Sonos Alternative

George Hincapie · 8 Feb 2016 at 15:14

I stumbled across this as the weekend: http://www.teufelaudio.co.uk/raumfeld-audio-streaming/raumfeld-connector-p9527.html

It looks fully featured and is keenly priced. I would have preferred SPDIF instead of TOSLink, but you can't have everything.

Bunka · 9 Feb 2016 at 11:13

Any advantage to using this over an airport express which is much cheaper?

Demon · 9 Feb 2016 at 11:21

Or the ridiculously cheap Chromecast Audio? £30 and does multi-room with analog/digital out and alledgedly supports lossless (FLAC, but not ALAC)

George Hincapie · 9 Feb 2016 at 16:18

Bunka said:
Any advantage to using this over an airport express which is much cheaper?

Yes. AE doesn't stream Tidal/Spotify AFAIK. This has a control app like Sonos that will run from any Android or iOS device.

George Hincapie · 9 Feb 2016 at 16:20

Demon said:
Or the ridiculously cheap Chromecast Audio? £30 and does multi-room with analog/digital out and alledgedly supports lossless (FLAC, but not ALAC)

See above. I am all about streaming Tidal HIFI, not playing network stored CD rips. Besides, CA has a crap quality 3.5mm jack, the Connect has a much higher quality TOS Link to feed my DAC into the rest of my HIFI separates.

George Hincapie · 9 Feb 2016 at 16:22

*Grumpy Edit*

Demon · 9 Feb 2016 at 22:38

George Hincapie said:
See above. I am all about streaming Tidal HIFI, not playing network stored CD rips. Besides, CA has a crap quality 3.5mm jack, the Connect has a much higher quality TOS Link to feed my DAC into the rest of my HIFI separates.

George Hincapie said:
And all I get is people bitching about the price? WTF is wrong with you lot? This is a quality Sonos alternative at half the price. If you want to be gypsies and moan about the cost or put up with alternatives that offer **** sound quality then this isn't the thread for you

http://www.t3.com/reviews/chromecast-audio-review-audiophile-streaming-for-your-dimwitted-hifi

The CA has optical.out and streams tidal hifi as well. Audio quality is reported to be good and it supports 24/96khz which I believe is better than sonos? Which was only CD 16/44.1 last time I looked.

You say we must be gypsies for moaning about the cost yet you created this thread based on a cost saving product. :facepalm

George Hincapie · 10 Feb 2016 at 10:52

Demon said:
The CA has optical.out and streams tidal hifi as well. Audio quality is reported to be good and it supports 24/96khz which I believe is better than sonos? Which was only CD 16/44.1 last time I looked.

When I looked at the CA site I saw nothing about Optical; I'll have another look. Doesn't CA require Bubble uPNP or something to stream?

You say we must be gypsies for moaning about the cost yet you created this thread based on a cost saving product. :facepalm

Bad day - forgive me.

The IPB · 10 Feb 2016 at 10:58

I have one of these:

https://gramofon.com/

Which I have been happy with, it was on offer when I bought it so only cost me £35.

Dangerous Dave · 10 Feb 2016 at 10:58

George Hincapie said:
Yes. AE doesn't stream Tidal/Spotify AFAIK. This has a control app like Sonos that will run from any Android or iOS device.

You can stream both with an airport express using airplay.

George Hincapie · 10 Feb 2016 at 11:37

Dangerous Dave said:
You can stream both with an airport express using airplay.

Are there any quality restrictions doing that? I have a Tidal HIFI account (CD Quality), will it play those files properly?

Dangerous Dave · 10 Feb 2016 at 11:55

George Hincapie said:
Are there any quality restrictions doing that? I have a Tidal HIFI account (CD Quality), will it play those files properly?

Don't think so, Tidal FAQs advises the only service that doesn't support HiFi quality via AirPlay is the desktop app on a PC to get it via a PC you need to use the web app.

George Hincapie · 10 Feb 2016 at 12:34

Thanks DD.