Hacker News Reader

Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

During a home renovation last year I added in-ceiling speakers throughout the first floor.

I bought 8 Polk Audio speakers for $45 each plus a couple hundred feet of speaker cable from Monoprice and an 8 channel amplifier off Amazon which takes audio in from my receiver, which supports Chromecast and AirPlay.

I had the opportunity to do this because the ceilings were already ripped down to redo lighting.

The installers asked why I wasn’t going with Sonos and I said why would I replace a device which is literally impossible to become obsolete, requires zero configuration, and is almost impossible to break with a device which will maybe last 5 years if I’m lucky and requires configuration, software updates, and license agreements?

I get it if you have absolutely no way to run the wires then a WiFi system maybe almost makes sense. Otherwise how can you beat hard-wired speakers and a dumb 8-channel amp?

View on HN

I am just finishing up building a new house, and so many people suggested the same thing (use sonos). Since it was new construction I put in 38 dedicated room speakers all wired to a central distribution system with good old speaker wire. I also ran extra Cat6A to each room for a control pad in the case I want to do system that needs that..and for starting out I'm using an AMP and dist controller from HTD. As Zeroth mentioned above this gives me a great deal of potential future redesigns as things change. Of course I also ran wire and fiber to every room for APs as the future will likely have more LOS wifi in it.

I really like some of the features of Sonos, but when doing 38 speakers and 20+ zones the cost is pretty high.

(Build thread here for reference: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409988)

I am curious to know what it’s the point to have this kind of system?

I can imagine you would want to play the same music through the house when you have a big party. Other than that I don’t see much of need. You can simply have a sound system in each room so each family member can its own music , or carry a movable device with you.

Indeed I thought a lot about that while working on the zoning. The HTD system by default can do 12 zones (with as many speakers as you want). I suspect it would be rare to have more than 2 or 3 different sources across all of those zones, but it would be common to only want a few specific rooms have sound playing.

The idea of a movable source device makes sense, and I suspect a very common use pattern will be playing something over airplay/airplay2 from a iphone. The zone splitting just makes it possible to have more granular control over where that sounds is going.

I debated a lot about rather to install speakers at all, but I do want to be able to have some housewide paging/notification, and I would rather have each room have stereo speakers in the ceiling ( with a corresponding sub for some locations) then rely on a desk or table held speaker.

Also, the cost of doing in wall is pretty cheap now if you are building new.

Keep in mind it is possible in 3 years I figure out I did it all wrong, but that is the fun of home building. ;)

If you've designed the wiring correctly this can be done at the central junction, isolating the that room (or rooms). then, when you setup that sound system in the room you already have the speakers built in. just plug into the port on the wall :D I've seen this kind of setup several times, though it was the early 2000's, before the massive proliferation of wifi audio.

note: one of the reasons i saw a lot of this was the company i worked for acquired a structured wiring company (system in a box) that did lots of home/office AV work

For the wiring path, I did exactly that. In each room the speakers in the wall/ceiling route first to a junction box in the wall, then from there to a central location. That allows central control, or if needed local to room control and use.

The only additional cost was the slight increase in wire length due to the minor path diversion.

My home is very much smaller, but I have synchronised playback throughout (through the Apple ecosystem). Living in a condominium, I can listen to my music, audiobook, or podcast everywhere without having to play anything loud anywhere.

I guess it depends on whether you really like music. I find it very nice to just open up the Sonos app and I can play whatever I want wherever I want- and can even play different things in different rooms.

Its not just a holiday thing, its a friday/saturday night thing, or a Saturday/Sunday day thing, or a work from home thing, if I want some instrumental stuff, and its also going outside.

I had a receiver in my old place in my living room, and we were gifted a sonos:1, and the sheer convenience of sonos made us not use our expensive home theater set up in lieu of the $199 bookshelf speaker- and it sounded pretty darn good as well. It integrates with my music library, Pandora, sonos, and a bunch of other stuff I don't use.

I now have Sonos amps that connect to speakers in the ceiling. I am not quite as F'ed as others, but those amps are $600 a piece to upgrade, and I have 6 in the house. I really enjoy it, and its better and cheaper than a receiver in each room, and sounds great. Another benefit to Sonos is that its hidden away- the speakers are in the walls, the amps run down to a central cabinet, and in a townhouse that is not small, but still every sq ft counts, this is a big win.

