• This topic has 23 replies, 17 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by DezB.
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  • WiFi speaker to play music from a network drive, is there such a thing?
  • Potdog
    Free Member

    Does such a thing exist? I have loads of music on a NAS drive and would love some sort of WiFi attached speaker system that could play the music directly from the drive.
    I’ve been searching for a bit, but seem to keep coming up with the same things, mainly the Sonos music players, but they seem to need the music on your phone or tablet and as far as I can see won’t connect to a NAS drive. There are other things that look like they might work, but need an amp and speakers to connect to (plus they run into several hundred quid alone!)
    Anybody got anything or know of anything that will perform this task or am I wasting my time on a fruitless search?
    Cheers!

    hebdencyclist
    Free Member

    Samba app for your phone.
    Speaker for your phone.

    longj
    Free Member

    Been looking for a similar thing myself. I think a Ruark R2 MK3 will do the job. Check it out.

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    doris5000
    Full Member

    it’s a moderate faff but it is cheap:

    get a chromecast audio for £25ish
    plug it into an input somewhere
    download plex app onto your computer (index all the mp3’s) and phone (to control it.

    this has the advantage that you can send spotify, bbc radio app etc from your phone to the chromecast, and also any chrome tabs from your computer 🙂

    Potdog
    Free Member

    @LongJ, that does seem to do what I’m after, just not at a price I can afford right now.

    @hebdencyclist, the only Samba that shows up on my playstore is a banking app and something that looks like it will allow me to wirelessly access the folders on my phone from a PC?

    Potdog
    Free Member

    @doris, problem is that I don’t have anything anymore to plug a chromecast into. Hence the wish to have something with speakers built in. I’m starting to think that what I want is gonna be expensive!
    My old smart tv used to see the music on my NAS and I assume that I could have played it through there (not 100% sure as I never tried) but just got a very basic TV now so that’s not an option. But a smart tv is much the same cost as something like the Ruark with the added bonus of better sound quality than the crappy one I have now, so may be the way forward.

    Potdog
    Free Member

    Oh how the strange world of STW and Google works. Just done a search on alternatives to the Ruark R2 and it came back with this post STW Post which in turn lead me to the Pure Contour which is now discontinued but hence on to the Pure Evoke F3 which seems to do what I’m after for less than half the price of the Ruark.

    ulysse
    Free Member

    I know it’s oldskool these days, but this is why I’ve stuck to a HTPC as the core for our home entertainment system, even the turntables & mixer run through its music library via Serato, the soundcard in the mixer with a sub and satellites sounds as good and almost as powerful as the Arcam separates and 3 foot high floor standers I used to have

    willej
    Full Member

    Sonos will work with NAS, as long as they support certain protocols: Sonos FAQ

    mugsys_m8
    Full Member

    Logitech Squeezebox. Sounds like you want the all in one ghetto blaster thing rather than the squeezebox to plug into an amp. No longer sold but still available 2nd hand….at a price as they are so sought after.

    daniel_owen_uk
    Free Member

    Something like a roberts S1?

    I suppose any DLNA speaker. The problem is you are talking about playing “direct from a NAS drive”. That doesn’t really exist, your previous TV played the files due to the NAS having a DLNA server inbuilt.

    Anything with DLNA will do the task.

    Potdog
    Free Member

    @willej, thanks for that. Will have to dig out some info on my NAS. Sonos seems more readily available here than the Pure range.

    woody2000
    Full Member

    I’m using my sonos with music stored on a NAS drive. Didn’t do anything special, just pointed sonos at the shared music folder and off it went.

    ajantom
    Full Member

    Not quite what your after, but I’ve recently bought a couple of Chromecast audios (£15 each at Currys), one of which I plugged into my stereo, and the other into a Blaupunkt BPS-2 portable speaker (£25 from Sainsburys – pretty decent sound for its size)

    Then the nice bit is if you download the Google Play extension to your computer it auto downloads all your music onto cloud storage – you get 50,000 songs of free storage! I’m assuming you could either get the NAS drive to talk to Google Play, or link it to a PC so it could be seen.

    So now all my music (well non-vinyl music anyway) is on the cloud, and I can play it from phone or tablet wherever I have Wifi. So at home I have 2 rooms sorted, and when I was at a mates yesterday I was able to inflict my music taste on him too!

    alanf
    Free Member

    I think Denon do something similar to the Sonos? HEOS maybe?

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    Bose SoundLink 10, 20 or 30. Actually pretty decent – they were talking of having it so you could link to 10’s in a stereo pair which would be rather nice.

    I sold my single 10 (simply wasn’t using it) though before they released the firmware so don’t know if they ever got round to it.

    DezB
    Free Member

    What’s the issue with having a iPod/iPad/smartphone with a NAS app connected via Bluetooth to a normal bluetooth speaker?
    (Synology – DSAudio; QNAP – QMusic etc)

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    Sonos doesn’t play music off your phone/iPad, they’re just the remote controls. It streams from the web or from network drives. Just got a Play 1 – impressive piece of kit and I’m a loudspeaker designer!

    alanf
    Free Member

    What’s the issue with having a iPod/iPad/smartphone with a NAS app connected via Bluetooth to a normal bluetooth speaker?
    (Synology – DSAudio; QNAP – QMusic etc)

    Actually, this – I use something similar.
    An Airmusicbox plugged into an old system in the garage and use DSAudio through the phone from my NAS. works a treat and only needed the Airmusicbox thingy to get it working. Does mean you need to have a means of plying music in the first place though.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Sonos doesn’t play music off your phone/iPad

    Exactly what I said/meant. Sonos is an expensive way of doing it – I have one of the mains Sony boxes in my kitchen, does the job brilliantly (and it can also play CDs/DAB/AUX/andsomethingelseIcan’t remember).
    Old iPhone 4 does the streaming off my QNAP NAS.
    (And it looks a hell of a lot nicer than that gash Pure Evoke thing!)

    bigblackheinoustoe
    Free Member

    This is what you need me ol’ mucker

    sirromj
    Full Member

    Old iPhone 4 does the streaming off my QNAP NAS.
    (And it looks a hell of a lot nicer than that gash Pure Evoke thing!)

    Some people would rather just have a device specific for the job at hand. Mobiles are too cluttered there’s so much going on. Also, the funny thing about touchscreens is you can’t use them by touch alone, you need your eyes. Not so with a remote control.

    frogstomp
    Full Member

    Not entirely correct – Sonos will happily use your phone’s internally stored music as a source, alongside being a remote for other network storage etc. you may have (ref, ref2).

    DezB
    Free Member

    Some people would rather just have a device specific for the job at hand. Mobiles are too cluttered there’s so much going on. Also, the funny thing about touchscreens is you can’t use them by touch alone, you need your eyes.

    That’s why I asked what the issue with using a device to stream to the speaker was. (My iphone 4 only has one app on it so it’s not “cluttered” btw).
    How can you select what music to play without the display, or is that not an issue? I like to see what’s playing, myself.
    That Phorus thing reminds me of a networked mini-hifi that my brother used to stream from his NAS with. Can you still get that sort of thing?

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