Multi-room Systems – Connected Music and Movies in Every Room

Multi-Room means music or video in every room you want it – but connected. You can play the same or different music in every room at the same time, with easy to use controls. Start playing a Movie in one room, pause it, then continue playing it in another one. These days digital streaming means that the lines between a single HiFi and a Multi-room system are blurred, with the streamer effectively linking rooms together.

We have several multi-room manufacturers to choose from, most of which use a standard infrastructure, and so are broadly interchangeable. The Linn Digital Streaming system is one of the best established and offers some of the most flexible audiophile quality sound, controlled from handheld wireless control devices such as a phone or iPad.  For those that prefer the legendary Linn or Naim sounds, we offer the full range of Naim and Linn digital streaming multi-room components.

All of our systems are based on a central music server which distributes the sound via a digital Ethernet (Cat-6) network rather than trying to centralise the players and amplifiers in one place leading to long speaker cables and severe loss of audio quality.  The systems we use are easier to wire up (See our page on Multi-room wiring), use short speaker cables for higher quality sound, and are ultimately much more flexible.  The bonus is that you usually get an improved Home Data Network and WiFi for your computers and tablets as a bi-product of the system installation.

Linn Multi-room Systems

Imagine it, you pick up your iPad, select your favourite music tracks on a simple menu, press play and hear your music better than the worlds best CD player can achieve. That’s the Klimax DS. Simple, elegant, future-proof.

 

Make sense of the jargon used with our Digital Streaming Glossary 

Naim Multi-Room Systems

The Naim Digital Streaming solutions, have matured in to a highly capable family of digital streaming players to cover a variety of rooms. From the “Uniti Atom” single box streaming player/amplifier to the ND555 Reference network player, there are seven different levels of digital streaming players to choose from. These are all controlled by Naim’s dedicated control App for the iPad / iPhone (or Android device).

Naim Uniti Atom multi-room system player

 

 

 

 

Naim and Focal Control App, available as a free download from iTunes:

 

Naim’s App uses the ROVI database, which provides access to the usual CD booklet info and a wealth of other information about the artist, composers, band members etc. complete with discographies and more background information than would normally be fitted into CD booklets.

Bluesound Multi-Room solutions

Coming from the NAD Audio pedigree, Bluesound create an impressive suite of Network coupled Multi-room components:

• Node – streaming source only
• PowerNode – combined Streaming player and Power Amplifier
• Pulse 2
• Pulse – powered streaming speakers
• Soundbar
• Subwoofer

Capable of streaming 24bit high resolution Audio, these are great sounding products for anything from a single room to a whole house audio system. Play local audio, Internet radio, your favourite streaming services or your own music stored on a server, these are flexible audio products which all operate together within the Bluesound ecosystem.

 

 

Central Media Server for Music – Dela (was Melco)

The Heart of the multi-room system is the music server. This could be a dedicated server such as the Dela N1  here, or it could be a more conventional NAS drive or a PC.

The Dela N1 Music server is so slick to use, it’s a bit of a no-brainer when it comes to storing your valuable music collection.

All you have to do is insert your CD into the Ripping Drive (if you have that option), accept the Rip entry on the front panel and wait a few minutes until it has finished. Job Done! It really is that simple.  (meanwhile the Dela N1 has looked up the CD track names, album title, artist, album artwork etc. and added this information to the file so you can easily navigate your collection using either Linn, Naim other compatible controller Apps)

Video Multi-room Systems

Central Video Server for Movies and Music

For storing and distributing all your favourite films documentaries and TV Shows, we recommend the Kaleidescape range of servers and players.

The Kaleidescape Server provides ultra-reliable storage for your favourite movies and music. A single Terra Server can store up to 1500 full 4K Movies (88Tb version) . Multiple Servers can be clustered in a single System to store thousands of movies and albums as a single collection. Start with a single Strato V player for storing up to 10 UHD films and upgrade through a compact Terra Server which can store up to 100 full 4K movies, and beyond!

Start with a single stand-alone player and scale up to as many as you want!

For more information on the very slick and user friendly operation of the Kaleidescape system with a Movie Server click here.