Hi Kristin All great comments above. Episode speakers are only available through the pro-AV channel and are very good speakers - we use them for many of our multi-room audio (indoor/outdoor) solutions, such as in your application. However, if the model number you mentioned is correct "200 series" ($36.00 MSRP) - those particular speakers are more often used in a commercial audio setting (70V audio) such as retail locations, offices, etc. And although they can be used in residential applications with the proper amp, I personally would not have selected that model for your application. For entry level speakers, the Episode "300 or 500" series (8 Ohm) would have been a better fit - sound wise as well as aesthetically. The 1700 series speakers are Episode's "Signature Series" - excellent mid-level in-wall LCR speaker ($385 MSRP) for home theater. And just so you don't think I'm an Episode speaker selling snob-LOL, we also use Klipsch as well - both are very good speakers. I'm thinking that your electrician A/V guy had a come-to-Jesus moment and realized that the Episode 200 series was the wrong fit...and that my friend was a good thing. In this case, the Klipsch 160CDT was clearly the better choice. We basically listen to multi-room audio somewhere between 5-10 watts, so don't over think it. As for the HT speakers, the Pro 160RPW are Klipsch's entry level all-around, in-wall speaker. If you are willing to put a little more money into the HT sound and want to stay with Klipsch, I would recommend the R5502 for the front and the 5650S for the surrounds (providing that the rears are in the wall). These speakers are priced close to the Episode 1700 series. As Pro-integrators, clients don't usually ask us for specific brand names, but they do rely on us to select the proper speaker for their budget. Listening to architectural speakers in the store doesn't always guarantee that they will sound great in you home - in fact , they never do. Providing that you start off with a good quality speaker, a Pro A/V integrator can equalize the amp to match the speaker to your environment. Lastly, if we ever promised a client a specific brand of speaker, we would never show up with a different model without having discussed the pros & cons of why we did that. Hope this helps Frank P

Sorry, I haven't been checking in here regularly. I'm not sure what "universally compatible" means or means to you. It's a common format because it takes up less room and is acceptable to most people because many don't pay attention to sound quality. Any MP3 sounds inferior to any lossless or WAV file, it's a fact with a well known cause. There are many things that are widely used that are inferior to alternatives - most fast and processed food items fit this description. No more need be said. Audio files are put on CDs in a form of WAV. When you rip a CD to a lossless format (whether FLAC or Apple's ALAC) you get a file that's identical data wise to the CD but about half as large and with the ability to hold tags (metadata). WAV is impractical because they're so big. FLAC and ALAC are like Zip files for data - if you take a WAV file and process it to produce a lossless file and then reverse the process by processing the lossless file back to WAV, the second WAV file and the first will be bit for bit identical. When ripping files, it's inevitable that tags need a bit of sprucing up. Many of the free rippers (EAC, iTunes, Windows Media) offer rudimentary tag info and cover files but in an incomplete way. There are programs to help tagging (free MP3 Tag is my favorite, can be used on any kind of sound file) and most refer to any of the several free online databases like MusicBrainz or Discogs for the info. What you should do is tag your "good" lossless rips and then if MP3 versions are needed, rip the FLAC or ALACs to MP3s as a separate step because the tag data will go along with it. I use Foobar to do the conversions and you can set it up to put the MP3s in folders just the same as your "good" versions are in. It can be done in one, however large batch process that can be set up to do thousands of files at once. It doesn't happen instantaneously, it can take hours. Remember that you can convert an MP3 to a FLAC or ALAC file but once it's been processed from WAV to MP3, data is lost and changing the format to lossless doesn't restore it. My wife's car won't play FLAC files, and she also has a portable player for music as for plane flights, so this is an example where it's quick and easy to process MP3s from CD quality rips when needed. Otherwise, it's the CD quality rips that are used.

Depending on your budget, the best way to accomplish this is to use a multi-zone A/V receiver from a company such as Denon. You will be able to control everything with your phone or a remote control, setup individual speaker zones and have different sources playing in each zone (or the same source playing in all zones at once). Moving on to the speaker situation, ensure that you have proper soffits built to house each speaker as well as a removable grill where you can service and/or replace the speaker(s) over time. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make when installing a whole home system. They buy everything, have it installed, and then a year or two down the road something goes wrong and it's a nightmare to fix. I always design my soffits a bit oversized in case the client decides to change speakers down the road.

A multi-zone receiver is the usual method but that wouldn't be the simplest solution. The gotcha with BT speakers is you still need to give them power so depends on your setup. Method 1 - Wireless: Get a cheap Bluetooth amp (click me) and BT speakers (assuming TV has BT). If you're good with a smaller speaker you could use a USB powered one for example and avoid all the wiring. The smaller Bose USB speakers sound nice - seen for $80 at Costco. Method 2 - Wired: I'd just get a cheap amp (click me) connect with a 'Y' splitter on the audio to the soundbar to audio input, and output to speakers. Also manually controlled but the small amp could be inconspicuous. Assumption here is you can run the wires easily.