RE: Sonos, Bose or Philips!

[Paul Gordon <paul_gordon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can't comment on any of the Bose or Philips stuff, but I can
certainly
chime in on the Sonos questions...

Firstly, Sonos is very definitely 100% self-contained... there is no
"server" app required anywhere for it to run.. All you need is
your internet
connection and you have functional internet radio. Then all you need is
network access to your music library... Sonos integrates with iTunes, and
supports your iTunes library as a source.
In my case, my music library is 100% MP3 format sitting on a NAS share
which
I point iTunes to, but I do NOT allow iTunes to manage it... thus I just
point my Sonos to the same NAS share...

I guess you may not need to access a local music library at all if you use
any of the popular online music services, as Sonos directly supports all of
the popular ones such as Napster/Rhapsody, Deezer, Spotify, Last FM and so
on. There's also a new software update just out which adds your local
iDevice as a music source.. as you probably know Sonos have discontinued
their own dedicated hardware controllers in favour of apps for
PC/MAC/Android/iDevice... now with the controller app installed on an
iDevice, that local iDevice appears as a source which you can play on any
Sonos zone.

AFAIK (I don't have any of the PLAY devices), all of the Sonos players have
a line-in to which an external device can be connected... once connected to
any Sonos device in your network that is available as a source on ALL other
devices. That much is certainly true of all of the ZP (now called
"connect")
devices. - I have used this feature to pipe text-to-speech announcements
from a PC running HA software all over the house.

The zone synchronisation is unparalleled in my opinion... I have 4 zones in
a house in which I can usually hear music from more than one zone at a
time,
and any drift in synchronisation would be very obvious... when the zones
are
linked up that are absolutely rock-solid 100% in sync.

You do NOT need the bridge in order to use the iDevices as controllers...
you don't need a bridge AT ALL if you can make sure at least one of your
Sonos devices has a wired connection to your home LAN.. - that is the basic
rule for a Sonos network... there *must* be a wired point of contact
between
the Sonos network and your network... - if you only had the portable PLAY
devices and didn't want to plug them into a wired Ethernet cable (to keep
them portable), then you can use a bridge to fulfil that requirement... I
believe there's plenty of offers around that bundle a PLAY device with a
"free" bridge... - you connect the bridge to a wired connection,
then hide
it away and forget it... then all of your zone players can be completely
wireless...

One other point which may be worthy of mention is that the Sonos control
system is based on UPnP and as such is pretty standard... therefore there
are numerous 3rd party controllers that can be implemented to give you the
ability to control Sonos functions from other home automation systems... I
have a CBUS wall switch in the bathroom that starts/stops the player in
that
room...

I would not hesitate to wholeheartedly recommend the Sonos system... it is
one of those all too rare treasures that "just works" and as such
has
extremely high WAF

HTH

Paul G.


-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Wayne Harrison
Sent: 04 December 2012 22:47
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Sonos, Bose or Philips!

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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