mrkwpalmer

Ah - I see the confusion... I meant to say: can I take out the Sonus and just use my Pioneer Elite receiver as the source? That is: Apple TV -> Pioneer Elite -> Russound -> Speakers So my family just uses Airplay on their iPhones to select which song they want to play. Easy. The question I have left, however, is, without Sonos, how do they select which room the audio plays in? They can control the volume on their iPhone, but how do they turn the music off in one zone and on in the other? Does the Russound, for example, have a remote control that controls the zones that are on / off? It seems the other option is to get 4 Sonos:AMP WITHOUT the Russound, and use the Airplay as the source, and the Sonos remote to control volume, etc. Or, of course, the family could just stick with DJ'ing via the Sonos system, if they got used to that. So this would look like this: Apple TV -> Pioneer Elite -> Sonos -> Speakers Each Sonos:AMP is $500, so 4x$500 is about the same price as the Russound! So I guess my remaining question about the Russound option is how to easily control the audio zones. Thanks for your continued help!

My apologies, I mixed them up - I thought your reply to DLA123 was for me. But, in fact, that's another option for me that I'm starting to think about - simply getting a multi-room amplifier INSTEAD of Sonus. What is the downside to that, instead of Sonus?

That's really helpful, David! Thanks! So in this scenario, I don't need Sonos at all, right? But how do I allow the family to select which zones are active? The Russound doesn't look like it even has a remote control? I want my daughter to be able to say "Turn music on the deck," then use her iPhone to choose a song, and she's off.

Learned a lot from reading this thread. Thanks! I'm wiring a new house too and looking for the simplest most elegant solution. I have a few curve-balls to throw at you all to see where you hit it! So I have a new house that I'm building, and I have a few major requirements: a) A wife and 2 kids that hate complicated technology b) 4 audio / visual zones c) I really can't stand in-ceiling speakers *only*, I already own my own powered subwoofers. Each zone will have a sub d) Primary sources are Apple TV and Pandora. e) Music selection controlled via iPhone / iPad / MAC. I want my wife and kids to DJ from their own via their iPhones, either music on the iPhone or Pandora, via Airplay. It's simple and they know how to do this already. f) In each zone with audio, I'll have a TV monitor connected to the ATV to display photos (I'm a photographer) and control audio from these monitors by accessing the ATV menu. g) I like to play home movies from the Apple TVs, so need to make sure the audio and video are in synch The basic strategy I have is that I want to use Sonos to control the audio zones, but not to select what music to play; I want to use the Apple TV or Airplay to control what music is playing, and have synchronized video output from the Apple TV So my working thesis / solution is: 1) Central AV receiver where I connect the Apple TV. Audio sources is the Apple TV 2) Sonos to control the audio zones (Apple TV is the audio source) 3) Airplay for the family members to DJ; they will connect to the Apple TV's, and be able to control the audio zones with the Sonos app 4) Speakers (and subwoofers?) connect to the Sonos Amps 5) 4 HDMI outputs for the monitors to display the Apple TV output 6) Universal remotes to control the Apple TV navigation (I do this already in my existing home, works great) Questions: - Will this work? This is basically using Sonos for audio distribution, rather than playback. Is it overkill? - For the wife and kids, they know how to control Apple TV's already via Airplay; easy. But does the Sonos app work easily to simply control audio zones for them? - For cables, the most efficient way to wire this is centrally, all audio to the Sonos device for audio, and HDMI to the Apple TV monitors? - Will my existing subwoofers "just work" with Sonos? - The HDMI cable might need to run a long way, about 50 feet, is that OK? Thanks for any advice you can give! - Mark