At the moment I have a small DAB radio, an old Sony Hifi that must be 15 years old but to my ears does a pretty good job of making sounds, and a crappy old cheap hifi that just does a good job of lighting the room up blue and you can't use half the main functions when you lose the remote.
Inevitably we end up with the DAB and the 'crappy old hifi' on in adjacent rooms which doesn't work at all as DAB lags behind analogue so it all gets echoey 🙂
So I'd like to spend some of my wedding vouchers (so that'll limit me to John Lewis then) on a multi-room spotify/itunes compatible, internet/dab radio, and android app remote controllable thingummy.
I was looking at Sonos but then realised to add the bit that lets you connect wired speakers to the system (I know the sound won't be mind blowing but I'd like to use some discrete ceiling speakers in the bathroom and kitchen) pretty much doubles the price of the system to over £500, and also although it says multi-room, I'm guessing I would have to buy extra expensive wireless speakers for each room which would push the price up further and far beyond the 'not happening' category. I can forgo the wired speaker compatibility thing if the speakers for extra rooms are affordable.
So what 'affordable' options are there? I'm not looking for studio quality sound, but equally want to avoid anything completely hopeless. Be nice if it packs a bit of a punch when I want it as well :d
Thanks 🙂 P.S If its not in John Lewis but is still worth a look, I'm still listening!
Looking at the prices, it seems this is likely to go well over budget as I would need a Sonos player for each room, and two per room if I want stereo (!), so definitely looking for budget alternatives.
Maybe a laptop in a cupboard and connected to some sort of splitter so I can manually select which speakers the audio goes to? Are there any android apps that will act as a remote control for my laptop? (a bit like the Youtube Remote app I suppose?)
A Logitech Squeezebox Touch attached to an amp/speakers in each room would be the obvious answer from me, but it seems that Logitech are no longer selling them and they are getting thin on the ground ( at least I checked a couple of links in google and 2/2 had no stock ).
Yeh I started looking at the Squeezebox before finding it is discontinued. The replacement appears to be a standalone radio that doesn't really connect to anything else.
I had a brief google for Nokia Home Music and Cisco Music Streamer but quickly lost interest as the only information about them seems to be from 2009/10 so I guess they didn't catch on.
Partly the reason for looking into this is because we are moving, its a bungalow with an unboarded loft so it would be pretty easy to wire speakers for each of the main rooms, its just how to get it rigged up to Spotify and my admittedly quite small music library and be able to control it easily (i.e. without having to unplug things from an amplifier too often) (I've always regretted not doing something similar in the house we are selling, especially since we had all the floors up when it was rewired)
I suppose the other avenue to explore is a home media system thing that sits under the TV, but not really looked into whether they can do the multiroom wireless thing.
plenty logitech available SH, I'd go that route before messing about with wires etc.
Even secondhand the Logitech stuff is going for good money, not sure I want to buy into a discontinued product especially as there is no guarantee that the online server it relies upon will still be running in a couple of years time. If I want to add to the system I will be limited to what is being sold secondhand.
I did find this that sounds like it might be the route for me:
http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209571
Is the an android app that will let you control your laptop to change the source/volume/tracks? Or can I get a wireless doodle so I can keep the laptop portable about the house and send the audio to where the amp/speaker selector box is?
I'd even consider something like a tablet if it can send the music wirelessly to a central point for the selector box. You can get wireless speakers so can you get a wireless amp/receiver?!