Looking for a user friendly solution for our new tiny restaurant.
Seriously, 604 square feet!!!

No video, no tv's!

The dining room is very intimate, 13' X 23', with 6 cheapy NXG inwall 8" 3 ways (new old stock) leftovers from my CI days, mounted in the ceiling, currently 3 per right and 3 per left channels. Wired series parallel to keep the amp happy. It had only 2 - 6" round 2 ways previously and I didn't want to pull a bunch of new wire for home runs for each of the 6 new speakers I installed... Flat roof, no access, blah, blah, blah...

I installed an 8" dvc in the restroom.

Installed 4 TIC 8" in ground landscape speakers and 2 of the TIC 8" in ground landscape subs.
I have a QSC RMX850 that I have running the outdoor landscape speakers via 2 pulls of 14/4 burial grade wire and it sounds adequate, obviously plenty of power.
Running at 4 ohms.

2, again cheapy, 8" 2 way outdoor rated enclosure speakers in the kitchen so our cooks can rock out when prepping and also have tunes during service.

2 old used Niles 6" 2 way outdoor speakers a customer gave me years ago under the soffit above the entry to the restaurant.

Using a new Onkyo TX-8160 stereo rcvr for the headend control unit that has all the streaming crap built in; Pandora, Spotify, Bluetooth, network, etc., controllable from whatever smart device you want; i.e. iPhone, iPad, etc. It has main zone amplified, A & B outputs, and zone 2 rca fixed output. Each, independent, source wise, (main and zone 2) from each other. Using an old Niles SSVC-2 fed from speaker B amplified output to control the restroom speaker and the entry/soffit speakers. Main zone amplified output to the 6 dining room speakers.

All in all, it sounds great but... I want better control over all! Remotely!

So my question is simply this.

What would you use for source, control, amplification? Everything is low impedance, not 70 volt.
I am ok with replacing whatever I have on the head end. I think all the speakers I have in place are adequate, if not overkill, but I was trying to create an intimate space, audio wise.

I would love to have a more user friendly/elegant way to control the whole pile.

How's that for a puzzle?
I am sure some will just flame me and that's ok. Just remember, I got out of the biz when hdmi could still be ignored... Hahaha!!!

Thanks! Erik

Am I correct in that I count 5 zones?

I have installed many Casatunes systems and people love them. I have this one on my house:

[Link: casatunes.com]

It has 4 analogue zone outputs and one digital optical zone output, for a total of 5. You could run the optical into your Onkyo and because it's network capable, Casatunes will turn it on and off when called for using IP control. The other 4 zones you use amps of whatever configuration meets your impedance and power needs.

It also has wireless AirPlay zones which can steam to any AirPlay device including stand alone AirPlay speakers.

It has a built in hard drive to store music on and connects to all of the usual on line streaming and Internet radio sources.

Control is trough iOS app, android app, keypad, or web browser on a computer.

And, it's all in one small box.

Great support too.

Craig.

Do you want a legal source for when BMI calls you?

Also, consider Sonos because it will be robust and painless to setup. Four CONNET:AMP's, CONNECT, and a NAS drive will be cost competive with CasaTunes plus some amplifiers. Some of the online services available on Sonos have commercial agreements or you could deal with BMI directly.

I am a bit concerned how you will balance the output levels of that 3-3 series/parallel string of speakers if it will be a stereo room. (Add a balance resistor in series with the parallel speaker?) If the room is mono, consider how you will generate the mono speaker feed because "mono" switches disappeared generations ago.

In any case, consider how much control visibility you want to have available to the kitchen staff. Is it OK if they have full control of all areas, or do they need to be restricted? Further, how bombproof do you need to be? In many restaurants the night cleaning crew is the largest "hazard" the system will encounter. In the case of Sonos, the staff will have a hard time blowing up the CONNECT:AMP's and anything wired to them, but control visibility could be an issue because all areas will be visible to control unless you get into some network trickery that will likely become boring after a while.

in most of my restaurant systems I use a dBx controller and in-wall controls, because the kitchen staff can't beat the system and there are so many handy system level setup and control options available, but this seems like gross overkill in your context.

Not sore if you can do this with Sonos, but with Casatunes you can choose if the zone will be mono or stereo, and you can also set the max volume from within the setup.

Craig

Neither feature is available on a Sonos system.

