Sonos vs airport express?

[admin_exported]

I have 3 rooms and I want to be able access music from any one of those and also control the volume. Is it worth spending the extra money to get a Sonos system or will airport express + iphone as a controller work ok?

For a 1 bedroom flat I'm thinking I won't lose much quality if I go wireless - Am I wrong?

Thanks

 

[John Duncan]

Do you want to have different music in each room? And do you have amplifiers for each of the rooms? Because Airport Express only plays the same thing in each, and you'll need an amp and speakers for each one too. With Sonos you can buy a self-amplfied box and can play different tunes in each zone. Much more expensive though, obv.

Opinions differ on wireless versus wired - some on here find definite improvement using CAT5, I'm not so sure (but might be erring on the side of my Apple TV sounding beter than wireless Airport Express, not sure).

 

[Anonymous]

Given decent signal strength, wireless and wired should sound exactly the same. Conceptually there's little difference, except in the ethernet packets.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd just want the same track playing either in all rooms (party mode I think sonos calls it) or just in one or 2 rooms and be able to select tracks say from the bedroom that are stored on a laptop or nas drive in another room. I read somewhere that I can also set up a DAB station as a playlist on itunes and stream that too using airport express which would be great.

Any suggestions for decent speakers for the bedroom with amp or active speakers that would work? Budget would be up to £300.

 

[lordmortlock]

I have three airports and have one connected to my main system and the other two in the kitchen and bedroom connected to little Acoustic energy aego m 2.1 active speakers. I find the sound perfectly adequate for these rooms and easily hidden away. For £300 you could buy two of these systems and two airports 2nd hand - multi room tastic.

 

[Anonymous]

Many thanks .. will check these out.

 

[professorhat]

I have similar - I use a pair of Epoz AktiMates in the office, an old set of Harmon Kardon desktop speakers in the kitchen and a pair of Audioengine A2s in the living room (which produce an amazing volume considering their size!) which are all hooked up at once through three AE units and I can then control everthing from the iPod Touch using Apple's Remote app.

 

[Anonymous]

Cool ! This is great to know it works ... will be saving quite a few £s 🙂

I've just read about squeezebox which can also be used with an iphone using ipeng. Does anyone have experiece of both?

I had no idea there were so many options!

Many thanks again for all the replies - has been very helpful.