I am buying a 3 story house. I own a laptop with ITunes and an iPod & iPhone and would like to play the same music at once 2 sitting rooms and on the landing upstairs and downstairs in the kitchen.
I would like to have different volume in each room but I am happy to play the same music throughout.
I also own a Monitor iDeck and a Klipsch iGroove.

The house needs a rewire.

Do I simply run speaker wire to each location to keep it simple? If so will my IDeck or iGroove be enough to power them?

Or do attempt to use laptop and a squeezebox (whatever the hell that is!)?

Do I run Cat5 from the middle floor where the router will be to each floor? And if so how will this help?

Or do I buy into this Sonos thingamyjigamy and if so can somebody please tell me what I need and what it will cost.

I’m not the best with technology so feel free to talk to me like I’m an idiot.. Any help is much appreciated.

If you already have Apple devices, you’re best sticking with them – that’s when they become so amazing, when they are all you have…

An Airport Express at each location you want music to come out of will work. You can tell iTunes to play out of one or more locations simultaneously – works spookily well.

I’m using this right now…

Rachel

Plus 1 for Airport Express. £70 odd for each box – I thought it was black magic when we visited some friends who had it.

Even a Luddite like me can set it up. I got an adaptor so that I could even get the Airport Express to work through an old Bose Sound-dock that had no connectivity (that I was going to get rid of until I found the solution).

Plus it’s great fun when visitors realise that they can play their music from their IPod / iPhone and a battle commences 😆

Even better if you start up iTunes playing in DJ mode and then people with iPhones can send songs to it to be played in turn…

Rachel

If you find a shop doing sonos they will explain.

You basically need a bridge that handles everything and either a speaker or amp in the rooms you want to use. You can play the same of different in every room or set up 2 speakers as a l r pair. The sound quality was good and seemed very simple. Only seen other people’s and played in a shop though.

It also accessed spotify and all that similar stuff so you don’t even need any music.

Thanks Mike, maybe I’ll phone them or bob in as you suggest.

Proutster, Allthegear, my Igroove has an input and my iDeck has an input and ports for speaker wires, does that help me?

So if I go with Airport Express and use my Itunes on my laptop, what do I need in each location? Do I need speakers in each location?

Mugboo the “How it Works” bit http://www.sonos.com/system is a bit better than when i last looked. Another ting you might do is to have an external network drive that you can keep music etc on along with other important stuff as a backup and household play system. These things will read from them rather than the laptop.

LOGITECH

Mike, it looks stunning but very expensive 😯

As for the Apple thingy, can it be used from my Itunes on my Windows laptop?

CARE TO EXPAND ON THAT?

I’ve got a couple of sonos devices in my house. A play 5 in the bedroom and a zone player 90 in the lounge. I’ve got a bridge box next to my router/ wifi which beams music to the other 2 devices. The play 5 is self contained amp/ speaker unit and the zp 90 is basically a receiver which plugs Ito my existing amp/ speakers in the lounge with phono cables.

I bought it initially to run my iTunes off my pc upstairs which links into the system. It meets to be on all the time and the sonos system can access anything on iTunes.

I control the sonos system using the iPhone and iPad apps.

Thing is I’ve not bothered much with the iTunes library I have since I got into Spotify premium. For a tenner a month I have access to streamed music which works seamlessly with the sonos system in the house ( and also on my iPhone/ iPad independantly of sonos outside the house)

The sonos / Spotify combination is amazing. You can also get Internet radio through the sonos so radio 6 all round here now.

You can listen to Spotify downstairs while the misses listens to radio 6 or iTunes library upstairs at he same time.

You can play a track or a playlist on both units at once and adjust the volume together or independantly, mute the lot at once if needed.

With two iPhones in the house and an iPad you always have something to control the sonos with even if I’m downstairs and the wife upstairs. You can control it off the pc as well.

I’m totally sold on it, the only thing is the units are expensive but good quality and sound quality. Everything is heavy and well finished.

I’m going to keep adding to mine – a play 5 for the kitchen is next.

You can even pair two play 3 or 5 s and use them as stereo speakers wi the sonos sub which sounds amazing.

Get into richer sounds and get a demo. They were really helpful and not on the hard sell.

American sonos units also work in the uk and are cheaper but the warranty is an issue if they go wrong.

It all just works straight out of the box. If you have a play 3 pr 5 or a zonlayer next to your router you don’t need the £40 bridge.

Hope the above helps. Any questions just ask.

LIKE SONOS BUT CHEAPER.

I had a look at Logitech and all I found were Bluetooth speakers and what seemed to be a huge iPod dock with a bit of WiFi airplay connect. Not a multi room system. Also the price in oz$ was about the same per unit as sonos

With Airport Express you need speakers or something with speakers (we use our TV’s surround sound system in the Lounge) that can have an airport express plugged into them (to feed them with music).

The only wires for Airport Express are mains to power the unit and a lead from the Airport Express unit to whatever’s got the speakers.

Yes, you can send the music from iTunes from laptop, iPad, iPod or iPhone.

Whatever solution you choose you’ll need speakers in each location – how else will the sound get out?

This and this should help to explain.

allthegear
Even better if you start up iTunes playing in DJ mode and then people with iPhones can send songs to it to be played in turn…

Rachel

Not tried that, will have to try it that way next – so iTunes off a laptop in DJ mode and then people can queue songs?

