Indigo Domotics

I currently have a Vaux matrix switch and Home Theater Direct whole house audio amp that I use for 8 wired zones. I would like to get something more future-proof. What would be recommended? I read some posts and some folks are recommending a Sonos solution? How would that work? Just buy several Sonos Amps and then they are controlled from the iPhone?

[A stream of consciousness reply]

I've had Sonos for a long time. I have a mixture of first and second generation devices and nearly all are wireless. I use the system for playing ripped CDs and Pandora streaming. There are lots of other services that you can also access, but we only use Pandora. You can set it up so that all the devices play the same content or separate sources. You can use single channel devices or link two for stereo separation--I use one single channel device in the garage where stereo doesn't really matter to me. We haven't ever tried their home theater line (center speaker, sub, etc.) so I can't speak to that. In general, I've been very happy with the way the system runs and sounds. If you're looking for audiophile quality you have to look at the top-of-the-line Sonos stuff or look somewhere else (depending on your level of audiophile-ness). I've had it linked to my Indigo set up, but no longer do. We found we don't use it in an "automated" way so there was no need. we control ours with our phones.

If you want to continue to use your wired zones, you'd either drive them all with one amp or need separate amps. To my knowledge, Sonos doesn't sell any multi-zone stuff, but I could be wrong about that. For what it is, I'd recommend it. But I'd suggest you be sure it suits what you're looking for before you pull the trigger.

As Dave says, it depends what you are looking for. Audiophile quality, cheap, streaming Vs playing from network, automated Vs standalone.

I have Sonos and it's great, but I couldn't afford to do all my zones with it. I don't do much automation other than turning all zones off when alarm is set.

Other options are raspberry pi's with hifiberry. I use 2 in a rack and it's 1/4 price of Sonos and you can airplay to them and they support airplay 2 so you can link zones like Sonos but more cheaply.
You can automate with mpd

Or other end is something like Roon and a compatible player where you can control Roon with indigo plugin but that is expensive software and the players are likely not cheap but fantastic software and could be top end audiophile quality.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Sonos plugin currently is Python2 only and won't work with the next major release of Indigo. The original developer is gone, and there's no guarantee that anyone else will pick it up.

Very good point. Think I'll migrate my control to nodered and use the API / MQTT to trigger simple commands like all off.