ZON Whole House Digital Audio System by Oxmoor
Early 2006, our family finished a home remodel, adding around 400 square feet to our home in Boulder. During this remodel, I seized the chance to install structured cabling in the house, and ran around 56 Ethernet drops and a handful of coax. In addition to the cabling, I took this opportunity to find and install a great solution to whole house audio distribution. I had toyed with this in various forms before the remodel, some of these including:
- Crude hard-wired RCA cables between audio locations (was a temporary solution at the time)
- Zone synchronization using Slim Devices Squeezeboxes - Which at the time was a nice solution for synchronization on a non-deterministic Ethernet network, but had limitations when streaming Internet radio and content that didn’t have timing gaps between songs (used for resynchronization)
When I began research on a whole house audio solution, I wanted to focus on a solution that was easy to use, didn’t require running a ton of specialty cable, could be expanded, and could undergo a degree of change to the layout of the system (change zone locations, input sources). Because I had been using Squeezeboxes for a while then, I had heard of Sonos, and was considering it, however it had a steep price tag, and I wasn’t willing to take a chance on its synchronization claims without a good demo of all the features. Eventually however I ran across the ZON Whole House Digital Audio System by Oxmoor and instantly knew I had found what I wanted.
The ZON system is an all-digital audio distribution system that consists primarily of three parts:
- ZON input modules (ZIM) - contain digital and analog inputs for connecting various input sources
- ZON audio controllers (ZAC) - these output modules provide input selection, volume control, audio amplification, and connect to a pair of speakers for audio output.
- ZON router - Connects up to four zone audio controllers and eight ZON input modules (a ninth set of inputs are provided on the router itself) Multiple routers can be daisy chained to allow for additional zone and input source support.
The ZIMs and ZACs are all connected to the ZON router using standard cat-5e cable which provides power, data and audio and IR signaling to the ZIMs and ZACs. While the ZIMs are designed to fill a one-gang spot in a wall (similar to an electrical outlet) I decided to forgo installing them in a fixed location and capitalize on the Ethernet connectivity which gives you the flexibility (especially if you have 56 Ethernet drops in your house) to move the input modules around to mix and match sources. The ZAC modules are two-gang units that install in the wall similar to a light switch, have a iPod-like control feature (jog/shuttle dial with center selection button) and a LCD character display to indicate the selected source, settings, and other information. Select the input you want to listen to in a given zone or mix and match inputs in different zones throughout the house - it doesn’t matter - the audio comes through clean and synchronized whether you’re listening to one source or multiple simultaneous sources.
One of the neatest features, and one that I think provides additional distinction between the ZON and other alternatives is the ZON system’s ability to routine infrared remote control signals to the selected input device. Each ZAC module has an infrared receiver, and each ZIM a port for connecting an infrared flasher (output device). The ZAC automatically relays any infrared remote signals received to the selected source’s infrared flasher allowing control of the source device from any of the zones in your home.
Finally, the ZON system has paging and monitoring features. Press the paging button and speak and you’ll be heard in every zone. Select a configurable ZAC input and you can monitor the activity in that zone. The monitoring feature is great for infants as we have been using it for exactly that purpose over the last eight months.