Building My Ultimate Multiroom Audio System — Part 1: Hardware Tour & Speaker Installation
Building My Ultimate Multiroom Audio System — Part 1: Hardware Tour & Speaker Installation
In today’s video we’ll kick off building my whole house, multiroom audio system based around a Biamp Tesira Server IO DSP. In this episode, we’ll take a look at all of the hardware we’ll be using and get one of the ceiling speakers installed, then in future videos I’ll be taking an in depth look at the Biamp Tesira Server IO as well as the Dante audio over IP system, then in the final video we’ll take a look at the completed system all up and running.
Hardware Used:
– Arylic S10+ from Amazon (Affiliate): https://geni.us/yUfh
– LINK-MI Audio over CAT Extender from AliExpress (Affiliate): https://geni.us/OszuB
– Find the Biamp Tesira Server-IO on eBay (Affiliate): https://geni.us/siOxKU3
– Find the Triad Multi-Zone Amplifiers on eBay (Affiliate): https://geni.us/Qf0RL
– Fisual IC65 Ceiling Speaker: https://www.av.com/Speakers/Fisual-IC65-Installation-Ceiling-Speaker-Single/48YV
– BluStream DA22OPT: https://screenmoove.com/products/blustream-optical-to-dante-audio-converter-da22opt-1
– BluStream DA22DIG: https://screenmoove.com/products/blustream-2×2-digital-analogue-dante-converter-da22dig-1
– ESI Planet 22C: https://www.thomann.co.uk/esi_planet_22c.htm
https://www.camerongray.me/
https://bsky.app/profile/camerongray.me
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
00:31 – My Plans & Reality Check
02:09 – Biamp Tesira Server-IO
12:33 – Arylic S10+ Streaming Media Player
14:07 – Dante Audio over IP System
17:04 – Budget “Audio over CAT” System
18:48 – Fisual IC65 Ceiling Speakers
23:00 – Ceiling Speaker Fire Hoods – Firetopper Pro
24:57 – Bose FreeSpace Acoustimass Sub
27:21 – Triad Multi-Zone Amplifiers
31:56 – Installing a Ceiling Speaker
40:38 – Conclusion
*AFFILIATE LINKS NOTICE:*
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Purchasing through these affiliate links will not cost you any more money, however the commission earned significantly helps fund the production of videos on my channel.
Would love to see a diagram of how it is all connected and the journey it follows, as I’m much better with a visual! But other than that, very much enjoy watching these videos! Thank you
With the ceiling speakers Tannoy do have variants that are fire rated, but they’re much deeper and probably wouldn’t work in most homes, the other thing with the Tannoy speakers is they’re really quite good as actual speakers, and often available as unused extras from big installs for cheap enough to be a good option. Obviously if you want 19 all the same that’s not going to happen, but if you were ok buying in smaller lots it could have worked. That’s what I recently installed in my kitchen (which was a mess, you’re not wrong about really needing to reef down on that hole saw, mine instantly destroyed a chunk of ceiling, but in the end we discovered bigger problems and had to add reinforcement plates screwed to the joists anyway).
I picked up a 8 zone Triad but think there is a problem with the audio sensing mode. On first power up the unit going into standby and an audio signal does wake it but it doesn’t go to sleep again after the audio stops. Not for some time anyway. Could you confirm how long your zone takes to go back into standby ? Thanks
Wow wow wow your a very clever young man what’s your partners take on all this home sophistication & automation ?
Have you tried replacing the speaker wire terminals on those ceiling speakers with something that would give a more secure/durable connection? Is that even an option?
You should run the whole country. Please!!
really excited for this series
Studio setup and talking to camera style is really great – a whole new era for the channel I feel! And what an incredible project to get your teeth into, and for us to get into watching and enjoying! Would love to do something like this one day 😂
Best Cameron Gray quote of 2025:
"Push it from the rear end."
Hey Cameron, greetings from sunny Glasgow! Long time watcher of your channel, it’s nice to put a face to the.. hands! The new studio looks great. Thanks for putting me onto Arylic, they have perfect little multi-room products for my needs, especially the ability to stream a URL, which I’m hoping to experiment with to make an intercom system! Now you’ve mastered the audio side, have you thought about video? I’m wondering about functionality to overlay picture-in-picture of a camera feed when the doorbell rings, for example. An idea for a future series 🙂 thanks, Dave
Wow this is intense.
As an electrician, my understanding of the fire integrity rules are that one two storey house is one fire zone. No fire sealing required. But in 3 storey homes, where fire doors are required into the stairwells, each level is a separate fire zone.
