r/Control4 • u/jvport • 14d ago
Help with drivers for Echo Link Amps
Hey all, not sure if anyone has done this before, but I am trying to add 4 Echo Link Amps for multi-room music. There is no specific driver, so I attempted some generic drivers to no avail. I was able to get them to show, but no music plays through them.
I believe the issue is because there's no signal being sent from the amps (they're passive) they're not registering, but I'm not sure —a little over my head.
The rest of the music group are two Sony receivers, model STR-AZ3000ES.
Any help/advice appreciated.
2
u/FrozenHoser 14d ago
Are you an end user or a dealer? If you're a dealer I don't know how you'd survive. If you're an end user you should talk to a dealer for some ideas/you can use their showroom system to see the differences
1
u/remeolb 14d ago
Could you explain how things are currently connected in more detail? What is your audio source for the Sony AVRs? Do you have any audio sources connected to the Echo Link Amps? Are you wanting the Echo Link Amps to group with the Sony AVRs? What Control4 OS are you on and what Control4 hardware do you have?
1
u/jvport 14d ago
Yes, thank you! The audio source we’ve been testing with is the Amazon Music app which was added to Control4. I don’t have any sources added to the Amps. The amps are to control the speakers in separate rooms from those the receivers are controlling, so all separate rooms that we’d ideally be able to sync and share music to. Control4 OS is 4.2 and I have two Core1 controllers with two Neeo remotes.
2
u/CircuitDaemon 14d ago
If you plan to use Control 4 as the audio source, you need an audio matrix. Otherwise, an alternative is something like a Sonos Port, which you'd connect to each amp and add to Control 4, then those would act as your audio source and merging/grouping rooms would work through both Control 4's driver or the Sonos app. There are other players with this same functionality, but that was what came to mind.
1
u/jvport 14d ago
Amazing! Thank you so much. So just for my knowledge, can you explain what an audio matrix is? I’m not familiar with that route, but did do some light research on the Sonos Port. Thanks again
2
u/CircuitDaemon 14d ago
Well, it's been a while since last time I had to do a setup like this so I don't know if there's a smaller device from C4 that does it, but this is one of the models I've worked with:
It takes 16 stereo audio sources and also has 16 audio outputs. You'd connect your main controller to it over RCA and then assign each output port to one of your zones, which you also need to connect to each amplifier. That will allow your amps to play all at once, synced. You can also connect more than one controller to it to allow different audio signals to play on whatever zone you want.
This isn't the only setup you can do, it's just an example. You might prefer digital audio, so then a different device might be more appropriate. I don't know, it really comes down to what hardware you already have there and the customer's budget.
I personally prefer the Sonos approach, but I'm not a big fan of the brand as I believe they're way overpriced, but their integration with Control 4 is good and at least in your situation, just getting one Sonos Port per amp will do the trick. You don't even need them all in a centralized location if your amps aren't located in the same room as your main controller, unless you still want the audio source to be Control 4 (but then again, why get Sonos in the first place). I just find that using other devices as a music source tends to be faster and more stable than letting the Control 4 devices act as players.
2
u/IxomeVince 9d ago
Couple of things going on, and the first one is that they aren't passive. The Link Amp is a powered amp with its own DAC and volume stage. What you're running into is two separate failures that look like one.
First, control. Control4 has nothing to talk to. The Link Amp is driven by Alexa, and as far as I know Amazon never published an IP or serial control interface for it, so there's no protocol for a driver to speak. A generic amp driver will happily bind and give you a nice icon, but the commands go out and land nowhere. That's why it shows up and does nothing. Worth doing your own search on driverCentral before you take my word for it, but I've never seen a Link Amp driver from Chowmain or anyone else.
Second, and this is the part that actually explains the silence, there's probably no audio path. In Composer, selecting a source only works if the room's audio endpoint is bound, in Connections, to something that physically carries the signal to that amp. If nothing in your system feeds the Link Amp's optical or analog input, Control4 will show the source as selected in the room and route exactly zero audio. Check the Connections tab on the generic driver and see what its audio input is tied to. If it's tied to nothing, that's your answer and no driver is going to fix it.
The deeper problem is architectural. The Link Amps are designed to pull their own stream from Alexa over the network. They are not a Control4 endpoint, they're a parallel music system that happens to be in the same house. You can force it to sort of work by feeding a fixed analog or optical output from your matrix into each one, setting the Link Amp volume once and never touching it, and doing all your level control upstream, but then you've got four amps you can't turn down from a keypad and a whole second app in the house.
If it were my job I'd pull them and put in four Sonos Amps or Triad Ones. Sonos Amp is the one I'd pick for a retrofit like this because the driver is official, the streaming is native, and the client gets transport and volume on the touchscreen and the keypad without me building anything. Triad One is the cleaner answer if you want everything inside Control4's own streaming and don't care about the Sonos app. Your two Sony AZ3000ES units are fine and stay where they are, that's a real driver over IP.
Tell me what's physically feeding the Link Amps right now, what matrix or switch is in the rack, and what the Connections tab shows for the generic driver, and I'll tell you whether there's any path worth chasing or whether you're just buying new amps. Happy to look for free either way. Full disclosure, I'm a Control4 and Lutron dealer and I do this remotely for a living, but you don't need to hire anybody to answer this one.