Multi room wireless

CantGetNoSleep

I'm looking for a multi-room sound system to add to my HTPC and also use to stream music from Spotify / YouTube etc by phone.

It is a small apartment - I need two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a big L-shaped type living room. My initial thoughts were Sonos Play 1 & 3 as I'm copying a friend who works with this type of system.

Any additional thoughts or suggestions? Are there any Chinese or other types of set-ups I should be looking at?

Budget about 1000e

akaSol

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

I'm looking for a multi-room sound system to add to my HTPC and also use to stream music from Spotify / YouTube etc by phone.

It is a small apartment - I need two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a big L-shaped type living room. My initial thoughts were Sonos Play 1 & 3 as I'm copying a friend who works with this type of system.

Any additional thoughts or suggestions? Are there any Chinese or other types of set-ups I should be looking at?

Budget about 1000e

As a one piece system Sonos are nearly flawless and a great choice if you don't want complicated setups, they have the best music library support over any other competitor, and you can cast nearly any music to them from your phone / pc. Sonos however has no 24bit support (a major drawback if you are a 24bit enthusiast). You can't stream YouTube to them to the best of my knowledge.
There will always be Chinese copy's but nothing like there support structure.

faceman

I have a range of Sonos speakers at home and hands down its the best home audio /theatre system I've owned. I'm a bit of a snob too when it comes to home entertainment

Downside with Sonos though it's incredibly expensive so I've had to invest over a couple of years. I've a playbar, Sub, Play 5 and two Play 1's.

You can stream numerous music options over it but not YouTube directly. This isn't a problem for me though as I've a smart tv so when I have YouTube open its playing through the Sonos anyway.

You can also wirelessly connect your Sonos to your computer.

The Play5 also has a 3.5mm audio in connection so you could connect a laptop or phone to it. Before I got the playbar, I ran my tv through it.

Highly recommend the system but it's very expensive.

CantGetNoSleep

Thanks for the replies - I use a HTPC as my main music player so having a 3.5mm connection would be great.

Agree on the cost being pretty steep, willing to look at others (usability amd functionality is equally important as sound quality) but will go for Sonos if I can't get the same with significant savings from another brand.

akaSol

Well any miri cast/upnp enabled speaker will work. From the htpc side it's something like foobar or wmp, just so long as it's able to stream via upnp.
Sonos win out for a couple of reasons : you can set them to play all at once or separate. You also only need to use the app to play from source (Spotify/radio etc ) and they play until told other wise.

In a low fi world they are the best option

CantGetNoSleep

For anyone else looking at this, one of the best alternatives I have found to Sonos is to use Google Cast - the advantage being that it is possible to add existing speakers using a Chromecast Audio, or recently released Google Cast enabled speakers.

I am going to buy three Chromecasts to see how it works before deciding for sure to go for this or Sonos. The Google option may be a slightly less restrictive ecosystem & may evolve more in the future. Cost-wise it seems to work out a bit cheaper (or much cheaper if you have speakers). Not sure how it will work out functionality wise.

Mr AV

Has anyone tried Heos by Denon as a multiroom audio option ?

akaSol

Mr AV wrote: »

Has anyone tried Heos by Denon as a multiroom audio option ?

Very much a twin of sonos, series 2 supports 24bit audio (local only I believe) and comes with Bluetooth . I've played with them before it's a nice eco system but again limited in library functionality. Occasionally if you where to quick in switching tracks it would refuse to play.
The "3" are underwhelming while the bigger ones 5/7 are very close to the Sonos sound and pricing , I would prefer Sonos given the option of the two.
Ultimately it's a eco system choice, Sonos have been making them (wire free) speaker's longer but Denon have a long Hifi lineage.

CantGetNoSleep

Seems more expensive than the Sonos Play 1 too?

akaSol

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

Seems more expensive than the Sonos Play 1 too?

They are slightly more expensive , Bluetooth and 24bit is a good reason why.
Again not a seller for me as bluetooth is a terrible sound medium and Sonos does sound that much better.

CantGetNoSleep

akaSol wrote: »

They are slightly more expensive , Bluetooth and 24bit is a good reason why.
Again not a seller for me as bluetooth is a terrible sound medium and Sonos does sound that much better.

One of the things I spotted when looking was that there are many alternatives to Sonos which is considered the premium market leader, but almost all of them (LG, Denon, Bose, Samsung etc) were pretty much the same cost. Chromecast was the only thing potentially offering the same functionality for a clearly lower cost. Might be a market opportunity for a competitor on price

CantGetNoSleep

Pure jongo is an exception to what I say above on price maybe