Cam4 home automation!😂. I love it!!!
Hi Cameron, another great, highly detailed video – thanks. I assume you considered passing video as well as audio around your home, and so wondering – why not use HDbaseT?
Waiting patiently for Part 2. Hands up those who ran out and got a Tesira Server/Forte just to follow along.
The series I’ve been waiting for since your move !
The Audinate HQ is in Sydney extremely close to me, I actually regularly have lunch at a cafe in a building they used to be in. The whole use of sync-E for various media-over-ethernet/IP thing really shits me, it’s a tell that the people designing them have never actually run large scale networks where failure isn’t a rare thing.
I had the similar issue before regarding the sub, after installing my kit into a rack i wanted to keep my existing sub. So i removed the amplifier plate from the sub placed a wooden plate over the hole. Re mounted the amplifier kit into a 2u rack case. then ran the speaker cable from rack to the sub.
It’s incredible how cheap these can be found second hand. I suspect demand might increase a little after this video 😉 The “functional block” programming looks a lot like the UI Loxone uses for programming their home automation Miniservers. I reckon you’d really enjoy having a play with those
What is the use case of sending video around the house ?
You seem a very knowledgeable audiophile does the non stereo aspect of the ceiling speakers bother you or is it just as good in reality ?
You MUST get rim lighting for this bright background.. Nice studio BTW.. ❤️
Re ceiling speakers, I disagree with your point about anything over £70 starts to be acceptable. I really don’t trust the idea of spending a lot on ceiling speakers, so I’m glad you went with something cheaper. But – I don’t rate those speakers. I would say it’s a good idea to spend a few quid more to get some nicer features with slightly higher end parts. I spent £30 per speaker from a very low cost supplier, see below. I am currently building a 12 zone audio system, and I too thought I needed to spend a lot more on speakers so in the name of testing, I bought a few different 8 inch ceiling speakers on low to mid budgets (Pyle / Yamaha / AdAstra) and built some ceiling back boxes to do some comparisons.
I found that ceiling back box construction had a much greater effect on the quality of the sound than the budget (although you could argue I didn’t spend nearly enough to make that judgement). I concluded the AdAstra 8 inch speakers with ferrofluid silk dome tweeter (directional), which are available for £30 at TLC Electrics, see SK SP543, give a really fun sound in the right acoustic environment. The parts are decent quality, metal binding posts etc. By the way you are right to look at the connectors to determine overall quality… that’s a really good indicator of general product quality in other areas. I’m more than happy with them, and there’s also a 2 channel (stereo) version for use in certain situations. By the way, crossover circuitry is important BUT forget it if you install them in a ceiling where you don’t have a lot of control in the acoustics of that ceiling (which is MOST ceiling retrofits by the way!) In my case I could have benefitted from that, as I standardised on building an OSB speaker box with pink plasterboard lining (dense) and "tuneable" damping (by way of shoving insulation in).
Anyway I think that simple things like a directional tweeter can make more of a difference than crossover…
To be honest I think a lot of the price in ceiling speakers is in the mechanical design / quality of parts. The above speakers are frustrating to install (stupid captive screw mechanism doesn’t work well) but there’s a knack and once you get it, they are fine. I guess more expensive speakers give a more premium install experience 🙂
In order that you can calibrate your opinion of my audio needs to determine if I’m talking rubbish or not, I’d class myself as a "pragmatic audiophile". I’m muso / physics by background (undergrad in music, w/ acoustics modules etc.) and generally sciencey, and am familiar working in recording studios picking out very subtle things others can’t hear. On the other hand I love a bargain and distrust the idea that spending more gets you better audio. (As mentioned – it’s often how you use equipment that matters, not what you use…)
giving MisterWhoistheboss but Entreprise gear 😄
Will you be making a tutorial on how to create a nice user interface for all of this? I would love this amount of flexibility for my next home but need an easy user interface for the partner haha.
Just did an install with two of those Triad amps in a rack with 15 Sonos ports. Each zone had 8 inch drivers and two of the decks had 10 inch in-ceiling driver pairs. Really impressed with this amp! Drove all zones distortion free at very high db while staying cool.
Studio setup is dialled! Nice work
31:00 This is pretty easy to do, especially if the Tesira will do active-low outputs and the input on the Triad is high impedance. You simply need a 12V supply (any old wart) and an optocoupler – pull the 12V input high, drive it low with the optocoupler when the output from the Tesira is high. Worst case, add a relay to both invert the logic and provide a low impedance 12V source.
