Newcomer advice please

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Anonymous

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Dear oh dear, no not posting from iPad or iPhone and must be only person not to own an apple product!

Anyway my post was..........

I currently have a TEAC Reference system with B&W 601 speakers in a lounge with the usual load of CD's and a smaller mini system in a conservatory. CD's get moved about the house and are never where you want them etc etc etc.

With DAB etc I think it about time to upgrade my system and am keen on the idea of wireless music from the brief bit of research I have done. The Sonos system looks like it would do me fine.

My thoughts were 1 unit in each of my 2 rooms and then the bridge thing linked to my router (as it is nowhere near my Hi Fi).

I have a few questions though before I jump in!

1. I like the speakers I have and the amp to me seems fine. Should I get one of the smaller Sonos units and retain my amp and speakers or replace? Pro's and cons's? Any recommendations on units generally?

2. What happens with all my CD's? I have loads and the Sonos doesn't have a slot! Do I get some sort of device to rip and store them all on which I can connect to the Sonos so that my music can be shared between the 2 units?

3. Controller - as I commented I don't have an iPad, iPhone, iPod or smart phone but looking at the web the Sonos Controller is about the same price as an iPod do you just go for the iPod or tablet controller approach as you get extra benefits from these?

Basically I'm after a bit of help and guidance so I can make some sort of informed decision as after 13 odd years the technology has moved on a bit!

Ed
 

Lee H

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Hi Ed,

I love my Sonos and I wouldn't be without it now. If you're happy with your current speakers/amp then keep them and plug a Sonos in to them.

With your CDs. The best thing to do is buy a NAS drive. You can rip all your CDs to the NAS in the format flavour of your choice. I use FLAC, but you can use other formats. The beuaty of FLAC (and any lossless codec) is that you can convert it to something else later if you like. The NAS then becomes your library. You don't need the PC/Laptop to be on to access your music. NAS prices (like anything else) vary wildly. Mine was around £130 for 500GB, it's expandable and I've never had a problem.

For the controller - I have the Sonos CR200, an iPad and an iPhone! I think an iPod would give you more flexibility and still work as a controller. You could even look at a refurb iPad.

Hope this helps
 

Lee H

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Also, you may want to cut and paste your question in to either Hi-fi or computer based music for more views, responses and opinions
 
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Anonymous

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Thanks for your comments.

So a NAS is what my IT Mgr calls a "brick" ie just a big standalone hard disc. Presumably you connect it up to your PC to do the one off exercise in getting all your music off the CD and into the box? See what you mean on price though seem to vary massively.

In terms of the Sonos I could go down the following route then.........

1. Connect Zoneplayer 90 to existing amp and speakers then get a Play 5 or Play 3 as a standalone unit in my other room.

2. Connect Zoneplayer 120 to existing speakers then get a Play 5 or Play 3 as a standalone unit in my other room.

3. Just get to Play 5's or Play 3's.

Favour option 1 or 2 is the amp in a Sonos 120 good as it would make whole think look better if I didn't retain my existing AMP.

Ed
 

Lee H

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Hi,

A NAS is a Networked drive, so you don't need to conenct it to your PC at all as it can do it all over your wi-fi - although it may well be quicker for that first big ripping session to do so.

Musically, it's unlikely that an SP3 or SP5 will better what you have. I have a ZP90 in the living room plugged in to my AVR and a ZP120 in the dining room powering a set of speakers. For dining room duty it's fine, for more detail you may want a dedicated amp though.
 
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Anonymous

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If you get a Sonos you can connect a NAS drive directly to the Sonos. You need to ensure the Sonos is hard wired toyour internet. This way you can then play your music directly from the NAS drive through the Sonos to your amplifier without having to have your PC on all the time. When ripping CD's also you can rip them on the laptop and transfer them directly to the NAS drive vire your home wireless service because the NAS is already on your home network so again you don't have to unconnect the NAS from the Sonos and connect it to the laptop to transfer files. Of course you can do this if you want but in my case the NAS is permanently stuffed down the back of the telly and out of sight.

A NAS is a standalone hard drive yes, but a bit more than that as it sits on your home network and can be accessed by other devices on the network meaning anyone can access it without you having to hard wire to the laptop you want to use with it, it is in effect a cut dwn cumputer with a hard drive inside

IF you want say Play3 or Play5 units in other rooms you need to do one of a number of things

1. Hard wre them to the Sonos - dumb idea as you would have cables everywhere

Not sure about ZP120 amp quality, maybe someone else could help.

Maybe you could advise how much cash you have spare to spend?

2. Get a Zone Bridge (about £40 now I think - just gone down in price). This is a box (small) that sits by the main Sonos unit and wirelessly beams music from the base ZP90 station to the Pla3 or Play5 units throughout the house

3. There is an alternative to Option 1 which is to use Powerline wherby you send the data via your own internal mains cabling to wherevr you want it. Its a specially adapted mains plug with an ethernet socket which connects to the ZP90. You then get another one which plugs in next to your Play3/Play5 and you run a short ethernet cable from that plug to the S3/S5.