This has been driving mad for weeks,
I have 4 main rooms in my house 3 of which have surround sound:

Living room..surround with DVD Player and Humax HDR

Bedroom 1 Surround sound and Humax T2

Bedroom 2 Pc with surround

I would hate to make all these surrounds redundant so am looking at a way to stream from my Iphone/Laptop to all these rooms at the same time..

Could airport express work to run these three, how do they attach to the surround systems…

Also I would like some sounds in the Kitchen and bathroom would an airplay speaker work at the same time in the kitchen..

The bathroom i was thinking some ceiling speakers but these being wired how would i link them in…

Like i said this has been bugging me for weaks and everytime I think of a solution something puts a spanner in the works…

Thanks a lot and sorry to butt into the thread…
Anthony

Thought so, thanks Proutster. Sounds like a good solution to me 🙂

LIKE SONOS BUT MORE EXPENSIVE

😆

I was reading this thread with interest, then RichPenney comes in and places an UNAUTHORISED trade advert. Burn him!

😉

When I looked into this it basically came down to this,

In each room you need an amp, some speaker & a source.

Now in this case you want the source to be the constant, so Apple can work here as well as other systems.
So to throw the source around the house you need either wires or wireless, with wireless apple can help here to.

But what it came down to in my situation was where the hell do you put the amp? build a cupbord, stick it under the floor? get real this was not a money no object build, so in the end I got some digital amps that fit in normal wall socket back boxes, this is background music after all. So it sits in the wall & I negate the need for visible wires & they actually run Keff ceiling speakers ok, no real bass mind but that’s not the point.

Oh my source, it’s a LOGITECH squeezbox that does spotify 😉

🙂 LOGITECH. Will it be as easy to set up as the Airport express or do I need to be good with computers?

Does this just use my iTunes on the laptop and the a matching Logitech speaker in each area?

http://mobile.logitech.com/en-gb/speakers-audio/home-pc-speakers/wireless-speaker-adapter

So one of these in each room? With any unit or speakers with line in?

And then a squeezebox near my router that then fires music from my iTunes on my laptop?

I’ve seen some reports that Logitech have stopped selling Squeezeboxes ( the Logitech option suggested above ) and they are no longer listed on their website. Shame, they are great units.

Sonos/The Rotten Fruit may be the options left open to you now.

slight hijack but can Airport Express’s be used with a harddrive connected to it for remote time machine backups?

2unfit2ride – which wall box amps are you using? Looking for some myself.

Logitech are discontinuing the SB. Can’t see it being a problem as I’m pretty sure the server software is still open source. However, they’ll switch off the web se rice at some point.

If using Apple I’m pretty sure you can now run Apple TVs, Airports and airplay speakers as a mixed environment now. Apple TV makes more sense if it’s in a room with a tv

Mugboo

I have a sqeezebox and remote in the cupboard I would be happy to sell. let me know if you are interested. I had it set up for 3 months before it was packed away due to a house move and we have never used it again.

It sounds like I might be buzzard, can you tell me if I need anything else apart from your squeezebox/remote and the wireless boxes above please? And obviously how much 🙂

Mugbooatgmaildotcom

And to add to my confusion, if they are discontinuing it then what are these?

http://mobile.logitech.com/en-gb/support/speakers-audio/squeezebox-touch

http://mobile.logitech.com/en-gb/support/speakers-audio/3817

The SB Touch is a streamer, connects to a central store of music on my NAS and also does all sorts of internet-connected cleverness. I have 3 of them. Each one needs to be connected to an amp and speakers.

The 2nd link is a remote with a screen built in for controlling Squeezebox units and a Squeezebox streamer without the touch sensitive screen of the Touch. It would also require an amp and speakers.

having a read this morning on Airport express and from what i can see you can’t get audio from movies or Tv only music audio, some people seem to get round this using something called Mountain Lion but I don’t think the new versions of Airport can use this, also some people are reporting problems with delay of about 2 seconds.
It does seem sortable but its still a pain, just when I was getting my head round all this another spanner has just been thrown in…

Anyone got this setup and sorted it ???

God i wish i understood all this audio/wifi stuff…

Anthony

Absolutely ridiculous that Logitech couldn’t turn SB into a massmarket item. Brilliant product that lots more people would want than knew about it. Shame on them.

RIP Squeezebox

Stupid decision, Logitech 🙁

Just seen an offer for a Sonos and Sonos Bridge at John Lewis that might be of interest…

null

simons_nicolai-uk – Member
2unfit2ride – which wall box amps are you using?

http://www.visionaudiovisual.com/techconnect/tc2-amp2/

Cheers.

Thanks folks. I think my choices are a little clearer.

I’m leaning towards Airport Express as I am useless with techy stuff. Sonos looks superb but way too expensive for my liking 🙂

I paid 225 for a sonos play3 and a bridge about 6 months ago, really nice, well build but if I’m honest I was a little underwhelmed. maybe because was just limited to the one room and we tended to move it about.

anyhow….just spend 299 on a play5 and bugger me its awesome, sound is much deeper and having the 2 units brings the magic alive, I can’t wait to add another unit to it.

expensive but not that expensive if you keep an eye out.
very tidy and discreet, just pop it near a plug socket and you are away.

I have ours timed to go one and off at different times of the day, tis magic I tells ya