Are there A/V receivers that can talk to each other and play the same music from one to another?

[surfer949]

Here's my scenario, I have one A/V receiver set up as a 3.1 system in my living room, and I have speaker wiring in my Master bedroom that are terminating in the Master bedroom but no equipment at this time. I would like to be able to play separate audio in each rooms but also play continuous music throughout the house from one single source when desired. Is that possible? Are there A/V receivers that can talk to each other and play the same music from one?

 

[photonboy]

Yes.
For example in the link below there's a Sony AV unit with Chromecast.

However, for the remote speaker you may want a Wi-Fi model, and use a WD MY CLOUD drive as the source for the ripped music files (and optionally have an audio subscription that you can connect to via wi-fi).

The cheapest ones probably need a phone app to control.

https://www.cnet.com/news/best-wi-fi-music-systems/

**So you need to be certain the following work together:

1) Speaker device
2) Audio source hardware (i.e. WD MY CLOUD attached to router which will appear to all wi-fi or ethernet devices)
3) optional: AV unit that can talk to speaker
4) optional: phone with app or other remote control device

 

[photonboy]

update:
I don't think most (if any) devices that play and stream audio are setup to offer DIFFERENT audio at the same time. Some support beaming the same audio to multiple speakers throughout the house, but not necessarily a different stream to each device.

So you may need a SEPARATE unit for each playback device (though you can access a WDMYCLOUD to play music or video by multiple devices at the same time to play different files)

 

[surfer949]

update:
I don't think most (if any) devices that play and stream audio are setup to offer DIFFERENT audio at the same time. Some support beaming the same audio to multiple speakers throughout the house, but not necessarily a different stream to each device.

So you may need a SEPARATE unit for each playback device (though you can access a WDMYCLOUD to play music or video by multiple devices at the same time to play different files)

That was my plan, buy one more A/V receiver for the Master bedroom and use some type of device or Wifi app/feature to play music from one source if that's possible. Because I do want to use WIRED speakers for both rooms, wifi speakers are not an option.

 

[surfer949]

So basically this is what in a perfect set up I'd like to see,

Master bedroom: 3 wired speakers connected to a A/V playing its own audio
Living room: 3.1 set up connected to a A/V playing its own audio
Music throughout the house via both A/V receivers from one source such as Spotify

 

[photonboy]

update:
I don't think most (if any) devices that play and stream audio are setup to offer DIFFERENT audio at the same time. Some support beaming the same audio to multiple speakers throughout the house, but not necessarily a different stream to each device.

So you may need a SEPARATE unit for each playback device (though you can access a WDMYCLOUD to play music or video by multiple devices at the same time to play different files)

That was my plan, buy one more A/V receiver for the Master bedroom and use some type of device or Wifi app/feature to play music from one source if that's possible. Because I do want to use WIRED speakers for both rooms, wifi speakers are not an option.

I'm not following you exactly. You are running speaker wires from the living room into the bedroom?

Speakers are usually in the same room and setup as 2.0, 2.1...etc. I'm not aware of a way to setup multiple speaker outputs that you can toggle between.

For SEPARATE audio outputs you generally have a source couple of beaming via Wi-Fi to a receiving device such as Google Chromecast which in turn takes the wi-fi signal and creates a 3.5mm stereo output for something like stereo PC speakers.

You can even get a SANDISK CLIP MP3 player for quite cheaply which has FM and can store music files to playback to headphones or again, stereo PC speakers.

 

[photonboy]

So basically this is what in a perfect set up I'd like to see,

Master bedroom: 3 wired speakers connected to a A/V playing its own audio
Living room: 3.1 set up connected to a A/V playing its own audio
Music throughout the house via both A/V receivers from one source such as Spotify

Okay, so two separate AV units.

I'm not aware of a way to CONNECT them to a network service at the same time, or beam the information from one unit to another so that they both play. The only thing I can think of is to make sure the unit has support for the streaming service you want then use one or the other.

I highly doubt there's a way to stream from one unit to another while BOTH play the same music because there would be latency issues likely. Even the slightest delay would cause the music to be out of synch.

I could be wrong though.

 

[surfer949]

No, the speakers in my Master bedroom are terminating in the Master bedroom. I really don't want to be fishing wires to terminate them in the living room.

I'm thinking at this point that I'll just buy one more A/V receiver for my Master bedroom and not have continuous music.
Thx anyways Photonboy!

 

[boosted1g]

Why not have a primary and secondary receiver, with primary receiver having dual zone?

Get a networked primary receiver that has all the digital inputs you want and RCA output for zone 2, you can use use DLNA with windows media player or other "server".
Use a short RCA to go from RCA out to an input on primary receiver (this is so that you can pass audio from digital source to zone 2).
Then daisy chain the receivers with a good quality shielded RCA cable.

 

[surfer949]

Why not have a primary and secondary receiver, with primary receiver having dual zone?

Get a networked primary receiver that has all the digital inputs you want and RCA output for zone 2, you can use use DLNA with windows media player or other "server".
Use a short RCA to go from RCA out to an input on primary receiver (this is so that you can pass audio from digital source to zone 2).
Then daisy chain the receivers with a good quality shielded RCA cable.

Sounds like a good set up but will this require a wire run?

 

[boosted1g]

Yes it would require an RCA cable ran between receivers.

If you want wireless then you basically want a sonos setup because anything less will be unreliable/too much delay.

 

[americanaudiophile]

A 2 zone AV receiver would not require a second receiver if you can do stereo in the second zone but would require speaker wiring to the remote speakers.
If you used two Denon or Marantz HEOS receivers that should work. No wiring between them required since each is it's own Heos zone. If you do stereo in the second zone you could use a Heos Amp instead of a receiver. Smaller and cheaper.

 

[briankrupp]

chromecast audio will do it - put one on each system as an input source, then group all of your chromecasts together called "whole house" - and cast audio to "whole house" - it will sync up all the chromecasts and each system will have the same input. Set max volume of each system then volume and track can then be adjusted from your phone or whatever device.