Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Sonos – Anyone using, talk to me
  • atlaz
    Free Member

    I quite fancy a Sonos to get the music around the flat without quite so many cables or sets of speakers hanging around.

    I’m looking at a bridge, a couple of Play (probably 1 of the Play:1 and 1 of the Play:3) for the smaller rooms then the one to plug into my big stereo. I’ll also grab a NAS to shove all the music on.

    Anyway, does anyone have any practical experience of them? Are they as plug-and-play as the marketing suggests and how does it work if a visitor wants to play their own music etc? Also, how’s the sound quality?

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Can I ask how much that will cost, seems a very expensive solution.

    For £80 you can buy an Apple airport express to plug into your stereo, bingo it’s now a wifi device. For smaller rooms do you need permanent devices, how about one unit you can move around. Music can live on the computer you already have, if necessary on a cheap (£50 for 1tb) external drive. You can use your phone to access the music on the computer. You can do all this very easily with Apple kit plus it’s not dedicated to music only and is far more future proof than specific units like Sonus.

    There was another similar thread a week ago

    Pook
    Full Member

    We have a 5 and a bridge. Well worth it. We’re about to get a 1 to add to our network. Seriously good kit. And yes, plug and play. We spent about £350 from John Lewis

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    mactheknife
    Full Member

    Great bits of kit, i have a Play3 in the living room and im looking to hey a Play 1 for the kitchen.

    I have signed up to the full spotify so i have pretty much any music i want, when i want it.

    lorax
    Full Member

    3 + bridge here. Used to have a squeezebox which seemed great at the time, but was a faff to use. The Sonos, on the other hand, is a joy – really easy to set up and use, completely plug and play, took 5 minutes to set up from opening the boxes to playing music.

    Sound quality is great for a speaker of that size. It’s just a mono speaker, not a hi-fi, but it’s fine for the kitchen and it fills the space nicely. I’m definitely going to be getting more for other rooms, and probably the big one to plug into the hi-fi at some point.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @lorax why would you plug a sonus into the hifi, use the hifi to play the music with a wifi device to receive the music and send it to the hifi. It’s not quite so neat but for £3 you can plug your phone Into the hifi and play the music off of that.

    In my kitchen I have £50 speaker ball (sounds great) with a £3 wire can play anything off phone or iPad including streaming radio, podcasts or spotify if I wanted. With apple home share I can play any of the music I have on main computer.

    warton
    Free Member

    I have 3 play 3s. for me its the best solution out there. Very much plug and play.

    People who say it can be done cheaper are right, but will it be as hassle free, and as easy to use as SONOS? from experience no, and I’m happy to pay the premium for that.

    I have a NAS, and full spotify, and I have done the ‘hack’ for soundcloud, so I have pretty much all the music I could ever want. Buying a play 1 for the bedroom, and moving one of the play 3s into the dining room, and possibly a play 1 for the study…

    EDIT:

    and how does it work if a visitor wants to play their own music etc

    they install the app on their phone, you press a button on the bridge for 3 seconds, they can play all of their music from their phone on your system. It’s that easy.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    @jambalaya having seen Sonos in action it does kick the arse of everything else. Seamless and perfectly integrated with multi room and all that working properly (different song on every speaker or pair them up to make a surround sound/home theatre.

    It’s on my shopping list.

    lapierrelady
    Full Member

    It’s pretty epic…we have a few around the house and it’s great to walk from room to room with the music perfectly in sync. You can also set a time and music to wake you up (most expensive alarm clock ever). I would never have spent the money, but the sound quality and ease of use mean I listen yo music and radio much more than I used to. You can use a phone/ iPad as a remote as well which saves a bit of money. We have one unit physically attached to the router and an external hard drive which has all our CDs on it ( a weekends worth of work) and spotify as well.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    and how does it work if a visitor wants to play their own music etc

    At what point would you let anyone come to your house and play their music?? Just not done – or use Spotify Premium and stop buying music all together

    Pook
    Full Member

    The latest software update lets you play music ‘from this phone’ so in theory your mates could play their music that way.

    I don’t have mates so I don’t know.

    atlaz
    Free Member

    At what point would you let anyone come to your house and play their music?? Just not done – or use Spotify Premium and stop buying music all together

    Well I have friends who visit who might want to use the Play:1 I put in the spare room to listen to their own music not mine. Likewise sometimes people have something they want to play you. It’s an edge case, granted, but worth asking about.

    As for the price, I could probably hack something together that did most of that but I’m just not inclined to do so. I have a line-in for my stereo which takes care of a lot of needs but something a bit more elegant would be good.

