Whole Home Audio device for wired speakers

[Church of Noise]

When I bought my house, a rather thourough renovation was started.
Part of that was to get speaker wiring to all rooms downstairs and to the terrace, with the 'other end' of each of those being behind the spot where the multimedia devices (nVidia Shield, amplifier, teenagers' Xbox, TV...) are in the living room.

The plan has always been to create a modular setup that can be tweaked to some extent (currently, that means being able to steer using Home Assistant), and at the same time not tie ourselves into specific ecosystems (such as Sonos, Heos, ...)

Here's a brief overview of the rooms and speakers

- Living room:
--- Seating area: 5.1 speakers: B&W MT-60D consisting of 5x M-1 and 1x PV1-D (withnVidia Shield, AV receiver with 2 zones, Xbox and TV)
--- dining area: 2 B&W M-1
--- kitchen: 1 B&W M-1

- terrace: 2 B&W AM-1

- office: 2x M-1 and 2x AM-1 (largish space in 2 'parts')


I was thinking about the following approach:

- all HDMI 'input' devices such as Xbox & nVidia Shield directly connected to the AV receiver (currently Pioneer VSX-923)
- AV receiver
--- image: HDMI out to TV
--- zone 1: 5.1 out directly to 5.1 speakers of seating area
--- zone 2 to multi zone amplifier (today, zone 2 is directly connected to the 2 terrace speakers)
- multizone amplifier to different speaker zones (except the 5.1 speakers in the seating area):
--- 2 speakers dining area
--- 1 speaker kitchen
--- 2x2 speakers office
--- 2 speakers terrace

I've tried to do my homework and have found these amps (I've no doubt missed a few):
- Dayton DAX88
- Monoprice 6-zone amplifier
- Soundavo WS66i (this looks to be an upgrade of the Monoprice amp) This one has 2 streaming inputs which would be useful.

Current preference is with the Soundavo as that one doesn't require additional hardware to allow it to be steered over the network, and it also has an integration with Home Assistant.

Does the above make sense?
Is there anyone who's faced a similar 'project' and what did you end up doing?

Thanks in advance!

[OutInTheShed]

Not clear if you want to be able to play different stuff in different rooms and what combinations you'd want.

E.g. I want to be able to have the same audio playing in the lounge and kitchen. We do that a lot.
Sometimes I want the same playing in my office.
Sometimes I want different in my office.

[Church of Noise]

Fair question : office should be able to play from a different source, terrace perhaps as well. Seating area, kitchen and dining area don't necessarily need different sources from each other. (though in some cases, I'd just want to play from a source on the 5.1 setup in the seating area)

Edited by Church of Noise on Friday 14th April 12:12

[VEX]

The monoprice will be difficult to source in EU/UK power spec. They are actually pulling out of Europe completely. There is still some stock in the EU warehouse but only available to dealers.

An alternative could be OSD Audio. Either thier MX mutli channel amps, paired with their SRT streamer.

Or alternatively the MAX8/12, Control12 matrix which has an app for control but you can connect any audio soruce into it.

V.

[Church of Noise]

Thanks Vex!

Very useful info on Monoprice - much appreciate it!
The OSD looks very much like the Soundavo in fact.
Do you know of any availability of the Soundavo? (reason I'm asking is it already has good integration with Home Assistant, which would make my life a bit easier).