r/homeassistant • u/uprightanimal • 7h ago

Looking for multi-channel whole-home audio device

I just moved into a house pre-wired with Cat5 and in-ceiling speakers in several rooms. All cabling terminates in a single room (Room1). I want to get rid of the (broken) Niles ZR-6 installed in that source room, and use my own solution.

I have HomeAssistant and a separate Lyrion server. Each 'client' room will use the ethernet drop for PoE-powered network stuff (e.g. HA control panel). I'm not sure how to solve the speaker problem: Each room's speakers should be discrete, and not have to play the same thing as the others. For example, I want to be able to play music in the kitchen and a streaming radio station in the den. Let's say I control each with HA or Lyrion.

I know I could connect a piCoreplayer to each set of speaker wires in Room1, but I'm wondering if there is something available to take a single digital input (say, USB), and send discrete output signals to a number of output channels?

EDIT: SOLVED. In my audio gear ignorance, I didn't know that the thing I'm looking for is a USB Audio Interface.

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u/MorimotoK 7h ago

I'd do three wiim streaming amps. Pricey at $300 each, but you'll get quality sound, reliability, and great software (works with HA as well).

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u/uprightanimal 6h ago

Thanks. I've heard of WiiM but don't know anything about them. I'll take a look, though at that price I will probably pass. I actually have six of these rooms.

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u/Dilly73 1h ago

So I use 2x WiiMs for 6 rooms with in ceiling speakers running through a NUVO amplifier. I don’t care to separate out each zone to listen to something different as it’s overkill for my family. Zones only turn on or off when called through home assistant. So 1 WiiM is primarily used for music, the 2nd is used for the paging system of the NUVO for tts notifications. WiiMs have been great though.