It may not be for you, but I really enjoy it. This was not a pleasant email to read- especially because I don't really want anything more out of the system, particularly the amps- they need to accept a stream and play it, that's it. I bet this has to do with alexa/google assistant/siri integration that is being forced down our throats in all new devices.

So in this case do you need 1 receiver for every service you want to stream simultaneously? I assume your controller can do on-the-fly zone designations, but how do you control it all from other locations (or is that what you meant about control panels)

Yea, the HTD 'receiver' is seperate from the amps, and it can route one of I think 12 sources to any of the channels (and any mix of them).

For control, there are two options - You can use the app/web page/iphone/table over wireless, and/or you can also use their wall control pads that use a single Cat5 drop back to the central location. For every speaker pair in the house I ran a Cat6A to a wall box in a good place to mount that control pad. That means in every room you have a control pad for that room, but also any control pad can put any source in any zone.

I'm curious to see what I use more.. I suspect I'll end up using the app control more than anything else.. but we will see.

Congratulations on finishing your new home. And judging by the timestamps on your first forum post pretty much on/ahead of schedule!

To those who might gloss over the link to the build thread - it’s not to be missed. I’m only part of the way through but will read more after the kids are in bed.

Calling it a “house” doesn’t seen quite sufficient. This is a detailed look at the whole process from plans to excavation to build-out of a veritable fortress.

Here’s just a taste;

> Due to the design of his house, he had to install bedrock pillars. There are 55 pillars in total, and each pillar is a bit over 3 feet in diameter and goes into the ground a bit over 50 feet.

Later on, talking about low voltage design for Cat6 and fiber drops;

> I expect to have a couple of hundred drops in total including for things like cameras, sensors, and the like. I expect there is be somewhere around 10km of wire to pull give or take a few km.

EDIT: Great drone footage of it all as it goes up too. How do you like the DJI Mavic? I was thinking of getting the Mini.

Ha.. Thanks Zaroth. Funny enough it actually ended up being about 21 miles of cable and fiber.

I suspect we are about 8 weeks away from completion.. and I need to update that thread as I am a month behind!

You make a good point, but I have a counterpoint...

My Father-in-law had a house built a couple years ago. The guy that did the A/V used the same setup you are talking about (Denon A/V receiver, multi-zone audio for whole house music, IR blaster for A/V system in a cabinet in the next room, 5+1 surround).

They struggle with that system. It required a dedicated smart remote to turn on and control all the gear. But instead of a Logitech Harmony, he used some other brand that "is easier for installers to program". I had to make YouTube videos to remind myself and my FIL how to operate the system, particularly for less used configurations like playing a DVD or playing music on the deck...

I was pretty shocked, because this was basically the A/V setup I had 20 years ago...

My current setup is: Everything goes to the TV (PS4, Chromecast, soundbar), Soundbar is controlled by the TV remote using CEC (Consumer Electronics Control). Most things are controllable by the TV remote.

CEC allows the TV to tell the soundbar to adjust the volume, the Chromecast to pause or play, though that doesn't seem to work when playing DVDs on the PS4, where we use the PS4 remote. CEC can also tell the TV to change inputs, so all I have to do is start casting to the Chromecast and the TV turns on and switches to the right input, turn the PS4 on and ditto, etc...

Music in the bathroom? That's a Google Home. Music in the garage or back patio? That's a Bluetooth Jambox. Though that comes with it's own issues.

Yes, simple is good. But these days I'd call this sort of CEC setup the simpler option. I appreciate the Receiver option, but I'm reluctant to switch away from this setup. I've been wanting to build some kick ass speakers using my woodworking and electronics skills, but I can't bring myself to introduce an amp/receiver to the mix.

Aside: Does anyone know of a CEC controller for embedding into DIY soundbars? They make some that do amp+bluetooth+aux in, but I haven't found one that does HDMI in with CEC.

I have my system centered around a Denon A/V receiver, with a Sony tv (with a single HDMI cable from the Denon being the only cable to it). Everything works more or less perfect, with the ocassional glitch where the a/v and tv no longer talk to each other (I need to reboot the whole system when this happens).

- The tv and cable remote are both able to turn off the off the tv, which will tell the a/v receiver to turn off

- Pressing home on the fire stick causes the tv and a/v to turn on

- The volume on the tv, cable remote, and denon remote all trigger the volume of the denon to change. The tv and cable remotes do not trigger the denon's volume's "speed up how fast it changes" on the volume (I don't like that feature, so it works out well)

Just pressing the button you would expect to work results in the expected action. I imagine adding sound multi-channel would add complexity (it, picking a channel), but that should be orthogonal to the rest of the setup, and be the same level of complexity between wired and not.