Sorry this is probably information overload!

One last thing, not ALL NAS drives work with Sonos. I tried an Iomega one and it simply wouldn't work. The Buffalo Linkstation I have works fine though. The Buffalo also has a USB socket on the back where you can piggyback a standard USB hard drive and back your NAS files on it. This piggyback drive does not have to be a NAS drive (cheaper).
 

The_Lhc

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nick8858 said:
2. Get a Zone Bridge (about £40 now I think - just gone down in price). This is a box (small) that sits by the main Sonos unit

No it doesn't, for one thing there's no such thing as "the main Sonos unit". The Zonebridge doesn't have to sit next to any other Sonos device, it just needs to be within wireless range of them (otherwise there isn't much point having a Zonebridge).

ONE Sonos unit needs to be hard wired to your home network, that can any Zoneplayer or it can be a Zonebridge. You can also use a Zonebridge wirelessly to extend the Sonos mesh network, without it being wired to your home network (that's how I'm using mine).

and wirelessly beams music from the base ZP90 station to the Pla3 or Play5 units throughout the house

Again incorrect, if the Zonebridge is wired to the network any other Zoneplayer will use it as the final hop to the music source (whether that's a NAS, PC or the internet), said Zoneplayers will use the most efficient path they can find (ideally, this isn't always the case) to the source and will generally ignore any other Zoneplayer if required.

If you actually have a Zonebridge sitting right next to a Zoneplayer and either one of them is wired to your network then you really don't need the bridge at all.

You also don't need to plug the NAS directly into a Zoneplayer, it can plug into the home network and work fine, although connecting it directly to a Zoneplayer can help in certain situations if a router is struggling to cope with the data load between the NAS and the Sonos devices.
 

BillDay66

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Hi Edy

Let me simplify this a bit - As you said the router is mowhere near your HIFI - What you will need is a Zonebridge and a Network Attached Storage box wired into your router. Then you can have any combination of ZP90, ZP120, Play5 / 3 anywhere else in your house with no further wires other than mains, involved. It is preferable if possible to wire the Sonos players into your network, but it will still work wirelessly - thats what the bridge is doing.

You rip all your cds into your pc, then transfer them to the NAS. Point the sonos in the direction of your NAS and thats it, easy!

If you have no controller, you can control it from your pc / laptop to start with but a much better option would be an i-thing of your choice, cant quite see the point of the CR200 at twice the price ish of an ipod?

Hope this helps.

Oh and btw its brilliant!
 

BillDay66

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The_Lhc said:
nick8858 said:
2. Get a Zone Bridge (about £40 now I think - just gone down in price). This is a box (small) that sits by the main Sonos unit

No it doesn't, for one thing there's no such thing as "the main Sonos unit". The Zonebridge doesn't have to sit next to any other Sonos device, it just needs to be within wireless range of them (otherwise there isn't much point having a Zonebridge).

ONE Sonos unit needs to be hard wired to your home network, that can any Zoneplayer or it can be a Zonebridge. You can also use a Zonebridge wirelessly to extend the Sonos mesh network, without it being wired to your home network (that's how I'm using mine).

and wirelessly beams music from the base ZP90 station to the Pla3 or Play5 units throughout the house

Again incorrect, if the Zonebridge is wired to the network any other Zoneplayer will use it as the final hop to the music source (whether that's a NAS, PC or the internet), said Zoneplayers will use the most efficient path they can find (ideally, this isn't always the case) to the source and will generally ignore any other Zoneplayer if required.

If you actually have a Zonebridge sitting right next to a Zoneplayer and either one of them is wired to your network then you really don't need the bridge at all.

You also don't need to plug the NAS directly into a Zoneplayer, it can plug into the home network and work fine, although connecting it directly to a Zoneplayer can help in certain situations if a router is struggling to cope with the data load between the NAS and the Sonos devices.

beat me to it :cry:
 
A

Anonymous

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Thanks for the corrections Billy and Lhc!

Guess thats why this forum exists

Can agree 100% with bot though, it is brilliant!
 

Lee H

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The_Lhc said:
BillDay66 said:
It is preferable if possible to wire the Sonos players into your network,

Although it is worth confirming that your router supports Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) first, otherwise this will cause no end of problems!

Indeed. A list of routers can be found on the Sonos website
 
A

Anonymous

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Thanks to all for help and assistance much appreciated and now know plan going forward.

Final question regarding ripping of CD's to NAS. Anyone recommend any particualr prog for this or just use windows media player? Someone commented on file formats does this make a difference and if so what should I convert them to?

Ed
 
A

Anonymous

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If using a NAS it means you don't have to compress the files so much so go for FLAC format. You can do WAV which is supposed to be absolutely unadulterated but the track name information (TAG) can sometimes be difficult to edit, with FLAC it is easier

As for software DBPoweramp is a poular one and I use the full fat version which is about £30. It finds the album artwork for you (provided you are connected to the internet). Takes maybe 20 minutes per CD but its fairly passive so you can watch TV etc whilst it is doing its thing
 

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