I am building a new home and I want to do in-wall/ceiling speakers in multiple rooms around the house so that I can stream from Roon to different locations either individual or in grouped zones. At total of about five different locations. The speaker cable will all be run back to a closet with ethernet, so the end-points can be directly connected rather than wifi. I also have a dedicated listening room, which will use a UltraRendu endpoint, but I will not ever group that room with any other room in the house.
In my old house, I was using wireless Sonos throughout the house and they worked great. I am considering using Sonos ceiling speakers/Sonos amps.
What other options are there for Roon end-points that would be better and/or more cost effective? Maybe RoPieee devices with an audio HAT, but then I still need amps… I would rather have something turn-key and not have to cobble it all together from parts.
Keep in mind you can only group “like” devices. If you go Sonos you’ll be stuck with Sonos. If you go RAAT, either via the DIY path or Roon Ready, devices (and there are lots of amps supporting multiple zones for this exact reason) then, any expansion you do will be easier as you can throw any RAAT device into the mix.
If you have home run speaker wire then your options are pretty endless. Multi-channel “whole home” amp with enough inputs to break-out the rooms and Pis with HATs would work. There are more elegant solutions though. For example, the NAD CI580 is a single box that gives you 4 stereo Roon zones you then supply your own amplification.
Right, that’s why I’m looking into other options before committing to Sonos . The NAD CI850 looks pretty intriguing, and I can probably live with four locations - is there an amplifier solution you would recommend with that, i.e. one box with eight channels? Thanks.