What kinds of issues did you run into?

Edit: To be clear, I'm an a/v newbie, I doubt I'd be able to offer any advice. I was just curious what issues you saw.

I too have a Denon A/V receiver, although probably older than the rest of you (an AVR-1913 bought in 2013). I don't know if the later Denons still have this, but try finding out its IP address on your network (assuming you have put it on your LAN), and then go to that address, port 80, in your browser.

Mine has a built-in web server running there that serves up a status and settings site that lets you do most or all of the things you'd normally do via the remote and on-screen menus, which sometimes gets tedious.

The web server is very slow, so it is still tedious, but a "twiddle your thumbs" tediousness as opposed to "way to much remote button pressing to navigate" tediousness.

They also have some kind of much faster network access, probably still through the web server but without all the GUI stuff which is apparently where the slowness is. They've got an app on the iOS [1] and Google stores that uses this.

Did any of you have trouble getting ARC to work? It simply would not work for me, until I finally noticed that the Denon manual very specifically says you have to use a “Standard HDMI cable with Ethernet” or “High Speed HDMI cable with Ethernet” for HDMI. I was using a regular HDMI cable. Switching to one "with Ethernet" made ARC work.

This puzzles me. Everything I've been able to find says that for the version of ARC available in 2013 it should not require a special cable. It should work with any HDMI 1.4 cable. A "with Ethernet" cable should only be required for eARC. I don't think eARC was even in the pipeline in 2013, and didn't start showing up on receivers until 2019.

I've checked some Denon manual for later models, and they also have the explicit "with Ethernet" requirement. What is going on?

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/denon-remote-app/id388608880

Arc "just worked" for me, but I was probably using such a cable by default.

As far as it's IP address, I don't have it connected to the internet.

Network remote control is through port 23 (telnet); I hacked up a little remote app with the functions I need most (input select, volume &c.).

Oh, that's neat. For those who want to play with this, Denon documents it in the manuals and downloads section of their site. Go here [1], find the page for your receiver, and look for the document with "protocol" in its name.

If they don't have it listed for your receiver, a couple I know have them are AVR-1913 (Rev 8.5.0 of the protocol document) and AVR-X4000 (Rev 10.0.3).

I tried it and it worked.

  echo -ne MVUP\\r | nc denon 23

increased the volume by one notch.

The remote app on my phone is able to get a listing showing my favorite stations in the internet radio app of the receiver, and I didn't see offhand how that is done via the telnet interface, so I watched via tcpdump while the app did it, after some difficulty [2].

It turns out that the remote app for my AVR-1913 is not using the telnet interface. It's doing HTTP POST to the receiver's web server. All the ones I saw were to /goform/AppCommand.xml. What it posts is some XML with one or more commands. For example, it posts this periodically to get information:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <tx>
   <cmd id="1">GetAllZonePowerStatus</cmd>
   <cmd id="1">GetVolumeLevel</cmd>
   <cmd id="1">GetMuteStatus</cmd>
   <cmd id="1">GetSourceStatus</cmd>
  </tx>

The response is XML with the root element being <rx>, then one or more <cmd> elements. The number of <cmd> elements in the response seems to be the same as the number in the request, and they contain the response for the corresponding command.

Here's what is coming back for the <tx> shown above (formatted a bit nicer):

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
  <rx>
   <cmd>
    <zone1>ON</zone1>
    <zone2>OFF</zone2>
   </cmd>
   <cmd>
    <volume>-40.0</volume>
    <disptype>RELATIVE</disptype>
    <dispvalue>-40.0dB</dispvalue>
   </cmd>
  <cmd>
   <mute>off</mute>
  </cmd>
  <cmd>
   <source>SAT/CBL</source>
  </cmd>
  </rx>

I've only searched briefly, but so far not found any documentation for this.

[1] https://usa.denon.com/us/downloads/manuals-and-downloads

[2] I set my switch [3] to mirror the port the receiver is on to my Mac, but was not seeing anything with tcpdump on the Mac. Took me an embarrassingly long time to remember that if you don't explicitly specify the interface to monitor, it monitors them all but not in promiscuous mode, so you only see traffic to/from yourself.

