Whole house audio- 1 receiver for whole house?

[Mike C <michaeljc70@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I installed a whole house audio system 6 yrs ago when I built my
house. Now I am planning on moving and doing another. My media closet
looks like a nuclear facility there are so many wires (6 zones, 32
speakers, 2 surround sound zones, wall keypads, etc).  Anyway, I went
to a friends new house that has about 18 speakers and looked in his
media closet.  There was barely any wires and 2 boxes: an Olivia box
and a Denon receiver.

I looked up the Olivia, and it is basically a hard drive based media
player.  He doesn't have zones, but just on/off volume controls for
the rooms, so I know that greatly simplifies things. I was surprised
though that 1 receiver could drive all those speakers.  I saw no pre-
amp (unless the Olivia does it).  Doesn't that seem like a lot of
speakers to drive off a Denon amp?   Am I missing something?  The
system sounded loud and good....

My other question is- given lack of wires in the closet (an no zones),
it seems like homeruns of all the speaker wires is unnecessary.  I
know it is less flexible, but I am thinking they might run them all to
one place per floor (there are 3 floors) and then do the run to the
closet...comment on that?