I am building my house and I want to set up multi room sound system. I am dedicating a small room for my setup so that I will run all audio cables from here to the rooms. Initially I was thinking of running wires for 7.1 channel in my living room and 2 channel in other rooms, but after using roon and playing all my hi-res Multi-channel tracks in multiple rooms with PC, I had a second thought…why not multi room multi-channel from a single PC? Now I am wondering if roon will support multiple sound cards (pcie based or usb) in the same PC where I will run roon core. Then I can run as many wires as I want for such a setup so that I place all the equipment at one place and only the speakers will be in the respective rooms. If possible this will enable me to hookup easily and cheaply! Any thoughts on this topic will be appreciated. Thanks
Yes, it will.
Thanks for the quick reply! This gives me a reason not to drop roon for Jriver! Lol!
I have a Creative Labs PCI Express sound card and also a USB OPPO HA-2 DAC that I can switch back and forth through Roon and also on my PC.
When I first read your inquiry, my take was (correct me if I am wrong) was that you wanted to know if multiple sound cards from a single PC could play to multiple rooms “at the same time”. I do not think that this can done through a PC.
@danny - What is your take on this scenario?
You can zone group built-in cards without issue, and you can play different things to each at the same time
Since I can sync the zone group with different PCs in different rooms, I am sure the zone group in the same PC, syncing would not be a problem.
In my new house,there will be a floor standing rack with other networking equipments. I am thinking of using audio patch panel with keystone jacks for this setup. This way I can customize input for each room. Also makes it very cheap and less wire clutters. Instead of a PC I can use a rackmount workstation with correct profile height.
Using the above I plan to wireup all the zone outputs via a multi channel amp/receivers. Or by-pass directly if in case amp or receiver be used in the rooms! In Each room there will be 2 x 7.1 outlets where by-passing can be done here too.
If you have better ideas please share. Thanks.
Can you state your goals?
I will comment there…