Simple, Good Sounding Multi Room for Dummies

Most "multi room" applications drive me bonkers.

Bach in the bathroom, jazz in the bedroom, LCD touch screens, flush mount speakers that remind me of department store ceilings, miles of cheap cable, high margin invoices from rogue "custom installers" - its enough to reduce any self respecting audiophile to tears.

At a recent dinner party in NY, the hostess got up from the table at least 5 times to fiddle with some inexplicably complicated wall panel, on the one hand eager to show off her gee whiz multi room audio system, yet at the same time frustrated and embarrassed because she couldn't get the damn thing to work or find what she wanted to hear.

Whatever the latest trendy soundtrack for her aspirational life, it was no doubt buried in her dedicated closet full of stacked Sony disc jockeys and home theatre receivers driving Bose speakers all over the house.

(Oh, as you might imagine, it also sounded like crap.)

Despite this pet peeve of mine, however, I often think, that for parties, entertaining or just background music, it would be nice to have SIMPLE, GOOD SOUNDING music in every room, where additional rooms might be spokes off the hub of a dedicated main system, where one could not adjust millions of options on a razzle dazzle wall panel, but maybe just adjust the volume independently in every room?

Could anyone please recommend

* A good, simple configuration for such a system?
* Amplifiers which could be used? Remotely?
* Good sounding speakers for this type of application?

Would a Squeezebox type device be the smart way to execute this plan in the 21st Century?

Again, no gee whiz features, no multiple sources, no remotes which see through walls, no over priced LCD touch screen panels -- just decent sound around the house please? Without spending an arm and a leg?

Any and all comments and suggestions greatly appreciated.

cwlondon