Sonos, Bose or Philips!

[Wayne Harrison <Wayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I am looking to replace a mini hifi in the kitchen and would like to take
the plunge with WiFi streaming. In-house is starting the move to Apple (i
tunes / pads / pods / macs etc) so the library that was PC based is going
to be moving into iTunes at some point.

All was going to be simple until a recent visit to John Lewes and the
discovery of the new Bose AirPlay speakers ( http://bit.ly/ViRiHz ). The plot thickens
when I also popped into a Currys Mega store to find now that Philips ( http://bit.ly/UEoe0K ) has
got in on the act. (and yes - the assistants in there wouldn't know a
Kettle could boil water without reading it off the little price tags in
front of them!!)


Ideally I would like the ability for the solution to be able to still play
'radio' (BBC, Heart, etc...) either as it has a tuner (looking slim) or be
able to get a stream from the net. Airplay (or wired ethernet)
compatibility would also be good - as mentioned, most of the media will be
in iTunes. Also the ability to not be tethered to a single computer would
be a bonus although at some point the 'server' side of my mac's itunes
library will be moved to a permanently 'on' box.

The only downside with Bose / airplay in general would appear to be that
you have to have something pushing out airplay - there is no intelligence
in them to go it on there own so to speak. Oh - and the biggie, there are
no multi streams to different zones from the same central library (as yet
anyways).

Anyways, a few questions.
Has anyone had any experience with the Philips kit at all, as I said -
Currys were a waste of space... the chap in there just ranted about wifi
and routers - and I dont think he even knew what they were! The 'stickers'
suggested internet radio but no idea if it does this off its own back or
you need an 'app on a server'?

With Sonos - looking at the video's there seems to be internet radio built
in, again, does this need an 'app on a server' or do these things operate
independently of a server for radio access? Same for iTunes access - is it
a case of setting it up with said 'app' to connect to itunes or do the
boxes connect directly with itunes HomeShareing?

There seems to be a workaround to get airplay to work with Sonos by using
an airport express as a 'feed' into a line in on a 'Play 5' to which you
can use that as a source. Can this then be routed to any sonos or will it
only play on the box its plugged into?

Controls for these will be via iphone or ipad so I would imaging for Sonos
needing the 'bridge' to get it plugged to the lan?


I suppose most importantly - this is mainly (at this point) going to be
used by the Wife - so big brownie points for ease of use!

If anyone has any ideas or thoughts that would be a big help.
Hopefully this makes sense!
Wayne.







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