School me on SONOS and other home streaming systems

lol thanks Brad. It was a hard thing to recommend when Spotify was half busted, the user interface looked like 1995, and phone control required its own app (all it was really good for was organizing of your own files), but these have really come along.

morrisp:
I was curious to look at some all-in-one receivers (you just add speakers and any physical media sources). Criteria:
-Stereo (not surround)
-Built-in preamp for a turntable
-Decent headphone output
-Some internet capability (basically, can it be a player in Spotify Connect)
-HDMI ports (easily hook up a TV and, say, a Raspberry Pi, this way you wouldn't have to buy a fancy audio processor for the Pi)
-Bluetooth
-a few analog audio inputs besides

Just getting all that done decently well...
What's coming up on a few sites is the Marantz NR1200. 600 US dollars. It's not the good Bluetooth but that's minor if you are doing internet streaming mainly. Can't turn up any info on running fancy headphones off of it, but probably is fine for anything that isn't very high power. I'm kinda surprised to see all those features at that price from one of the bigger hifi brands.

re “streaming from wherever”.. i tried using, gulp, plex to handle my music and plexamp on my phone and.... it’s pretty great?? no way to export my itunes playlists that i can see but it does give you some default playlists based on i.e. record label, recently added etc. it also remembers playback position!

wherever you are, for your files, yeah. I read morrisp as saying streaming from whatever sources, to a living room situation?

I've got Plex going (same old laptop as the Logitech stuff) but just for video. I'm not going to get into the unspeakable things I do for out of the house. I hope I've been some use today lol

yes i think you're right about that. once nice thing about the plex server is that it can run alongside whatever else you're using (if you want) - you just point it to your Big Folder Full Of All Your Music and it will deal with it

man alive, listen to ums.

also, maffew12 is right that a lot newer integrated amps have DAC's included (DAC = the thing that processes a digital signal like from Spotify to something your amp can send to your speakers). Another option is the NAD C 328. Not sure it has the HDMI, but its got optical out.

Same price as the Marantz; both respected budget companies.

I read morrisp as saying streaming from whatever sources, to a living room situation?

That is what I meant... thanks, guys.

xp
ooh sleek. No internet and no turntable preamp though. Sounds like it has the nicer headphone amp section.

Anything that is receiving and playing digital music for you by necessity has a DAC. This NAD amp is giving you just the DAC to play with, without any built-in source for it to play anything... which is really what an audiophile would want (if not a separate DAC device). Without HDMI there, your laptop or Pi or whatnot would need something added onto it to pass audio data as optical or coaxial digital to the NAD's DAC. Chromecast audio can do this, and some Macbooks... otherwise you're looking at another pricey piece to add on. I guess optical has its advantages over HDMI or USB but that's just a bridge too far for me...

Though these amps sound pretty impressive for their price (from what I remember last time I looked), you can get pretty killer speaker amps, headphone amps, and DACs for $100 US apiece these days.

reminder that a used Airport Express, while not much chop as an access point or network extender, can receive a lossless stream from any Apple gear including a phone / iPad and put it out as optical digital or 3.5 audio (of great fidelity, in the case of the last model: https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/airport-express-audio-quality-2014.htm )

Yeah, lack of an optical audio out was a huge surprise when I got my newer Apple TV a year ago. My older one had that.

almost all the new receivers do hdmi arc now, and they just don't decide to care about compatibility w/other stuff

I have zero Atmos-capable speakers but I'm still mildly irritated the weak link in my TV -> TV -> Sonos Amp scheme is the TV. I think the ARC stuff over HDMI has to support the specific passthrough type?

I wound up buying a Sonos Move because I wanted to be able to listen to music in multiple rooms as well as outside without spending thousands on a multi room speaker setup. It’s honestly pretty good. Obviously it’s not going to do what a great stereo system does but it has more of the depth of a real speaker than any portable I’ve heard and a lot of clarity. Way better than any Bose garbage

last sentence should be Sonos' tag

does anybody actually have Bluesound? it's made by the same people that make NAD which seems interesting. certainly looks slick and has most of the streaming services integrated.

