Are airplay speakers reliable in average house

Flaccus

Thinking of getting the b&w z2 airplay speaker for the bedroom. Had considered a decent bluetooth speaker which does not need to piggy back on your wifi network. However seeing as iphone 6 or air 2 does not support bluetooth aptx and airplay is uncompressed, I think the z2 would be better quality.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bowers-Wilkins-Wireless-Lightning-Connector/dp/B00BUGPA94/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420764581&sr=8-1&keywords=B%26W+Z2

However a lot of people complain about airplay dropouts. I am wondering how prevalent this would be in a typical Irish household with the speaker in the bedroom and the wifi router in the hall table downstairs ?

keith_d99

Flaccus wrote: »

Thinking of getting the b&w z2 airplay speaker for the bedroom. Had considered a decent bluetooth speaker which does not need to piggy back on your wifi network. However seeing as iphone 6 or air 2 does not support bluetooth aptx and airplay is uncompressed, I think the z2 would be better quality.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bowers-Wilkins-Wireless-Lightning-Connector/dp/B00BUGPA94/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420764581&sr=8-1&keywords=B%26W+Z2

However a lot of people complain about airplay dropouts. I am wondering how prevalent this would be in a typical Irish household with the speaker in the bedroom and the wifi router in the hall table downstairs ?

I use both bluetooth and wifi airplay ... bluetooth is limited by range (you get dropouts when you leave the room for example).

Airplay over wifi works very well for me ... I never experience dropouts - however the wifi signal where the Airplay device lives is strong.

I would say it depends how good your wifi signal is upstairs. If it's low - just get a wifi repeater such as an Airport Express. I use an Airport Express instead of the wifi on my router (whether that is a factor for zero dropouts I cannot be sure).

Any other questions, let me know.

Airplay is one of the best things Apple have ever done!
Keith.

Zcott

+1 to the previous post. AirPlay has been rock solid for me.

IamMetaldave

I find Airplay to be excellent (to AppleTV etc). Bluetooth is a nightmare though, constant drops from my Macbook Air, a little more reliable when it's my iPhone.

Flaccus

Thanks for the advice guys. My wifi signal is very strong in this room so reckon airplay is the way to go. The b&w z2 for it's size and the fact it's below 200 euro now, sounds like a good idea to me. It also has the bonus of a charging dock and you can also play your music directly. Tried it out today in Compub and was able to fit my iphone 6 in the dock with the apple leather case on. Only issue is you have to be careful docking it as the lightning connector is at an angle so you risk damaging the aluminium on the bottom of the phone. Still I think on a scale of 1 to 10 this is a go.

Incidentally how does airport express work ? Seeing as the room is at the top of the stairs and the wifi router is in the hall at the bottom of the stairs, I wouldn't even be sure where I could put an airport express if I did get airplay dropouts. Also, I have homeplugs so anyway to avail of using those for airplay ?

flyguy

If you're looking for a good speaker I would go for sonos. I'm no expert but from what I read their speakers are amongst the best, I think the one I have is excellent.
What I like most is the user experience, with most Bluetooth/wifi speakers you can only play what's on your phone and -annoyingly- if you get a call the music stops. Sonos uses it's own wifi (via bridge) and will just keep playing. It can play from your phone or any other device that has music on it and is conneted or will stream music direct from internet (eg spotify). If you leave/ or switch off your phone the music will keep playing (if you want). You can also expand to multiple speakers which can play the same music exactly in sync or diffent music in any room. You can keep expanding it, create stereo pairs in a room or even Dolby surround. Highly recommend it.

Flaccus

Yes Sonos is another possibility for me, even though it needs a bridge.

Thinking of these now but a little pricey at nearly 400 euro.

http://nocs.se/collections/all/products/ns2-air-monitors-v2

They are only a little bigger than audio engine a2's, proper stereo separation but they support spotify direct, airplay, blue tooth and best of all airplay direct so you don't even need a router to use airplay with them.

flyguy

You can use sonos without bridge especially if you've only one speaker. If you want the full functionality like 3.1 or 5.1 you need a bridge. http://blog.sonos.com/news/introducing-an-even-simpler-sonos/
I'd say you could pick up a bridge for a few quid on eBay though...