Wireless Whole House Audio

[damacman]

So, I've got three systems - one in the office (upstairs), one in the family room (downstairs), and one in the garage. Here's what I'd like to do:

1 - Set up the family room system as the main hub. It has every source I need. Vinyl, CD, SACD, RTR, Cassette, AM/FM, Tidal, Cable Music Services, etc. [My external hard drive in the office has a ton of 320 kbps files and I can access it from the Oppo UDP-205 in the main zone, so I'm covered there.]

2 - Set up the office and garage as zones - the systems in each have aux inputs available.

I don't need any streaming services built into the devices. Nor do I need a bunch of complexity. I want to:

Select the source in the family room, set the office and garage systems to their AUX inputs, and have the same music in all zones. I'd like to make use of my home network (modern ASUS wireless router) but am not opposed to Bluetooth.

I do not store music on my iPhone nor do I desire to. It is not necessary for any of the secondary zones to have Bluetooth connectivity but I'm not opposed to the main hub having that.

Obviously, I'm into high fidelity or I'd just buy three of those Bose Soundtouch doodads. [And that may be exactly what I need . . . ?]

So, what do I need?

[W9TR]

One way would be to get 3 Sonos Connects. They have a “line in” feature so the main system tape out would use this to get non-file based music (vinyl, rtr, tuner, etc) into your system. The other zones would simply use the connects as sources. You could manage the whole thing from a computer or phone.

Not the cheapest setup, but one that I know will allow you to cast your analog sources to other zones. If you had all file-based sources it would be way easier, but much less fun!

[damacman]

Thank you kind sir. I did look at Sonos - many reviews from owners who say they're bad about product support over the long haul. I'm not super keen on buying it all twice ...

Any truth to this?

[crwilli]

Sonos did announce they would stop supporting certain legacy products. Ones that have been around 10 years. They created a return policy and incentivized customers to purchase newer and more capable (digital capabilities).

They received a large backlash from customers with those legacy products (me being one of them) and have committed to allowing older products to continue to work on their new operating systems.

I believe if you purchase new Sonos products, you will be happy with their performance. While you can use ROON to control your zones, the Sonos App is easy to use and functionally excellent.

I wouldn’t hesitate to use them now.

[damacman]

Well that's the kind of answer I was looking for. Thank you!

[W9TR]

Sonos has deprecated some of their products which are now over 15 years old. They just don’t have the processing power to handle some of the newer Sonos features.

Their solution is to bifurcate the product line - with two different apps, basically old and new. You can add new products to an old system but you don’t get the latest feature set. You can’t add old products to a new system.

The Sonos Connect (aka Zone Player 90) that I recommended are now selling for around $125 on eBay as people upgrade to the new equivalent, the Sonos Port @ $450.

[doggiehowser]

A modern take on the Sonos is the new Bowers Formation Audio Box which creates their own wireless mesh network. They too have a Line In - which you can connect to a Tape Out from your main listening area.

And in the other rooms, the Line Out to the amplifiers of those zones.

[W9TR]

The Formation series looks interesting, especially hi-rez capability.

Also the Blusound Node 2i has analog inputs and does hi-Rez.

Here is a recent article that compares the older Sonos Connect with the Sonos Port.

http://www.techhive.com/article/3546...eview.amp.html

[damacman]

Originally Posted by W9TR

The Formation series looks interesting, especially hi-rez capability.

Also the Blusound Node 2i has analog inputs and does hi-Rez.

Here is a recent article that compares the older Sonos Connect with the Sonos Port.

http://www.techhive.com/article/3546...eview.amp.html

Well thank you! I definitely do not want Ports. I don't need a complex operating system with loads of DSP. I'll research the others.

[W9TR]

I use a bunch of Connects for whole house Audio. They are simple to set up and inexpensive on the secondary market.

The risk is that Sonos decides to not support them anymore. They tried that once before to tremendous blowback so I don’t think they’ll try it again. I guess the risk is there with any connected product though.

As an aside, the Sonos Connects are part of my JRiver media setup. They show up as DLNA renderers. There may be a way to get your analog sources into the JRiver ecosystem with an A/D converter that outputs USB and a PC front end, but I have not tried it yet.

For file based audio, JRiver is hard to beat for the price.