Dining room hifi/dock your opinions please.

[john1000000boy]

Hi,

Looking for some opinions on a micro system/speaker dock.

The models that interest must be airplay compatable so i can come in and play music from my ipad or iphone 4.

I was away on holiday and the house had the new Denon micro system that had 5* and an award this year. I was really impressed by it using the usb connection playing lossless from my ipad. However- no airplay support. Cd playback is not essential and i dont get DAB where i am.

The other option was a Zeppellin air. Only had experience with the mini, any opinions??

The final option is the 2 micros with airplay either the Marantz M-cr603 or the Denon Ceol. Anyone had any experience with these?? If so what speakers did u partner with them?? Bookshelf/standmounters would be the only option for me.

I suppose including speakers all these systems are roughly the same budget barring the Marantz which may be worth the premium??

The system is to sit on a dining room dresser which is about 2.3m wide. I am not going to be able to get too particular about speaker position, unlike my Home Cinema :shhh: . And just want a nice settup for general listening. Can any of these systems play music from a NAS as this may be something for the future??

Many thanks and look forward to your views

John

 

[jjbomber]

Zeppelin Air is £100 off for a reconditioned unit at Audio T

JBL Onbeats Extreme is £350 at Richer Sounds and would get my vote. It is not Airplay but you can Bluetooth it from your Apple device. Both the iphone 4 and ipad will 'sit' on the unit anyway.

DEnon gives you two choices. As you like the micro system, a DM39 with a seperate Airplay or Bluetooth unit would suffice. The easier way is the Ceol, but it is you who would need to listen, rather than us.

 

[Anonymous]

Perfectly happy with my Bose Soundock, but only use it for background music rather than serious listening, goes loud though.

i've seen the Geneva docks get good reviews in this mag.

 

[john1000000boy]

Thanks for your comments guys, the soundock is good for background music, do u ever think that it is really impressive with certain songs no matter where it or u r sitting in the room. Did you try any other docks? I know I will need to go demo them myself.

Do you think that the docks on the market fill the room with sound and are not as fussy about positioning as a micro system??.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

The sounddock does ok. The thing you notice is that because of it size, while it goes loud enough, the scale and sound stage are not fantastic, but hey it's not a full blown separates system. I'm perfectly happy with it.