the new Simple Audio players - how do they compare to ...

AlmaataKZ

New member
Jan 7, 2009
295
1
0
Visit site
http://www.whathifi.com/news/simple-audio-rolls-out-roomplayer-hd-audio-system-to-uk-dealers

... to SB Touch and Sonos

To Touch:
Touch has a nice touchscreen so you can see and use for control, SA does (control from a phone or PC only)
Touch has more functionality I think
Touch is cheaper
Touch has wireless, SA doe snot
SA may be simpler to setup?
SA has built-in powerline ethernet (less cables), Touch does not
touch can use hdd directly nas without computer, SA cannot use hdd direct and maybe can use nas
what else?
 

The_Lhc

Well-known member
Oct 16, 2008
1,176
1
19,195
Visit site
AlmaataKZ said:
http://www.whathifi.com/news/simple-audio-rolls-out-roomplayer-hd-audio-system-to-uk-dealers ... to SB Touch and Sonos

SB Touch and Sonos exist, Simple Audio...

To Touch: Touch has a nice touchscreen so you can see and use for control, SA does (control from a phone or PC only)

Same as Sonos (bespoke touch screen controller and phone and PC controllers).

Touch has more functionality I think Touch is cheaper Touch has wireless, SA doe snot SA may be simpler to setup? SA has built-in powerline ethernet (less cables), Touch does not touch can use hdd directly nas without computer, SA cannot use hdd direct and maybe can use nas what else?

Sonos can use any NAS (pretty much) directly, with no PC requirement at all, it's unclear whether SA can do that or not (at least I couldn't tell from their website).

The main difference between SA and Sonos is the 24-bit file support, which Sonos doesn't have. SA also has the concept of different users who can access different libraries, I don't know if SB can do that, Sonos can't (it's one of the most requested features on the Sonos forum). Interestingly SA has the same 64k track limit that Sonos does, I don't know if SB has that issue.

Sonos is also cheaper than SA but not as cheap as SB. It remains to be seen how good SA's multi-room syncing is, Sonos can't be beaten on that front.

It's largely a pointless discussion though until SA actually arrives and the questions over functionality can be answered.
 

Andy Clough

New member
Apr 27, 2004
776
0
0
Visit site
Interesting questions, but we won't know the answers until we get hands-on with our review sample. The official launch is at the Bristol Show at the end of this month, so we're hoping to get hold of a full Simple Audio system then for test. So far I've only seen (and not heard) a pre-production prototype.
 

amcluesent

New member
Mar 8, 2009
25
0
0
Visit site
It'll be months before the basic firmware is stable on these devices, let alone anything fancy implemented. I just hope these companies have the cash in the banks, seeing as how Squeezebox was bank-rolled by Logitech during the delay in getting the Touch sorted.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts