Set up question whole house audio

[Jeffrey_Gilliam]

Roon

My wife and I are retiring out of state. I previously used Roon for several years and want to have a Roon based whole house audio system.
I need to get this right so if I need to trash what I thought might work, I will.
We will have a total 8 zones inside and in the backyard. I thought we could run the Roon core on a Mac pro desk top (2010). Each room has 2 Goldenear in ceiling speakers. Would the 8 locations be recognized as separate zones by Roon? Does it make sense to invest in an 8 zone multi-zone amplifier? Do I need a Roon-ready multi-zone amplifier for this? In order to see the display in some of the zones would TV’s with chromcast work? We listen to our library and Tidal primarily. Would we be able to independently control volume and the music selection from each zone? If necessary having all zones hear the same content is not the end of the world. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated (including suggestions for the amp). If I intend to live a long healthy retirement I have to get this right. If not, an empty nest with my wife may not be as pleasant as I hoped…lol

Networking Gear & Setup Details

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Description of Issue

[benjamin]

Hey @Jeffrey_Gilliam,

Thank you for reaching out to us with your question, and welcome to the community! My apologies for the delayed response and for your wait. We’ve made some recent changes to the support team structure and some reports have experienced a longer response time than usual.

I’d be happy to help ensure you get your Roon setup sounding sharp. Let’s start off by answering your questions below:

Each room has 2 Goldenear in-ceiling speakers. Would the 8 locations be recognized as separate zones by Roon? Does it make sense to invest in an 8-zone multi-zone amplifier?

Depending on how the ceiling speakers have been wired, it might be the case that all 8 locations would still only show as 1 zone in roon. If that is the case, you would only need a single zone amplifier.

Do I need a Roon-ready multi-zone amplifier for this?

Any Roon-tested multi-zone amp will work for you, but for the easiest and fastest setup, a roon-ready device will be your best choice. You can also utilize a Roon Bridge device to make any AVR receiver streamable in Roon. We offer a variety of Roon Bridge options in our Roon Store

In order to see the display in some of the zones would TVs with Chromecast work?

Chromecast is fully supported by Roon! Chromecast can be set up just the same as any other zone within Roon, so you should be good to go there. A good thing to note here is that you can only group the same protocols, Chromecast with Chromecast, Roon Ready with Roon Ready (or other RAAT zones), etc. Here is more info on this.

We listen to our library and Tidal primarily. Would we be able to independently control the volume and the music selection from each zone?

Yes! You are able to independently control each zone, as well as the master volume from each zone. Let me know if you need any additional assistance getting your home properly equipped with Roon! I’ll keep an eye on this thread for any follow-up questions.

Let me know if you have any additional questions! We’ll be monitoring this thread for your reply (ps - congrats on retiring!)