files from network storage or central multi cd player?


Hello,
Given the scope, you will be best served going with a Custom Installation. It is most certainly possible to use something like Popcorn Hour as a Media Server. 
Cheers,
JJ


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## waldo563 (Apr 26, 2009)

Hi,

I have not personally played around with mult-zone setups but if you're looking for 6 independent zones, I think that may complicate things beyond a basic HT setup. I believe most newer receivers will support 1 or 2 additional zones but will reduce the number of channels available to the main channel. If you just want to provide additional speakers off the main or additional zones, you will need to look into using a speaker switch to avoid impedence problems.
As for the ability to centralize your media content, most new receivers support Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) streaming so if you select DLNA compatible storage, you should be good to go.
However, if you are looking for more specific recommendations, we would probably need more specific information such as room sizes, usage, etc.
Hope this helps.


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## climber07 (Apr 26, 2012)

Six distinct zones are more than AVRs are designed to support. You can, however, use a 2 - 3 zone AVR in your main living space and have the computer (media server) stream content to the other devices for very little extra money. I use the WDTV Live and it works great for 100 bucks. It has all of the online content such as mediafly, pandora, netflix, etc, and you can stream straight from your media center as well. You can't beat 100 bucks per room. I do, however, recommend that you run Cat-5 to each room as multiple signals will definitely bog down even the best wireless routers. Especially with multiple video and audio signals.

Another option is to purchase two or three wireless routers and connect different rooms to different routers. This can increase your range and bandwidth.

In wall (or ceiling) whole home speaker systems are available, but are specifically designed to power the speakers in the other rooms.

 Six Source Six Zone systems 

This system is audio only. That is the trend in multi-room, multi-source systems (audio only).

Try searching Amazon.com for whole home audio systems.


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