I agree digitlife. Truce, and no hard feelings here.
I am sorry if I misjudged you.

Thanks all
Mark

Upon rereading the entire thread I must say I see a few things very clearly.
1) Digi never answered with attitude. some sarcasm at a time or two but no attitude.
2) most people reply without regard to the original post. Listen to the question and ANSWER THE QUESTION
3) most people reply without understanding what the post'r is asking. Mark's original post seemed very simple and Digi gave the KISS type answer. Keep It Simple Stupid!. He gave great advise within a reasonable budget. It's easy for everyone to quickly scream for high end gear or Crestron automation with total disregard for the threads concept.

I am now done and will not add to this thread.

MArk - one thing. Run a CAT5e with all volume controls for future higher end solutions.

Good luck!

You could consider an A-Bus topography for your application. Each volume control has it's own 'amp'
good for about 10 watts...it will not drive you up against the back wall but Neil Young and Vivaldi still sound good at 10 watts..
A-Bus is marketed by many now....but I have used Russound...AK1.2

I have a demo Knoll MVP64a that I am trying to move which would give you 50 w/ch with keypads at a unprecedented price point. It retails for $4000 with 6 keypads and a remote and I can sell it for $2000.

http://www.knollsystems.com

Let me know if you are interested.

are we becoming ebay or what?

i have a few remotes i'd like to unload to but wouldnt stoop to soliciting shoppers in here