What whole-home audio means now
A few years ago, multi-room audio meant a stack of amplifiers and a wall of speaker wire. Today it is a network: Dante sends audio to any room over the same cabling as your Wi-Fi, a 16-channel amplifier in the rack powers the speakers, and Sonos, Apple AirPlay, Spotify Connect or a turntable are the sources. You pick the room and the music from your phone, an RTI panel, or a Lutron keypad on the way out the door.
The speakers themselves are in the ceilings and walls, painted to match. The only visible sign of the system is a small grille, or nothing at all with Triad's flush, grille-less models.
How we design a system
- Zones. Each room or outdoor area is a zone with its own volume and source. A typical lake house has eight to sixteen: kitchen, great room, dining, primary suite, baths, bunk room, workout room, screened porch, deck, dock.
- Speakers matched to the room. Larger in-ceiling speakers with real bass in the great room, small ones in a bath, in-wall subwoofers where music matters, landscape speakers and buried subs outside.
- Amplification and DSP. AudioControl Dante amplifiers and processors, so every zone gets clean power and its own EQ, with the gear in the rack instead of a closet full of boxes.
- Sources everyone already knows. Sonos Port and Amp, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal, internet radio, a turntable in the den, and the TV audio from the great room sent to the deck for the game.
- Control. The Sonos app if you like it, the RTI app and panels for the whole house, and "Music off" on the Lutron keypad by the door.
Outdoor audio on the lake
Outside is where lake houses live from May to October. We install weather-rated landscape speakers along the path to the water, buried subwoofers that fill a yard without annoying the neighbors across the cove, and marine-grade speakers under the dock canopy, all on their own zones so the dock can play one thing and the deck another.
Working with what you have
If you already own Sonos speakers, they become zones in the larger system. An existing receiver can feed a zone. Old speaker wire from a previous system is often reusable. We would rather extend a good system than replace it.
Where we install audio
Greater Boston and the Lake Winnipesaukee region, including Alton, Alton Bay, Wolfeboro, Tuftonboro, Moultonborough, Meredith, Center Harbor.
