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Sonos. Who is it for?
5hane
Posts: 2,385
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Hi
I still have a HiFi separates system which consists of a 20 year old Technics Class AAA amp, a 12 year old Misson CD player and some B&W 500 series speakers.
The thing is, it sounds great, but does look pretty old fashioned now.
So I'm hearing about how great Sonos is so decided to pop in to my local Apple shop to look at the range.
After a quick demo, my conclusion was, Sonos sucks. How did I ever think that one single speaker could compete with a HiFi. No chest thumping base and no stereo sound due to one speaker. Ok, you can add further speakers, but how in the hell can anyone justify £800 minimum for something that can only stream music and doesn't sound as good as my old fashioned HiFi which probably wouldn't fetch more than £200 on eBay.
Is it that clever marketing is fooling people into buying Sonos, or have I missed something?
I still have a HiFi separates system which consists of a 20 year old Technics Class AAA amp, a 12 year old Misson CD player and some B&W 500 series speakers.
The thing is, it sounds great, but does look pretty old fashioned now.
So I'm hearing about how great Sonos is so decided to pop in to my local Apple shop to look at the range.
After a quick demo, my conclusion was, Sonos sucks. How did I ever think that one single speaker could compete with a HiFi. No chest thumping base and no stereo sound due to one speaker. Ok, you can add further speakers, but how in the hell can anyone justify £800 minimum for something that can only stream music and doesn't sound as good as my old fashioned HiFi which probably wouldn't fetch more than £200 on eBay.
Is it that clever marketing is fooling people into buying Sonos, or have I missed something?
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I’m not planning on multi room.
Perhaps he didn’t demonstrate the full potential, but I did wonder how the speaker would handle Slayer, not that I listen to them so much these days
It's not as good as playing my vinyl records on a dedicated hifi but for making playlists, parties etc it's hard to beat. Also the smartphone controller app makes the expensive controllers pretty much redundant. I still buy CDs but rip them as soon as I get them and stick them in the cupboard (being a child of the vinyl era I still cling on to having something physical - I still hanker for proper bi-fold album covers)
You can start by buying a NAS and storing your music on there. You can store the music in different formats & so a careful choice of what system you want to use.
I use a programme that stores in MP3 and Lossless at the same time to two different folders
The simplest way to stream is an ipod Touch/ iphone or Android phone with a free app called mediaconnect.
you either buy a docking station or a 3.5mm to 3.5mm wire for your headphones to Aux Input.
switch on a laptop , download the app and see how your phone will stream the music in STEREO for free.
NAS is the basis of your music & video storage.
Even better is the xbox/PS 3 , blu ray and tv will all play off it !!!!!!!!!!!
I still like to buy CD's because I value the physical product more than an mp3 file, but I will also on occasion still download mp3's, be it on my PC or iTunes.
What I want to do is play my CD's and mp3's on one system, at a decent volume level and in stereo rather than through a single speaker in my living room.
It would be cool if I could somehow hook my iPad up to my TV or blue-ray player which has a built in 2.1 speakers as a temporary measure: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SC-BTT262EBK-Blu-ray-Home-Cinema/dp/B004TEYFUE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Pretty sure it does, but I dont want to use headphones
Thanks. I didn't relise it would be that simple.
So no reason whatsoever to waste money replacing HiFi's.
The main issue is that most things like a CD player or turntable have fixed output levels whereas a headphone output by it's very nature is variable. So you have to balance where you set the iPad volume and the amp volume controls to.
There are a number of different ways to do this. One is to set the amp volume control to about the same setting as you would have it on when listening to a CD or whatever. Set the iPad volume to minimum initially then plug it into the amp. Then turn up the volume on the iPad only (don't touch the amp volume) to get the "loudness" out of the speakers you normally listen at.
Ideally you don't want the amp volume control at 90-100% full as that probably means the iPad volume is too low and may have noise and hum at an unacceptable level. And you don't want the amp volume control below 20% either as that means the iPad volume is too high and may introduce unwanted distortion.
Bit of a balancing act but with care it is a perfectly acceptable way to get audio out of the iPad into a stereo system. Might not satisfy the outer fringes of the audiophile community though
I now have the jack to aux cable.... It works a dream!
So simple. I was thinking I had to spend a bomb.
My HiFi will Carry on living into the new age