Audio Solution for Whole House

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Soldato
Joined
7 Nov 2006
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Location
Stockton on Tees
Alright Guys

Hope everyone had a fun packed Halloween.

The problem is my bedroom, dining room and kitchen dont have any media and i would like to add a streaming system to all of these rooms where i can stream from GMusic and other sources/

What is the best way to hook all these rooms up to get audio?
Sonas? Chromecast Audio?

At the moment i dont have any medis in the rooms so will need everything that will be required.
 
Chromecast is due a patch so you can sync audio before the end of the year if that is a requirement? Sonos will do what you want but it is very overpriced imho.
 
I looked on to doing this, first looking at a built in system with a multi channel amp and ceiling speakers, then eventually I ended up going the Sonos route. It's mature, you don't need wires and it's very simple to use and set up. The phone and computer apps are also very good.

If you don't mind playing around with stuff then chrome cast may work by if you want something the whole family finds easy to use then Sonos or one of the similar manufacturers (Bose, Sony and a couple of others do similar systems) is probably the best bet.
 
+1 for Sonos - really decent kit, and works effortlessly

Each of the kids has a Sonos 1 in their rooms, which seemed better option than a mini hifi etc., and the other bedrooms and kitchen also have Sonos 1 units. The dining room has a Sonos 5 and the living room a Playbar and Sub - grabbed the latter two from Amazon.it for substantially less than UK prices :p

Whole system just works :)
 
I went for the Bose Soundtouch option however I will only be using it in the Kitchen and maybe eventually bedroom.

If I was going to go the whole house, including bathrooms I would go Sonos.

I stream from Spotify Premium on the Bose, sounds good (after a bit of bass reduction in settings!) and easy to use.
 
I went for Bluesound instead of sonos because it can play super high bitrate audio, but it is a bit of a pita to use.
 
Another vote for the Sonos here. Yes it's not cheap but it sounds very good and the ease of use is superb, even my wife likes using it and wants to get more in other rooms! :)
 
oulton said:
I went for Bluesound instead of sonos because it can play super high bitrate audio, but it is a bit of a pita to use.
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This looked great until I saw the prices :(

Still waiting for someone to fill the niche for a good wireless multi-room system with sensibly priced passive client boxes. I have good quality amplifier/speaker setups I just want a good, clean client node that'll stream FLAC etc from my NAS.

Tempting to make a DIY project of it....raspberry pi + good quality external DAC and some tinkering will be a fraction of these boxes.
 
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The great thing about Sonos is that they sell self-contained speaker units and amps so that you can use your own speakers. We've got a mix in our house and it all works flawlessly.

It's not a cheap solution but it's worth the money, in my opinion.
 
Done some research, seems squeezebox + raspberry pi + usb DAC will tick all the boxes. Multiroom sync, any file format inc FLAC. Will dig out my old Pi and give it a bash.

I'm sure Sonos is good but I can't bring myself to pay their asking prices for the Connect unit. I'll see how much hassle setting this cheapo option up is.
 
Tunney said:
The great thing about Sonos is that they sell self-contained speaker units and amps so that you can use your own speakers. We've got a mix in our house and it all works flawlessly.

It's not a cheap solution but it's worth the money, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Ah, I've been thinking of getting a Sonos Connect to plug into my living room AV Receiver so I can use my existing speakers in there but I'm wondering how good the syncing is with other rooms that are using the Sonos speakers, Play 1s in my case. I'd have thought going through another device (the AV receiver) would add some extra latency so the rooms would be slightly out of sync which I suspect would be very noticable? Have you had any problems with mixing them like that?
 
nails666 said:
Ah, I've been thinking of getting a Sonos Connect to plug into my living room AV Receiver so I can use my existing speakers in there but I'm wondering how good the syncing is with other rooms that are using the Sonos speakers, Play 1s in my case. I'd have thought going through another device (the AV receiver) would add some extra latency so the rooms would be slightly out of sync which I suspect would be very noticable? Have you had any problems with mixing them like that?
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Sorry, only just seen your post.

I haven't noticed any lag but our Sonos-connected ceiling speakers are on different floors of the house to the PLAY units we've got. There's no setting in the iPhone app to adjust the latency so I'm guessing that everything is handled automatically.
 
Ok thanks, unfortunately my receiver has just died anyway so I need to get that sorted before I can think about new speakers anyway :(
 
I use Muzo Cobblestones (Badged as DigiFunk® - WiFi Wireless Audio Music AirPlay Receiver 3 on Amazon). They are around £45 a device. They have the ability to multiroom - note speakers are seperate. Devices connect to the network via wifi or cat5 and then connect to each other via wifi to get the multiroom effect - very effective and means you don't need a server. Currently supports a range of items I use it primarily with spotify and Radio.
The chromecast Audio were tempting but the lack of multiroom at this point put me off and i'm not sure it's as easy as they think it will be - I can be proved wrong on that :)
 
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