Bear in mind according to the spec sheet the wakeup time is "<2 seconds with 12V trigger" – this may be problematically long in practice. However, if you’re triggering notifications and doorbells and so forth you can at least measure this and build in a suitable delay before audio output.
E: Another note is that the 12V trigger turns on all zones. If the amplifier turn-on causes any unwanted noises, this may be suboptimal. The audio sense mode is per zone.
What is the latency like over the Dante audio system? I think that could be potentially important if you’re playing analogue audio sources over the system. Could any of the additional components you’re adding cause additional latency? I presume you could, should you want to, use a record player as a music source over your system using those linking devices you showed if you use the analogue audio inputs, correct?
I absolutely love this type of content! You have no idea how long I have been looking for more complex and integrated multiroom audio systems!! Can’t wait for more videos on this 🙂
I built a Node.js Gui to control the Level, EQ, and input source. was trying to get nodered to work, but the SSH nodes just wouldn’t connect properly. Happy to share the code if you’re interested!
Hi Cameron, very nice video indeed, I’m also using Tesira DSP for the same puprose but with more basic setup than you did and i really learned a lot from your setup.
I’m curious to see you did you configure the Tesira block and how you can control it through HomeAssistant as my current setup is using seperate Telnet sessions which is not efficient at all and every command takes a 3~5 seconds to complete, hope you can clarify in future videos
Got to play around a lot with dante (And even took the online certifications you can do for free) at the student radio station I volunteered at during uni (Focusrite gear, very dodgy PSUs though), this takes me back!
Noice 🙂
Great video, love the hardware choices, im waiting on a used tesira to pop up at the right price for my home setup.
34:02 I do try and keep my house flea free.
You’ve gone and done it now. After all those months of therapy (repeat after me "no more electronics, no more electronics" ….. I now have my eye on a Tesira. Hope you are open to help on the programming….. especially connecting to HA with a touch screeen.
I hope you swapped those high pass filters with low pass for sub-input.
Thank you for making this smart home series. You’re helping to make systems that are usually reserved for the wealthy available to the masses. I’ll definitely be looking out for a few of those Biamp Tesira Server IO DSPs. Buy now, make plans later, lol.
New studio looks amazing! Not watched the video yet but i cant tell you how lovely it it is to have a delightful 40 minute long video to sit back and watch today!
I used RCF in my installation because they have a full enclosure so no sound is lost into the ceiling makes a massive difference in sound volume and clarity. They were more expensive but worth it in my opinion.
this is nuts!
Looking forward to hearing your experiences with the Planet 22c interface. Had constant packet error issues with it on TP-link switches and Cisco switches. Went through all the multicast/IGMP recommendations from Audinate and the switch vendors, but could not resolve the issues. Non of the other Dante interfaces (Audinate Avio, Thight AV, Shure) I had in the network had any issues. I finally tested an older netgear (not the AV stuff) POE switch, and that worked out of the box.
I’m working on the same stuff. I currently have a small shure matrix mixer on loan, but also looking at a larger matrix. I’m looking at Behringer X32 rack version with a Dante card at the moment. Also considering running AES67 with a software based solution.
Nice setup, I use POE speakers, sound quality only just acceptable, but after my Beogram nothing will be quite the same.
Amazing new studio!
That backdrop is really nice
Hardware Used:
– Arylic S10+ from Amazon (Affiliate): https://geni.us/yUfh
– LINK-MI Audio over CAT Extender from AliExpress (Affiliate): https://geni.us/OszuB
– Find the Biamp Tesira Server-IO on eBay (Affiliate): https://geni.us/siOxKU3
– Find the Triad Multi-Zone Amplifiers on eBay (Affiliate): https://geni.us/Qf0RL
– Fisual IC65 Ceiling Speaker: https://www.av.com/Speakers/Fisual-IC65-Installation-Ceiling-Speaker-Single/48YV
– BluStream DA22OPT: https://screenmoove.com/products/blustream-optical-to-dante-audio-converter-da22opt-1
– BluStream DA22DIG: https://screenmoove.com/products/blustream-2×2-digital-analogue-dante-converter-da22dig-1
– ESI Planet 22C: https://www.thomann.co.uk/esi_planet_22c.htm
Digging the new set!
@camerongray1515 did you look into any amplifiers that had Dante inputs?
Cameron: "Don’t try this at home."
Me: "This is gonna cost me money" 😅
The new studio looks amazing btw!
Wow very detailed and good demonstration… saw your channel today