    SkillWill
    Free Member

    and how does it work if a visitor wants to play their own music etc

    They just install the Sonos app on their phone and you allow them to connect to your Sonos system (one button on any device) and they can play all music on their device. Piece of piss.

    lorax
    Full Member

    jambalaya – it’s a high-end hi-fi (from my bachelor days, when I had money to spend on such things) so I want to play my FLAC files through it – MP3s just sound like mush. I’ve been using a Squeezebox to do just that, but it’s flaky and temperamental, whereas the right piece of Sonos kit should just work. It’s also vastly more convenient to have multiple remote controls (any phone, ipad or computer with the free app on it) rather than have a phone plugged into a box so I have to stop the music if I take a call…

    warton
    Free Member

    At what point would you let anyone come to your house and play their music?? Just not done – or use Spotify Premium and stop buying music all together

    parties

    chiefinspector
    Free Member

    I was in John Lewis at the weekend and they had a rep from Sonos there and he showed me how it worked. Looks very impressive and although it will be costly to buy (Sound Bar, Sub & 2 x Play 3’s) the ease of use and simplicity make it look worthwhile.

    I forgot to ask him though, do the speakers require a seperate power source?

    vorlich
    Free Member

    I have a Play 5 in the Kitchen and a ZP90 hooked into a pair of active speakers via an external DAC. The ZP90 sound is superb.

    The sound from the Play devices is good in a not especially ‘accurate’ sort of way. It’s not HiFi, but it will fill a room, no problem.

    We’re about to order a Play 1 for upstairs.

    And as mentioned previously, come poker night, my mates just pair their phone/app and can stream whatever they like to it.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @lorax – ok got it now.

    mrchrispy
    Full Member

    love mine. play5 and play3 x 2 scattered around the house.
    was going to get a play3 for the bathroom but the new play1 look better suited for that.

    massive win for the soundcloud hack….great tip.

    alfabus
    Free Member

    squeezebox is better.

    FACT.

    (except that they’ve discontinued it for being too awesome)

    warton
    Free Member

    massive win for the soundcloud hack….great tip.

    Yeah, it was all that was missing IMO, so was delighted when I found that. Bit of John Digweed in the kitchen on a Friday night goes down a treat 🙂

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    I saw the Sonos Play 1, 3 & 5 in Currys today and I thought the sound was good but a bit strange. It was powerful, thumping almost, but didn’t sound like separates or even our Denon mini-system.
    Is this what you guys mean when you say it’s not hi-fi?

    I thought they were so expensive because some acoustic wizards could make them sound great, link them to a network and Robert’s your Mother’s brother. Or have I missed something?

    Anyway I was a little disappointed as I thought it would be a good system for our kitchen but now I’m not so sure.
    Has anyone bought the SOnos kit and not been happy with it? Or does the easy to use functionality stop you thinking about any potential niggles?

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    Oh and has anyone got a pair of Sonos Play 1 speakers running?

    IanW
    Free Member

    I have had a 5 and bridge for about a year and am completely hooked. Sat this afternoon queuing up great tracks from napster and my own library..brilliant.

    Not quite a Sondeck and valve amp sound but good enough and perfect usability IMO.

    Probably go for a couple of 3’s were I to start again only because buying more 5’s is going to be expensive.

    iomnigel
    Free Member

    We have 9 zones all on zp90’s, dedicated music server, most into ceiling speakers. Sound is as good as the speakers. We have some monitor audio speakers and the sound is firking awesome. Zp90 has an amplifier built in and is very good. Also have one firing into a sony amp and monitors audio speakers. Better then awesome. Finally in the garage we have a zp90 into sonos speakers. Again brilliant. I Can’t fault it for what it does. Fit and forget.

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    iomnigel – Member

    excuse the ignorance… do you have each zone with a dedicated ZP90? Or can you have multiple zones per ZP90?
    I’m sure it all makes perfect sense once you’ve configured it but I’ve had separates for over 20 years, so it is still pure witchcraft to me!

    ask1974
    Free Member

    ElShalimo, you need one Sonos device per room, of course with wiring and suitable amplification you could connect multiple rooms to one Connect but they would all operate at the same time and with the same volume which is not what Sonos is about.

    We sell loads if it and I’ve not got one unhappy customer. Kicks the ass out of Airport Express and BlueTooth type solutions with proper music management and of course multi-room operation.

    Jambalaya, have you ever used Sonos? I only ask because Airport Express is nowhere near as good, it’s not even remotely similar and just provides a basic streaming solution. Convenient yes but it’s no multi-room system.

    petrieboy
    Full Member

    Connect hooked up to the living room system and a play3 that moves between the kitchen and my study. I’ll be picking up a couple of play1’s when they are available too.
    Yes you could cobble something together using raspberry pi’s and old amps but the interface on sonos is so good that even my luddite mother was able to install the app on her phone, connect to my sonos network and find music she liked. Well worth the money.