[3] TP-Link SG-108E. I highly recommend this or the SG-105E or others in the family. They are unmanaged switches, but they do support port mirroring, some VLAN features, and some QOS features that you normally have to go to an expensive managed switch for. My 108E (8 port) was only $30. The only thing I don't like about it is that the status lights for the ports are in the back, above the connectors, rather than on the front.

ARC (and CEC) is famously temperamental. Even if you have used the correct HDMI port on your TV and receiver, and enabled the functionality both places (keeping in mind that different brands use different terms for these technologies), it may still not work.

I use it between my LG OLED and Denon AVX4300, and it is still a wonder to me why it takes 10-15 seconds upon start-up for sound to make it from TV to receiver.

a couple of years ago, i finally upgraded to a proper home theater system, with everything connected through a yamaha receiver, and i am pleasantly surprised at how well CEC works (given the many complaints i saw online).

since i'd vowed never to pay into the cable cartel, i watch most things via my apple tv. i just have to hit one button on the apple tv remote and the apple tv, receiver and tv come on automatically, and will switch to the right hdmi input (and tv input) if not already set. even if the apple tv is not being used, i can still use the volume buttons on it (easier, since it's radio and not infrared like the receiver remote). it's great!

Isn't this just switching out the Sonos ecosystem for the Apple ecosystem?

Replace AppleTV with a Kodi player and you have the same setup without the Apple ecosystem.

Yeah but then you lose all the Apple TV content and the apps...

Or just sideload Kodi and have the best of everything

Or install MrMC if you've got an appstore capable apple tv and forget about sideloading too.

If I am understanding the poster correctly, Apple TV is just the input. The speaker system itself is agnostic to what the input is. There is no ecosystem for the audio, as they're all 'dumb' speakers connected to a receiver.

Yes, except (presumably) they are using Airplay to the AppleTV for music (which locks out non-Apple products).

The Sonos equivalent is something like the Sonos beam connected to the TV via CEC. AppleTV v2 is now obsolete and I think was sold until 2015, so that's pretty much the same as the Sonos policy.

But it's a fair point - for simple setups this can work fine.

Recent Yamahas are integrated into googles ecosystem too. To me the point is that the speakers are separable from whatever client you want to use. If it’s 5 years from now and you need new support for driving the speakers, you replace that component. You don’t have to throw the speakers away to stay current.

My Onkyo has Spotify streaming support built into the amp. It's dreadful though - just about unusable because the UX and setup is so bad.

Is the Yamaha experience better?

(Also, the Yamaha MusicCast speakers are exactly the same as Sonos in that they are software dependant, and pre-2015 ones don't get the update to AirPlay2[1]. Not clear if you are talking about this or the amps though)

[1] https://au.yamaha.com/en/news_events/2019/musiccast-update.h...

musiccast speakers are reputed to work well, but they're a little pricey. currently, only the apple tv has an internet connection (via ethernet cable into a router, not wifi). i may eventually extend speaker wire into the kitchen to have two independent audio zones off the receiver.

and to confirm the other responders, i have a set of "dumb" polk speakers connected to the receiver. for audio, i'll often just stream to the receiver over bluetooth from my mbp, iphone or ipad (so yes, i'm apple-dependent, but not in the way you meant =)

airplay works well to stream video via apple tv to the receiver (and then to the tv screen).

Ack yeah this landscape is too complicated, i was speaking about the amps. I picked up a 2019 model Yamaha receiver and it works really well for AirPlay, I’ve only used it a little bit for Spotify Connect and it seemed to work fine but I just didn’t use it enough to recommend up or down. The receiver doesn’t have to be in an “on” state, if it’s off then AirPlay/Spotify will turn on components and start playing. It’s been really low-fussiness, which I was kinda surprised by.

Apple Airport Express is obsolete as well but Apple actually bothered to update them to AirPlay 2. I even tried to buy one used so I could have an AirPlay setup for the entire apartment without Sonos or other proprietary speakers.

While non-Apple products are locked-out (or, require the user to flip inputs on the receiver), at least user isn't forced to spend hundreds (or thousands) on speakers that eventually become obsolete. An Apple TV is relatively inexpensive (in the overall scheme of home theater).

Wait, what? I thought the volume buttons on the Apple TV remote were infrared... (while every other button works via Bluetooth)

Try covering the little black area at the front of the remote and you’ll see what I mean. At least in my case the volume buttons stop working.

Depends on your TV. The IR is a fallback but it can also do volume over CEC:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/263008/how-to...

yah, the volume buttons still work through the apple tv to the receiver via radio (for me).