This a very small restaurant with very limited trusted staff, not too worried about users damaging anything.

The 3/3 speakers are sort of scattered around the ceiling and surprisingly sounds pretty good. The room is small enough it just works. No matter where you sit in the room you are still close enough to either a right or left channel it isnt awkward feeling.

I would love to be able to run the whole setup mono but, the Onkyo only gives you that option on FM which we probably won't use much if ever.

Have not really played with Sonos much.

I have Denon Heos at home though and had thought about using something like that. The "app" based things seam quirky/glitchy that I have played with, although it may be my network is not solid.

I am an overqualified diy'er at this stage of the game...

At our other restaurant we use Rockbot, sort of a virtual juke box that customers can buy songs if they like on their smart devices, for our music streaming service and that takes care of the music police issues there... And we can control what plays when and limit or expand content on the fly with smart phone management apps or from a pc based online management console page. Sometimes they stream some pretty obscure music but we have control of genre/explicit limitations, etc. We have a much larger system I cobbled together that rocks the house. 9 zones, 36 speakers and and multiple subs throughout. I used all old Rane controls & QSC amps and ceiling speakers and inceiling subs in the bar and one day the regional sales rep from QSC happen to have a meal in our bar on a very busy day and asked for the owner to ask who the contractor was that installed our system. I told him it was me and that everything was found used on EBay... He stated it was one of the better systems he had heard spec'd with his line! I have an in wall source selector and volume control in the bar only. Everything else is in a 42u rack locked away from most of the staff. It is a, set it and forget it, system other than in the bar, they can switch source for games on tv and such and turn the volume up and down when it's busy.

Isn't DBX the only system that does commercial accounts?

Fins,

I'm not sure what you are asking. It's just a clever headend. There are various DSP effects that one can configure, such as equalization, compression, limiting, etc., microphone preamps, balanced in/out, remote control of output levels, and input selection. Source material is up to the user. Yes, you could control it over the network, but "administrate" would be a better description. They can't stream, that would be the job of peripheral equipment. While these are great units in a commercial context, I wouldn't want one at home.

A little eq and compression will perk up a bar with high ambient noise and the limiting will keep the system safe from the night cleanup crew. There is no need to allow the unit to respond to its front panel -- which doesn't look like anything ever seen at home.

There are other competing boxes, I am most familiar with the dBx.

rguy1,

Sonos is not appropriate for every restaurant job, but I have a number of happy campers. Sonos hardware and networking are solid, but it can be the victim of bad networking. Really, it's not a big deal. I have lots of Sonos systems out there on consumer grade networks that don't cause any grief from one year to the next. It's the smart IT guys who get into trouble by misconfiguring their industrial duty kit.

There is a Line-In on the CONNECT:AMP that supports analog input from whatever source.

The advantage of a Sonos system is its openness and ease of control from pads, phones, and computers. In restaurants this can be a liability if the manager wants absolute control and staff has access to the network. The only practical means of locking out users is with WiFi passwords and network segmentation. This could be as easy as establishing "Guest" WiFi access. Guests cannot access the Sonos system.

BTW, I'm not worried that the night crew will damage a CONNECT:AMP. They are robust and can take care of themselves.

Use commercial equipment. Change to 70 volt. If you can't handle it, find a commercial pro in your area.

I don't think that replacing everything is warranted here. In many respects this is a livingroom environment, he just wants a little more control.

When starting from scratch, 70V would be the way to go but, I don't see any compelling reason for pulling all of the speakers and rewiring the dining room.

If he outgrows the system, I'm sure that he'll be back and we can have the processor and 70V discussion again. Who knows what the options will be then.

What I'm saying is that most of the streaming devices we use in residential systems are not legal to use in commercial systems. It has nothing to do with settings. It's about paying BMI royalties

We've had the discussion on here and at IP many times. There are commercial accounts available for several services. XM and Pandora are the 2 most frequently used in the commercial setups I do.
Although I think XM went up on their price, as I just switched a customer (Comcast music channels now, they got with their Comcast business service) and they said their commercial XM bill had been $35 per month. I thought I remember the commercial accounts being 1/2 that? Maybe not.

Sonos supports hotelradio.fm and maybe other commercial services. Not sure if they are available in the US though.

[Link: hotelradio.fm]