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    ask1974 – Member

    thanks for explaining that

    Given that the content is digital, what is the best way to convert CDs to get high quality files in terms of file format and bit rate?
    I’ll assume that digital online content is very high quality e.g. spotify, 6Music etc. Is that true?

    georgecats_0
    Free Member

    Having had sonos,I found it a bit overcomplicated, iv gone back to 3 or 4 ipods in various docks,I think sonos is overpriced too,but it really depends on the room/the loudness required, etc etc….

    ask1974
    Free Member

    ElShalimo, there are lots of file formats and each has it’s advantages. Of course for absolute quality you want to use a lossless format like FLAC, WAV or AIFF so no data is lost but in reality high bit rate compressed files like MP3 @ 320kbits/s are almost indistinguishable from lossless. Just stay well clear of low bit rate compressed formats. Lots of useful discussion on the Sonos forum, here’s one link;

    talk on formats

    The issue must people have is iTunes, as this is used for music management and mobile devices they tend to compress music too much when ripping to fit as much as possible on a small drive. For a few £££ you can buy an HDD with auto ripping software that rips to two files, one lossless for home use and one compressed for mobile. Personally I use iTunes because I’m lazy and just import at 320kbits/s which I’m perfectly happy with.

    With regard to on-line content it’s the reverse, Internet radio and Spotify etc are all compressed, in some cases heavily and it really shows. However most paid for services like Spotify have a premium version that ups quality to around the 320kbits/s mark which is fine – just costs. BBC stations are good but not quite as good as DAB, but perfectly usable, however there are some really poor radio stations, the good news is that there is also some very good stuff out there you just need to find it.

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    ask1974 – Member

    cheers for that… I feel like such as luddite now

    vorlich
    Free Member

    I haven’t heard the 3 or 1, actually thought there was still a couple of days before the 1 was available, anyway, I can only comment on the 5. I think to most people, the 5 would sound pretty good, but it depends how discerning you are. Listening to it in Currys, will tell you almost nothing about how it will sound once home. FWIW, it has a loudness control and treble/bass you can adjust as required. I have loudness off on my 5.

    Personally, when I’m in my kitchen, sound quality isn’t top of my priorities. YMMV.

    The ZP90 however I run as a transport into an external DAC and active speakers. It’s the best sounding system I’ve ever had and the best system I’ve ever heard. If sound quality is key, you should be looking at the Zp90 or whatever they’re calling it now into a decent DAC/Amp/Speaker combo IMO.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Given that the content is digital, what is the best way to convert CDs to get high quality files in terms of file format and bit rate?
    I’ll assume that digital online content is very high quality e.g. spotify, 6Music etc. Is that true?

    Pretty much as ask1974 says. I’ve been ripping all my music at 320Kb, and I have files I’ve downloaded as FLAC and Apple Lossless from pre-ordered albums, and I have a fair few I’ve bought from iTunes, which are 256Kb, and I play them from my Mac Mini into my Yamaha a/v amp via a fiberoptic TOSLink, and to be perfectly honest, I hear greater variations in the original mastering of the music than I can any significant loss of quality through the file formats; believe me, some mastering is really pretty shonky!
    DAB radio is 196Kb, which is ok, and sounds fine as a broadcast, but is noticeably poorer than 320Kb files.
    Check out a book, Perfecting Sound Forever, by Greg Milner: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781862079427/
    It’s very, very revealing about what you can and can’t hear in recordings. Anyone at all interested in music should read it.

    ElShalimo
    Full Member

    I think going down the Sonos route will be expensive in the short and long term. I really can see the attraction but it appears to be like Apple in that once you give in and adopt the tech, you’re just going to keep adding more of their products. Sadly my pockets aren’t that deep

    There are many ways of streaming nowadays which means even more choices. Oh dear

    iamsporticus
    Free Member

    Numpty alert!

    Can anyone please answer the following:

    1) Is the ‘Bridge’ basically a dedicated wireless access point just for the Sonos network or does Sonos feed off the house wifi after the bridge does something clever?
    I ask as my router is miles away from where Id like to listen to music, the house wifi gets there (just) with a repeater but a Bridge would have no chance

    2) My library is in itunes and is a dogs breakfast, theres lots of stuff I ripped years ago when I was limited by a tiny HD, obviously this is going to be of poor quality so whats the best way to stream to a ‘Connect/ZP’ and get decent quality please? Spotify premium/Google music/Apples paid cloud thing etc etc etc. I put my old Cds in storage plus I dont have enough will to live to re-rip them all

    Many thanks

    🙂

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