Wireless home audio system

WexfordMan,

Do you use the speakers that come with SONOS or do you recommend other speakers. Is the ZP80 available yet for hooking up to a living room surround sound setup. any good recomendations on a surround sound setup as I need to upgrade this too.
 
Johnie,

I dont use the sonos speakers, I have ceiling mounted speakers (put them in when I was building for an older multiroom system). I cant say how good or otherwise the Sonos ones are I'#m afraid. Speakers are very subjective, you can spend 50 quid or 5k on a set of speakers. I would drop into a hifi shop and have a listen to some systems (is there a richersounds or something lke that near you). Ditto for the surround sound system, in fact you could get a few quid off of you bought your speakers in the same place (in fact whoever you get oyour sonos off of will likely sell all this gear too, so a bulk buy should give you a nice discount)

Not sure when the ZP80 is going to be about, I did hear in March. The idea of using a zp 80 with your surround sound amp probably makes sense.

Wexfordman
 
Yippie. Ordered my Sonos Introductory Bundle with speakers yesterday. Hope to have them in 5 days or so. Can't wait !
 
Wexfordman said:
Welcome to the Club!! Let us know how you get on

Wexfordman
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Hi Wexfordman,

I will let you know how I get on.

If I got an Xbox360 am I right in thinking that I can hook that up to a ZP100 and avail of the Live gameplay without cables, etc. If I put Windows Media centre on the PC can I then send video,photos to the TV via the xbox ? Is that how yours is set up ? does it work ok ?
 
Wexfordman said:
The difference as far as I can see with Sonos and Roku etc are, first and foremost, the user interface, which is exceptional. It does to the multiroom systems what Ipod did to mp3 players, and you will see the obvious similarities.

The second difference, and this is an exclusive as far as I know, is the ability of sonos to synchronise zones, which rokus does not do. That is you can play one track in all zones, and it will be synchronised. This is a very important feature when looking at multiroom systems, as otherwise all you may as well put in a separate cd player/tuner in all your rooms.

Wexfordman
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You may be interested to learn that a recent firmware upgrade on the Apple Airport Express now offers the same multi-room synchronous playback feature.

Airport Express / AirTunes also costs a fraction of the price Sonos solution - [broken link removed], if you already have a wireless network.

You can use your laptop as a wireless controller.

Also, being an Apple device, it will stream copy-protected AAC files purchased from the iTunes music store.
 
Bond,

You can also buy a Lada for a fraction of the price of an Audi, both will get you there in the end, but I know which I'd rather have.

Johnnie,

The set up you described is exactly what I have. XB0X connected to ZP, which is wireless connected to the other ZP's and one ZP is hardwired to my router. Only exception is my PC is not media centre edition yet, but I can use the XBOX360 to view all music and jpegs etc until I get full functionality MCE PC (of course I dont use the XBOX360 for music, I have Sonos to do that!!).

Regards,
Wexfordman
 
Wexfordman said:
Bond,

You can also buy a Lada for a fraction of the price of an Audi, both will get you there in the end, but I know which I'd rather have.

Wexfordman
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Wexfordman, you are being a bit facetious here.

I would not wish to see this topic degenerate into a "mine is better than yours" juvenile debate.

I have stated previously that I like the Sonos system.

However, it is expensive and has down disadvantages.

I learned today and posted here the fact that Apple's Airport solution now supports multi-room, as I think that other AAM readers will be interested in this as a cheaper alternative to Sonos etc. I personally do not wish to invest significant money in this technology initially until I have dabbled with streaming audio in order to see how it works in my own environment.
 
Wexfordman said:
Bond,


The set up you described is exactly what I have. XB0X connected to ZP, which is wireless connected to the other ZP's and one ZP is hardwired to my router.
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Excellent. In the meantime I will set up my standard Xbox to Sonos for live play. I think I need to use xbconnect.com to play as my xbox is modded so I think I can't play on Live.
 
MonsieurBond said:
Wexfordman, you are being a bit facetious here.

