I am currently builing a house and hope for some help for you guys and girls.
I want to install 2 ceiling mounted speakers in 4 rooms, I will use only Apple products as source and 4 Apple Express (AE) to create a multiroom solution. (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB321LL/A/AirPort-Express-AirTunes?fnode=MTY1NDA0Mg&mco=MTA4NTc4MTE)
I don't want to use active speakers since the once of quality are very expensive and there are few to chooce from. I don´t want huge amplifiers in each room either, instead I want to hide the AE and amplifier inside the ceiling. Since i won't be able to get to them easily it will be importent that the amplifier has some kind of automatic sleep mode when not in use. I will put them all on the same powercabel so that I can flick a fuce to reset them all. The reason for using Apple as backbone is because of their fast updates and many new features. All other systems tend to go out of date quickly and cumbersome to update. New music apps and great feature are constantly coming from many companies to Iphone, Ipad etc.
My question:
1. Can you recommend any amplifiers with the following features:
Small, 100-300$ price range, auto sleep mode, preferably optical input, which is suitable to hide in ceiling and with good sound quality. I don't care what it looks like, it doesn't need any cool buttons or feature i only want it to boost the signal for my speakers!
2. What do you think of my general setup, do you have a better idea? Would you go for active ceiling speakers instead? Any recommendations?
Thanks for all your help!
Sincerely,
Karl the Apple Express Fan