Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
I don't know that I've ever made a post like this before, but I've just bought some new sound system gear that has my head spinning. In a GOOD way!
This is NOT FOR AUDIOPHILES - this is strictly consumer level gear and I'm sure would never satisfy the urges of those looking for the ultimate in high end sound.
But for anyone who's mostly playing digitized music off of a smart-phone or tablet or via your computer and who just wants a convenient way to have your music where-ever you want it in your house as quickly and easily as possible, and who's sick of having a bunch of stereo components sitting around not really being used....
It's just a series of wireless speakers made by an outfit called Sonos. They're are three levels from sort of large to quite small, with one nice intermediate size. They also make a TV soundbar and a sub-woofer but I haven't and probably won't try those. But you basically either plug one of the speaker units or a cheap little "bridge" unit directly into your wireless router via an ethernet cable and that first component creates another parallel wi-fi network just for your music. It links up to any of the music on your computer (and/or any other computers on your wireless network) and to Pandora, Spotify, or any other online service you use, as well as giving you access to zillions of streaming radio stations. Then you just stick other speakers anywhere else you want them around your place, take about 2 minutes to connect each to your Sonos wireless network, and then you can play anything you want on any one of or combination of the speakers and control it from ANY of your devices - phone, tablet, computer, whatever. You can play one thing on three or four speakers on the main floor of the house, while someone else plays something else in another room in another part of the house on however many speakers they have there. The individual speakers, other than the smallest, put out sort of stereo sound, although it's from a single source, so it's sort of like boombox stereo, without much separation. But you can combine any two like speakers into a stereo pair if you want true stereo. Or not, if you don't. The flexibility and ease of controlling this system are simply mind-blowing. In a way that I'm sure I'll take for granted within a couple of months, but for now I'm totally tripping on how cool the whole setup is.
The system is not totally without it's hiccups - it can have trouble with some routers. And Macs are evidently somewhat reticent about sharing their musical libraries. I had to spend an hour or so on the phone with the tech support folks to get both my iTunes library and my wife's to both sync up to the system. But once those initial wrinkles were ironed out within the first couple of days, the thing has been seamless and and an absolute joy to have around the house. Oh, and if you have some really nice speakers and a really nice amp to play them through, you can also buy a component to hook that setup into your Sonos system - we had a few not terribly great speakers around the house that we also got rid of and the Sonos speakers are at least as good as any of the non-audiophile gear I've owned through the years.
This is one of those developments that's just made my head spin. I believe both Bose and Samsung have somewhat similar competing products (although I think they rely totally on your existing wi-fi network instead of creating a separate one, which should have both upsides and downsides). But I recycled my receiver and CD changer and speakers and a few freestanding radios around the house and I'm just wondering how long it's gonna take me to get rid of my whole CD collection.
I have absolutely no connection with this company and I don't necessarily endorse this system over the competing ones - I'm just an immensely satisfied user. Seems like yet another digital era game changer of the digital era we're living in these days. But one I'm enjoying immensely!
-Ray
This is NOT FOR AUDIOPHILES - this is strictly consumer level gear and I'm sure would never satisfy the urges of those looking for the ultimate in high end sound.
But for anyone who's mostly playing digitized music off of a smart-phone or tablet or via your computer and who just wants a convenient way to have your music where-ever you want it in your house as quickly and easily as possible, and who's sick of having a bunch of stereo components sitting around not really being used....
It's just a series of wireless speakers made by an outfit called Sonos. They're are three levels from sort of large to quite small, with one nice intermediate size. They also make a TV soundbar and a sub-woofer but I haven't and probably won't try those. But you basically either plug one of the speaker units or a cheap little "bridge" unit directly into your wireless router via an ethernet cable and that first component creates another parallel wi-fi network just for your music. It links up to any of the music on your computer (and/or any other computers on your wireless network) and to Pandora, Spotify, or any other online service you use, as well as giving you access to zillions of streaming radio stations. Then you just stick other speakers anywhere else you want them around your place, take about 2 minutes to connect each to your Sonos wireless network, and then you can play anything you want on any one of or combination of the speakers and control it from ANY of your devices - phone, tablet, computer, whatever. You can play one thing on three or four speakers on the main floor of the house, while someone else plays something else in another room in another part of the house on however many speakers they have there. The individual speakers, other than the smallest, put out sort of stereo sound, although it's from a single source, so it's sort of like boombox stereo, without much separation. But you can combine any two like speakers into a stereo pair if you want true stereo. Or not, if you don't. The flexibility and ease of controlling this system are simply mind-blowing. In a way that I'm sure I'll take for granted within a couple of months, but for now I'm totally tripping on how cool the whole setup is.
The system is not totally without it's hiccups - it can have trouble with some routers. And Macs are evidently somewhat reticent about sharing their musical libraries. I had to spend an hour or so on the phone with the tech support folks to get both my iTunes library and my wife's to both sync up to the system. But once those initial wrinkles were ironed out within the first couple of days, the thing has been seamless and and an absolute joy to have around the house. Oh, and if you have some really nice speakers and a really nice amp to play them through, you can also buy a component to hook that setup into your Sonos system - we had a few not terribly great speakers around the house that we also got rid of and the Sonos speakers are at least as good as any of the non-audiophile gear I've owned through the years.
This is one of those developments that's just made my head spin. I believe both Bose and Samsung have somewhat similar competing products (although I think they rely totally on your existing wi-fi network instead of creating a separate one, which should have both upsides and downsides). But I recycled my receiver and CD changer and speakers and a few freestanding radios around the house and I'm just wondering how long it's gonna take me to get rid of my whole CD collection.
I have absolutely no connection with this company and I don't necessarily endorse this system over the competing ones - I'm just an immensely satisfied user. Seems like yet another digital era game changer of the digital era we're living in these days. But one I'm enjoying immensely!
-Ray