Help me out with a new home multi zone system

[swosucowboy]

I am wanting to set up a multi speaker room in a new home construction. I am not an expert on this so I will need a pretty good explanation on the setup part.

I will have a media room with TV that is hooked into dish and also plan on running an HDMI to that TV from the computer. I currently use a logitech z5500 surround for that using the optical connection for music/sound from the computer.

I am wanting to set up speakers outside/in the garage and maybe a couple of other rooms on a different zone so they are not playing all of the time. I have looked at some multiroom systems from russound and HTD but these only seem to have the red/white audio connections and I cannot plug the opitcal connection into them.

Is it possible to run both digital optical sound and use the red/white audio out from my computer to two different sources ie the surround in the room and the multi room system? Is there a good software program that would allow you to do that? It seems like I have tried that before and it will only play out of my digital connection or the stero connection.

For the speakers in the other rooms I am mainly wanting to use the computer for mp3 and internet radio

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[harshness]

Remote speakers are usually handled through speaker level analog and these should be separate and apart from any surround sound setup.

Many upscale AV receivers have independent source zone support and you could use those with a carefully laid out speaker system to distribute both satellite and computer audio. Remote volume control is a little tricky, but it can be done either mechanically or with electronics.

Impedance matching is everything.

 

[swosucowboy]

Any good small speaker recommendations I can hang up in the corner of a room? Probably will need some outdoor for the back porch and gargage also.

 

[scottbakertemp]

I would use the apple airport expresses. Unfortuanitly they require itunes but they are very reliable:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/M...ess-AirTunes?fnode=MTY1NDA0Mg&mco=MTA4NTc4MTE