Small wireless speakers.

[Electro]

A friend of mine wants to have some music in his new kitchen that is being extended.

He asked me to sort out a cheapish solution for him with a maximum budget of around the £500 mark but preferably less.

He has an oppo 105 eu universal payer in a stereo hifi system in his front room and my idea is to use that as a source for 2 or 3 small wireless mono on wall active speakers dotted around where needed and maybe also connect to his wifi to listen to radio and spotify etc .

Is there a plug in USB device that can be plugged into the oppo and the computer to send music to the wireless speakers and what type of speakers would be best?

Are there any other solutions that would be better for the budget?

He is not to worried about having perfect sound quality or having it in stereo it is just for background music .

Any ideas and recommendations are welcome as I know very little about how these systems work.

Thanks in advance .*smile*

 

[paulkebab]

Bluetooth speakers for a different application and not heard any, but they can be linked together in pairs at least, not sure if they can all go beyond that. What I recently did was make my phone and pad 'see' my network drives and play to a BT speaker I borrowed which is exactly what I want to do in one scenario; my other is irrelevant but that might work for him. There are also standalone BT transmitters which have optical and phono inputs so one of those could plug directly into his Oppo or amp and transmit to his speakers, and from what I've researched the more expensive ones are worth the money in terms of dropout and quality of sound.

 

[tino]

I can recommend the Cabasse Stream 1. These are/were £499 and you can probably find one for quite a bit less than £100 brand new - they do crop up from time to time on that well known marketplace. The sound is fantastic for a speaker of this type. It looks amazing and can be placed horizontally, vertically or hung on a wall. Best bit about it is that it acts as a DLNA server and can stream music to itself or to any other DLNA renderer from a USB stick that's plugged into it. It supports internet radio (vTuner) and streaming services like Spotify, Qobuz, Deezer, Tidal. And it has Bluetooth aptX support and aux input. Downsides ... it doesn't have an optical input, or Airplay, it mixes stereo into mono (but none the worse for it), and is a little larger than average. It HiFi Choice magazine it won a group test again the Sonos Play 5, Bluesound Pulse and others.

 

[CnoEvil]

I've heard Kef Muo...and was very impressed.

 

[paulkebab]

and the current Dali Katch are two I will be having a listen to - and the Audio Pro T5 at half their price got a very good review as did the slightly more expensive T3 so that's my three-to-be pretty soon.

 

[tino]

Also a very nice Airplay speaker which can be found new for £60 (down from £350)

 

[tino]

You should be able to find one of these for less than £200. Does the lot and sounds very good also. nice looking contemporary design.

 

[ClarkNovember]

The OP's question:

"Is there a plug in USB device that can be plugged into the oppo and the computer to send music to the wireless speakers and what type of speakers would be best?"

Is something that not many Bluetooth/wireless speakers offer other than via a 3.5mm input which I think would be a bit clunky: would you want a wireless speaker sat in the same location as the existing Hi-Fi system?

I vaguely remember seeing a wireless speaker system that came with a USB dongle for your laptop but I'm not sure it is still on the market.

For me the neatest solution would be to get a Sonos Connect to sit alongside the Oppo and connect via RCA and then Sonos play:1s located where you want to hear music. At the current price levels for Sonos, this would work out quite a bit over budget (unless you can nab a second hand connect at a good price). Deals may be available on similar multi room systems from Samsung, LG et al that essentially do the same thing.

 

[paulkebab]

a USB BT dongle will cover that. I was merely explaining that there are optical units if his PC has optical out, the Oppo will most defiinitely have. OP could get two and have £450 left for a nice speaker.

 

[Electro]

Thanks for all the suggestions it gives me loads to look at, keep them coming if you have any more ideas and maybe some links to relevant equipment.

Cheers *good*

 

[ClarkNovember]

I haven't seen a Bluetooth system transmitting to multiple speakers (so can't vouch for the usability) but if you have a couple of old speakers hanging around, you could use something like the vamp (link below) plus the transmitter mentioned by paulkebab and come in well below your £500 budget.

http://www.thevamp.co.uk/