Squeezebox or Sonos for multi zone...

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I have all my music on a HP MediaSmart server and want to be able to stream the music to any room in the house. There will probably be 5-6 zones by the time I've finished.

I am planning on having everything hidden away and the music played through ceiling speakers and controlled by remote.

There seems to be two ways to do this but im confused as to which is the best for me.

The easiest would be to get a sonos ZP120 unit for each zone (hidden away) as that has a built in amplified and will wire straight up to the speakers. But at £400 a zone it isnt cheap!

The other option is buy lots of Squeeze box duets and a something like this:

http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/1873

This would work out cheaper if we assume 6 zones and im guessing the sound quality would be better. But how would I control the volume? Would this be done via the amp or the squeezeboxs? If I need two remotes then this option is out.

Has anybody done anything similar or can advise on waht would be best?

Thanks

 

[The_Lhc]

Hmm, for 6 zones I'd be looking at Sonos, this is what it's designed to do, whereas it's my understanding that any more than 4 squeezeboxes can overload a wireless router (Sonos doesn't use it, having its own wireless mesh network). Might be worth getting the PC and Squeezeboxes wired to a seperate switch so the traffic doesn't go through the router, lots of cabling there though.

Hadn't realised ZP120s were £400 each now, sure they never used to be that much, you'd have to work out how many of everything you'd need, 6xZP120s plus a couple of controllers (unless you're going to use iPhones/iTouches?) will be about £3k. Squeezebox Duet is around £280, so 6x them plus that amp is a shade under £3k.

You will of course also have to pay out for quite a lot of speaker cabling if you go for the centralised amp route, so that'll be an additional cost compared to the Sonos route.

Tricky one though, it's quite evenly balanced really, the Sonos will be much easier to set up, all you need is power to each zone and some short lengths of speaker cable and you're done, plus adding more zones is easy, if you want more than 6 with the NAD amp you'll be struggling. I don't know whether that's a consideration though of course.

Glad it's you making the decision! If it was my money I'd go for Sonos, but I'm biased, I've got it already!

 

[The_Lhc]

Oh, of course you'll also have to install Slimserver on the PC if you use Squeezebox, you don't need to do anything with the PC for Sonos, except share your music directory, which Sonos will do for you.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your quick reply!

Couple of other things I probably should have mentioned...

Most of house has Cat5e cabled installed running to a gigabit switch in the loft which is where I would locate all the hardware so they would be running hardwired and not wireless.

Both myself and girlfriend both have iPhones so don't need controllers if we went the sonos way and if Squeezebox we would be fine with just 2 remote so the boxes come down to £79 per zone (+ 2 remotes).

 

[The_Lhc]

Oh well, in that case I guess the squeezebox wins on price then. I think there's an iPhone/Touch app for the squeezebox as well though, so you could get away without getting remotes for that as well I think.

The only other thing that might be worth doing is seeing if you can try out the controller (app) for each and see which one you prefer.