No direct experience, but in the audiophile forums I follow (to some degree) they are frequently cited as very good products to use as a music server (as DAC/streamer for Spotify, etc. and as a file server/streamer for mp3s, flacs, and other files). At higher ends, most use an outboard DAC but continue to use the Bluesound as the streamer.

No idea if Sonos or Google is chiefly to blame but the Google Assistant integration is pretty bad. We have two speakers and a chromecast on our network and you when you ask one of the speakers to play music it says "I'm sorry I can't do that here" so you always have to say 'hey google play music ON SONOS'. If you ask it to play a song it often plays a cover or other weird version that is absolutely not in the top search results on Spotify. It doesn't do volume normalising, you can't ask it to shuffle. And the sensitivity is rubbish, sometimes you have to ask it three times, sometimes it makes the 'i'm listening' bleeps when you've said something that doesn't sound anything like 'hey google'.

I decided after several years of Sonos envy that I was not going to jump into that ecosystem because I didn't want to drop all the money on all the components for a distributed system in one go and the recent hardware swapout made me feel that that was the only viable path to join since there was no longer a guarantee or expectation that I could build out a system over 2-3 years and then my parents sent me a pair of One SL speakers for Christmas, so now I am looking at a subwoofer and TV soundbar because fuck it, you got me

Best Buy gave me a 10% discount for my birthday so I now have a Sonos surround system set up ^_^

My Squeezebox 2 stopped working when I dusted it, so I bought a new power supply and it's back up and running... I stockpiled a few remotes a couple years ago, but I probably need to look into buying a couple used Squeezebox Touches to preserve the viability of my ecosystem

Huzzah!

You can probably get sorted on https://forums.slimdevices.com

i got my first hardware players last year (two Radios) but having physical buttons for this whole fuss not really such a big deal... my use of this stuff will probably outlive the gadgets.

they pop up on eBay with some frequency for around $100 (generally missing the remote and power cord)... there are many options for building RasPi-based Touch clones, but the parts for those still cost more than a used Touch

There was a big lot on the forum recently. A lot of users seem to offer up there before resorting to eBay.

I spend a lot of time there messing with server plugins but I've never checked out the marketplace threads... thanks!

oh yeah what are your favorite plugins? I've pretty much stopped tinkering.

I'm continually trying to get my weather plugins to keep working, and I use Spotty to stream from Spotify of course, also some that let me customize the album lists more to my liking (studio albums by year, then compilations, then live albums by year)

my dream was a weather plugin that would play the song of my choice when the NWS issued a severe weather warning for my area

hahaha. You're probably on the right track.

In Newfoundland that would interrupt my tunes too much.

now, all the same, and in the absence of any kind of push alert to your serving system, you could have a script that asks the weather service for alerts on your area, every x minutes, and if there is one, have the script send terminal commands to LMS to play a certain file (on every player, top volume, if you're so inclined). LMS only needs to come at the end of this, is what I'm saying. All i do with terminal commands is do some basic stuff with keyboard shortcuts. it's handy

DJP which one did you go for, Beam or Arc?

Arc, to go with the 75” tv

I also have arc+sub+2 1s

I set the surrounds to 'full' mode instead of 'ambient' for music, destroying any remnant audiophile bonafides. I am free now.

If you’ve tried it, how is the Arc alone for music? Like, is it as least as good as a stereo pair of Ones? I’ve been trying to talk myself into one and could more easily justify it if it could double as my home office sound system.

My Sonos app on the iphone is sort of glitchy -- it often lags heavily and/or doesn't display what's actually being played. The way it integrates spotify is also a little awkward and navigation can be confusing.

Ultimately, I like the Move, but I don't see myself ever going to a house-wide Sonos system. Most likely I think I'll eventually get a Sonos receiver that I can connect to a regular stereo, and then we can use the Move as an auxiliary speaker for outside or other rooms of the house while music is playing on the main stereo, as well as using it as a stand-alone.

that sounds like a good plan.

xp I haven't listened to the arc alone for music. I can give it a try tomorrow. I think the two Ones likely give you a better stereo image. I replaced two play:5s, and this was the most obvious difference. For clarity, if you get the arc, you won't use the Ones as surrounds?