I would not wish to see this topic degenerate into a "mine is better than yours" juvenile debate.

I have stated previously that I like the Sonos system.

However, it is expensive and has down disadvantages.

I learned today and posted here the fact that Apple's Airport solution now supports multi-room, as I think that other AAM readers will be interested in this as a cheaper alternative to Sonos etc. I personally do not wish to invest significant money in this technology initially until I have dabbled with streaming audio in order to see how it works in my own environment.
Click to expand...


Bond,

Thats a bit harsh!!!! My statement was a point of view and nothiong more, and I was merely informing people of my opinion that the solution you offered was not anywhere near the standard of the Sonos solution. You are correct in pointing out a solution and letting people be aware of it, as I am in pointing out the differences. One particular case you pointed out was to use a laptop as a remote controller with airport express. Yep, thats a solution alright, but not in any way comparable to the Sonos solution, in fact a very, very second rate solution imho. As is, and dare I say it again, the soltuion of buying a lada instead of an Audi. Both products will get you there, there is nothing wrong with either, but one is a very much neater and sleeker solution than the other. Thats not an insult or anything else, and its not knocking one product over the other, but it is pointing out in a comparable way the differences.

What both of us are doing here (and should continue to do so), is pointing out the different products availalble and their pros and cons, dont read anything more into it than that, I am certainly not interested in a slagging match either, I am contributing to an informative thread on multiroom systems, based on my personal expereinces as a consumer and user of multiroom audio systems over the last 5 years, thats all.


Regards,
Wexfordman
 
JohnnieKippe said:
Got my SONOS last week. Great little system. Not cheap but I guess you get what you pay for.
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For those who don't want to sink lots of money into a music (only) streaming product, or who already have a big music collection on their PC or Mac and simply want a good streaming music client (as opposed to paying for another music server [FONT=&quot]à[/FONT] la Sonos), there is a good review of the new Squeezebox on the Register.
Squeezebox 3 costs $299 (£172), which is a snip. There's even an Ethernet-only version for $249 (£143). ... With the SlimDevices product you can send songs from your archive to multiple Squeezeboxes around your home. It's not quite up there with Sonos for large-scale multi-room set-ups, but then it's cheaper. You pay your money, you take your choice.

Verdict:
Excellent sound quality, cross-platform support, eminently affordable price. Looks great too... 98%
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Full article here: [broken link removed] - By Tony Smith 2nd March 2006 15:26 GMT (c) RegHardware.co.uk.
 
Anyone got a ZP80 yet? Can the ZOne PLayer 80 be used as the one that hard-wires to the network?
 
Hey guys,

Pack arrived today and set up was a breeze. I installed the ZP80 in the office hard-wired to the LAN in the house. Set-up took less than 5 minutes, and the controller was working a few minutes after that.

I went for the two ZP100's with Sonos speakers bundle, and setting them up (wireless) was just as quick and effortless. Sound from the Sonos speakers is excellent, and all the kit is extremely durable and well built - top quality bits and pieces.

Am having great fun, and am a little afraid I too will become a Sonos evangelist!!
 
Hope this is not too far off topic!

My house is wired for multi room audio in 4 rooms and outsied on the deck but I have yet to buy a system. Looking at the rave reviews of wireless things like Sonos does anyone think I would be better to go with that and take the hit on the wiring cost which was done during the build?

I presume there are pros and cons of wired versus wireless I just dont know them? A big thing for me is I want to be able to hear all my existing CD collection on whaterver system I buy. I was looking at Bose Lifestyle because you can copy or 'rip' in to its memory all of your CD's quite quickly. Anyone any helpful comments?
 
You can buy a Sonos set-up and use the network wiring you might already have? You can certinaly use the speakers if you've installed ceiling or wall mounted units.

Sonos uses the music you have on your PC or NAS locally, you simply pop your CD's into your PC, 'rip' them to mp3 format with Windows Media Player (automagically should do it) and then you can play those tracks anywhere in the house.
 
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