u/TheCowIsOkay

Building a new house, framing is up, electrician starts in a couple days, so approaching go time. Have beef with Sonos so I'm currently leaning hard towards heos.

Current plan is 3 x HEOS Drives in the basement powering 11 pairs of speakers through out the house + deck / patio for ambient listening.

Then, 4 tv watching areas, all with denon amps driving them.

Mostly KEF speakers inside, Definitive outside.

Everything will be cat6 hard wired. Speakers wired as well.

I've already purchased the first Drive and played with it just a tiny bit (just enabled a single zone), would say it plus the app so far roughly meets expectations.

So, the questions:

1. Assume 90% of the time we just have spotify playing through the ambient zones. How easy is it to pick and choose where the music is playing and at what volume on each zone? Some days we will have people over and want all zones going, some days we'll be by ourselves and only want music in the areas where we're hanging out. Is it easy enough to pick and choose? Can you set up multiple "presets" and cycle through those?

2. Once in a while we'll have people over for Patriots games on Sunday. We'll be driving the video with Roku HDMI-ed into the amps then into the TV. Can that tv audio signal be back-fed into the rest of the system to have it playing throughout the rest of the house?

3. We're an android house - what do most people use to interface with the system? Should I just get a cheapo samsung tablet, load up heos + spotify, and leave it on the living room coffee table? I know our phones work as well, but like to have something more "open" as well.

many thanks in advance! -- the cow

Just back from a great week there, figured I'd share my experiences to maybe help someone else.

We came down from New England on Jet Blue and then took the Cape Air connection over (booked the full itinerary through JB). Those flights were something else. Our checked bags did check all the way through so we didn't need to shuffle them around in SJU, but do note they take any carry-ons and put them in the back of the little plane. Flight was maybe 30 mins plus or minus.

We landed, walked 20 steps across the street to Jerry's to pick up a Jeep for the week, that went super smoothly. In and out in 5 mins with a close to brand new JLU. Based on recommendations we had reserved the jeep a few weeks back but seemed like they had plenty and most people cruise around in golf carts.

We rented a super cool little villa over on the right hand side of Flamenco beach (very much needed the jeep to get to it) and can't imagine a better way to spend the week there.

We didn't do a ton, but we did go diving one day with Culebra Divers and we also took the Gammy's trip over to Culebrita. Highly recommend both.

Went into town most days. There's basically one parking area with maybe 15 spots but we always got one at whatever time of day we arrived. From there, all the downtown spots are no more than a 5 min walk. We did coffee/breakfast one morning at Culebra Coffee, had some cold beers and fish tacos at Sandbar after diving, had lunch one day at Mamacitas, and did dinner 2x at Dinghy Dock. Wouldn't hesitate to go back to any of them.

One comment on that parking area - the signs warn you that if you block the sidewalk you'll get a ticket. I got one, and feel like they are a little overly aggressive about what "block" means. So, be careful. It is a $200 slap.

We did a couple of market runs to Colmado Milka - you're definitely in a small island market but we were able to make do just fine. We also had to throw some gas in the jeep at the end of the week and went to the place just a stones throw past the market. Easy enough, just walk inside to pay before you pump.

Obviously spent a lot of time on Flamenco since our lodging was there and it is pretty beautiful. We wandered over to the other end where the activity is a few times and found the food and beverages there pretty great too. Seemed like about half the kiosks were open at any given time, but our favorite was the chicken pastelillos. Lots of good choices though.

One day we did the walk/hike over to Playa Tamarindo. Plan on close to 20 mins each way. We did it in flip flops, regular shoes would be more appropriate. In our opinion, the snorkeling at Tamarindo blew away Flamenco (which wasn't really very interesting). We didn't continue up to Carlos Rosario so can't comment on that. We got dinged to pay the beach fee when we came back from that hike which was a little annoying, but was just a couple bucks each.

Cape Air flight back was a breeze as well. There's no security so you show up, get your bags weighed, and you're all set. Our flight left 10 or 15 mins early since we were all there and ready to go, but you really only need to show up 15 or 20 mins before your departure time.

One hiccup on the flight back was our checked bag didn't make the connection - the Cape Air people all said it was checked through and we didn't need to collect in SJU and move it along so maybe just bad luck. It has been found and is supposedly making its way to us, but double check on that if you travel similarly.

Summary: super cool spot, wouldn't hesitate to go back, and it is the definition of a relaxing place at a relaxing pace.

Edit: based on other's comments and the stickers on my bag that has since arrived at home, it looks like we got hit by the USDA inspection backup on Sat. So our bag did do the right thing, just didn't get to the connecting flight quickly enough. But all good now.