Our beam serves as our living room/kitchen streamer when tv is off, brilliant sound

I think I prefer two play:1s spaced further apart over the arc alone for stereo music. The arc w/ surrounds is great for music, though.

my living room setup is a sonos amp connected to my paradigm stereo speakers I have had for some time, a monoprice sub as well. I stuck two play:1 speakers on the built-in shelves behind me and it works well!

I guess for the classic arrangement I lack a center channel, but I sit off-center a lot of the time
so...

maybe I stick a soundbar under the tv for that?

my idiot stance is I can hear move sound going back and forth, my floor wobbles at the right time, the turntable hooked in works well, and sometimes sounds fly at my face from behind me!

Thanks Sufjan. Yeah, for the time being anyway it would just be the Arc with no surrounds if I get one. I have a handful of Sonos speakers throughout the house but this was supposed to be a TV area in the basement that has also become my home office since last March. Was hoping to address both the TV and music with one system. Anything is going to be a compromise because my desk is situated in a way where I'm never going to have speakers facing me directly. I guess I should just go listen to one if I can find it in stock anywhere.

Man Alive I started out like that too, had no intention of getting more than the one speaker that I'd gotten for my wife when the stereo and Airports were too much of a hassle with her home with a newborn, but they've been multiplying and it's amazing having music throughout the house now. I did recently pick up a used final generation Connect (basically what is now the Port) for $150 so I can stream to my traditional stereo in the living room and outdoor speakers in the backyard or have my turntable playing to Sonos speakers in other rooms, it's pretty great. I do find the various music services aren't integrated as well as I'd like in the app, but with Spotify can't you cast to Sonos directly from the Spotify app?

np. The arc will be a nice upgrade for the TV, and it sounds good for music. I just think there's a fundamental limitation in the width of the stereo image from an arc alone. Perhaps, I am corny for favoring that. I agree that you should listen to one yourself, if possible. You can always grab surrounds later when on sale.

with Spotify can't you cast to Sonos directly from the Spotify app?

― early rejecter,

Yes, directly from the Sonos app also iirc

But can be an issue ito logging in simultaneously with the same account as eg youd use on yr phone

I've come around to using the sonos app. I like the way it handles adding to the queue compared to spotify. I can also play "Blinding Lights" 100x for my children on the amazon prime account from the same app while keeping my spotify record clean.

I think the Sonos Move will probably fit my sitch the best, but there’s this Bang & Olufson speaker called the Beolit 20 that also has my eye. It’s $100 more expensive and only has Bluetooth, but some other aspects of it sound attractive. Anyone here used one of these B&O speakers? Could it sound dramatically better than Sonos?

It could sound better but probably not 'dramatically'. I have the Move and love it's two-way action - Bluetooth is great for the backjyard but working via Wifi means you don't have to worry about the line-of-sight bluetooth connection. It's built-in auto EQ adjustment (Trueplay) makes a difference as well as you listen in different places.

But B&O stuff generally sounds great and their design sense is very appealing. Not $100 more appealing, mind.

Thanks. Yeah, that’s the sticking point... if they were around the same price, I may go with the B&O, but +$100 doesn’t seem worth it.

I’d never want to spend that kind of money for just a Bluetooth connection. WiFi, with Airplay at least, is an infinitely better way of working.

Yes - after poking around some more, I’m convinced I should just get into the Sonos thing. But I’m also (re-)convinced that the Five is what I should go with (to start); so I still need to gear up for spending 500.

…ugh, I shoulda geared up faster: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/09/13/apparently-sonos-speakers-werent-expensive-enough-already-so-here-are-some-helpful-price-hikes/

my airport express has been unacceptably flaky lately. has anyone got any experience with one of these things? or similar?

https://www.turntablelab.com/products/andover-audio-songbird-music-wi-fi-streamer