The remote can be configured for either CEC or IR, see also: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205225#siriappletv. The only problem happens when not playing from the AppleTV and you use the volume buttons. It’ll switch inputs on the TV/receiver to the AppleTV. So it’s no longer an universal volume control, which can confuse family members as they have to remember which input the whole setup is in.

Got pretty much the same setup. Works very well.

I don’t have really any remotes at all for this setup.

The amp I bought [1] has a volume dial for each channel, one speaker is wired per channel.

I walked around the house one day to normalize the perceived volumes from each speaker. I’ve never touched the volume dial since. I don’t see the point of wiring volume controls in the walls of each room. I can control the AirPlay source volume on my phone.

The A/V receiver in my living room is a 2-zone system with a Zone 2 Preout. So there’s a 25’ RCA cable ($10 - do not waste money on fancy cables) going from the receiver to the amp.

The amp has two “main” inputs which go to all channels, and then each channel can also take its own dedicated RCA input — but I don’t currently use them. Since all the speakers are on the same floor, there’s no point in driving different sources to different speakers at this point.

If my Receiver had pre-outs for each channel of Zone 1 then in theory I could drive two of the living room ceiling speakers as rear/surrounds when watching movies by just wiring up the RCA jacks.

When I AirPlay from any phone in the house to the receiver it just defaults to playing on Zone-2. There’s an app which lets me change the zone that a source plays on, but I never use it.

In theory I could play a movie on the “house” speakers but then it wouldn’t be 7.1 surround; my receiver anyway can’t do 7.1 on the Zone 1 speakers while also doing a basic Stereo downmix over Zone 2. But I have never missed this.

Basically the use case for the ceiling speakers is listening to music during breakfast or dinner. The kids love choosing songs and having little dance parties morning and afternoon. Anyone can start whatever song they want from their phone. Of course sometimes that results in the children trying to override each other, but usually all in good fun.

IMO it’s definitely worth the ~$600 for dumb speakers, dumb amp, and dumb wiring to have absolutely future proof ceiling speakers throughout the house. The same exact system could easily be pumping tunes 30 years from now.

The AirPlay receiver that drives the amp doesn’t count toward the cost because it’s the same home theater receiver you’re going to buy anyway. It’s also the only piece of the puzzle that runs software and hardware (WiFi) that will become obsolete in a relatively short time frame. It does support CEC and it is also the source selector but honestly the only source right now is the AppleTV. All that is really kind of “besides the point” you could say when it comes to the house speakers. Anything could sit in front of it, as long as you can get an analog stereo output from it. It could be a Raspberry Pi even. The only requirement is being able to AirPlay/Chromecast to whatever is providing the RCA source.

It can be a huge mood boost and a great way to start the day before rushing the kids off to school to blast some tunes while cooking pancakes, and with eight 8” woofers the sound is a lot more immersive than a single “smart” speaker could muster.

[1] - Pyle 8-Channel Home Theater... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UL0XIQ

My wife complained that my MythTV DVR was too loud in the living room (I have mild hearing loss, so I believe her, but I can't hear the fans myself). So I moved the box into a utility room and replaced it with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ (the newest model at the time) running Kodi as a frontend.

Kodi compiled for the RPi can be buggy, and I wouldn't recommend this setup for a novice, but it works well enough.

Anyways, I was surprised to find that Kodi on the RPi supports CEC. I was controlling it with a wireless keyboard for a month before, one day after I switched the input and absent-mindedly pressed a button on the D-pad, the RPi responded to my input. It works really well (until Kodi crashes).

If you haven't tried it, try https://libreelec.tv/, I got a new Pi 4 to replace my old Pi 3B+ that I had been running Kodi directly (or whatever the original form of it is called) on and it came with an SD card with NOOBS on it so I decided to install LibreELEC and give it a shot since that was one of the easy-install options. The UI still isn't great and feels like no one has thought through anything, but it's way better than Kodi was (I have yet to have it pop up full screen in the middle of watching a movie to ask if it can update itself) and I haven't had nearly as many crashes (or any, in fact).

Just thought I should point out that Libreelec is Kodi. It’s just a stripped down OS with just enough on it to run Kodi so it can be fast and stable.

The key piece of equipment in this is what sits in front of the amplifier. If you could "AirPlay" or "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice, it would be significantly better than a whole house Sonos. If only the protocols was open, so you could use an off the shelf computer with enough audio out, then it would be nice.