I will be installing a large 16 zone RTI control system next spring and could use some music streaming hardware platform recommendations

The customer uses primarily Pandora ( paid subscription) and Spotify

Controls will be iPads, iPhones and T2x remotes

I’ve done many Sonos systems but am aware they will not play nice with controls systems. So what streaming hardware should I use to connect to the RTI 16 zone audio matrix?

Customer wants full control of Pandora (play his stations, create new stations if possible, play/pause, thumbs up/down etc). And hopefully similar control with Spotify (but I’m guessing Spotify will only allow more rudimentary control without using the Spotify app?)

Autonomics? MusicCast? Heos ( hopefully not)? Blue….. ?

I guess there would need to be an RTI driver available for whatever streaming hardware I integrate, as I don’t want to try to write my own.

I’ll be using the top of the line RTI control processor and then new programming software to create the gui and integration.

You can create Sonos button that will take them to the Sonos native app and then use a 4 finger swipe on the IPad to return to the RTI App. I don't use remotes, so someone else might chime in. But I have found if client knows Sonos. This keeps it simple

RTI has their own native music streamers, the MS-1 and MS-3.

Autonomic has full control of both Pandora and Spotify and has an RTI driver that's regularly updated.

Isn't Snap the only option for autonomic?

Ive let my account with Snap lapse and don't feel like jumping through the hoops to reinstate it. Just for Autonomics. And they are pricey

Can anyone give me reliability feedback wit the RTI streamers? I'll likely go with the MS-3 which supports 3 streams, if I go with RTI.

Just Spotify and Pandora (the customer primarily uses Pandora) . I may try to talk him into Deezer to replace Spotify

I myself use Deezer and local hard drive library with Sonos. My control system is Elan but I've never bothered to use Intrinsic Sonos driver with my Elan.

No Autonomic was bought back from Snap thankfully.

You can sign up with Autonomic directly; really like the Autonomic driver integration with Elan. Your main problem will be the T2x; just had to swap one from a good customer on my dime after about 2 years.

John, I hope you are not taking a chance on an unhappy customer. Personally I am not an RTI fan, except for their little matrix amplifiers, which I’ve use successfully a few times. But trusting their streamers, when they are clearly a very minor player in that field, sounds like a recipe for you being on speed dial with that client.

My only frame of reference honestly is a series of Control4 for clients that have switched over to normal Sonos app control of their Sonos devices. I think Control4 is as good as anyone for the whole house thing, yet for controlling multi room music, I have not had a single client say that Control4 was easier for Sonos.

Just had one call this week for a Sonos quote, based on a customer friend of his I did a few years ago. He said he wanted to rip out the Control4 audio and just keep it for his lighting. Would hate to have you end up the same way with an RTI setup when simple app control could be more appropriate and most importantly, more user friendly.

YMMV.

I can’t do Sonos for this job. Sonos gets very squirrelly with that many zones.

It’s a 16 zone audio system, 6 of them also being video zones. I’m using an RTI 16 zone audio matrix and an 8x8 AVPro hdmi matrix. I need a control system to control and switch everything (remotes, iPhones, iPads etc).

So I need a music streamer to be a source (actually 2 stream sources) on the audio matrix. The T2x will be used to control the matrices and the video sources (Roku, cable boxes and ATV). Im unsure how robust the T2x will control the RTI streamer. I plan to find out on the RTI forum but a friend of mine who knows RTI front and back says their integration with their streamer is as good as it gets (staying with all RTI hardware). I’ve also been told their newer remotes of the last few years are much improved.

I have an Elan system but since Nice bought them, many don’t have a warm fuzzy about elan being a player going forward. I love my elan system but I have to jump into the Sonos app to stream through my elan matrix. They don’t seem to have the market penetration anymore. They have changed their remote controls recently and I don’t know how reliable they are anymore. They wanted me to jump through a lot of hoops to become a dealer again.

Much improved, hmm. I breathed a sigh of relief when T2i and T2x came out.  No more flipping the power switch to power cycle all those T2c and T3s, no more white screen of death.

I had lots of clients with RP1 and RP6 to change over.  First client with the new model, I program it up, before I even hand it to him, it freezes on me. Only now there is no switch to power cycle it.

I sold a handful, and lockups persisted.  Finally I had stored the new reset procedure in a note on my phone so I could text it to my clients. More reliable, eh?

I had always done URC but they just had text/monochrome remotes. That’s why I needed RTI, for some color. When the MX880 and 980 came out, I didn’t need T2/T3. URC has been more cost effective and more reliable for me.

As an aside, and as a general rule, the stupidest statement on the face of the earth is somebody describing a brand new model and saying it’s more reliable than the previous one. You absolutely have no clue what reliability is going to look like until you have a product in the field for 1 to 3 years. The new RTI remote proved that to me.

Kind of silly for me to believe RTI, when talking to tech support about all the white screen failures were met with, “Hmm, that’s the first time I’ve heard of that” while many of us here were complaining to each other about repeated failures.

Before that, it was a Sim2 projector I tried for a client. My rep acknowledged, yes the older ones have had some issues but these new models are way better. Set up a client with a $30,000 projector, and it got through the warranty just fine. But for quite a few years I would send it back to the service center in Miami every six months to a year. Shipping an 85 pound projector from California to Florida was around $350, so every repair was $750-$1000 or more.

More reliable, eh?