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Looking for a Wireless Home Stereo Solution


ollie

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I'll be moving from an apartment to a house at the end of the month and I need to start thinking about my home stereo setup.

Ideally I'd like to have speakers all over the house being fed from a single source. Doing this the traditional way means lots of wires and lots of work getting those wires in place *and* hidden.

I started thinking wireless would be the way to go. Does anyone have a wireless receiver/wireless speakers setup? If so, how do you like it?

One concern I have is that wireless home stereo technology might be in its relative infancy, meaning I'll have to spend a lot more to get something that sounds as good as a wired setup. Or go cheap and get something that sounds like crap. I don't like either of these scenarios.

Anyway, just looking for some personal experience to get me started.

Cheers.

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my understanding is that wireless speakers are on an FM-type frequency and thus have limited width - they just don't sound as good.

we have wifi and use a slimdevices squeezebox to get lossless sound from the computer to the stereo, but that's not exactly what you are talking about here, ollie. still, wifi might be an alternative route rather than radio frequency - but I have no idea what's out there, speaker-wise.

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I use a Logitech Squeezebox. All my music is on my server, which uses standard 802.11g wireless LAN to share FLAC quality tunes.

Do you have the boombox? So basically it receives a stream from your computer and you move it around to whatever room you want to listen to music in?

Thanks.

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Oh, I hope the wireless works out!

We're moving to an old home with old wiring on the first floor, so might not be safe to go the traditional way, unless we want to rewire first which we don't want to bother with right away.

*Speaker* wires babe!

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I have a boombox and a Squeezebox Classic. The boombox is in my bedroom (wake up to the tune of your choice) and the Squeezebox Classic is in the living room. They can stream separate tunes or sync up. The Classic is hooked up to my existing stereo. So you can send the music files wherever you want, wirelessly, you just need to provide the speakers and power (or use the boombox). The sound quality is stellar. You may want to consider the duet model. It is a hand held remote with a color screen that shows you album covers as you browse.

I checked out Sonos as well, but this was cheaper.

I've been very happy with my set up. Very liberating to have all your music at your fingertips anywhere in the house (or yard).

If I were to do it again I'd get a duet and a Vortex Box as the server.

Enjoy

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Oh' date=' I hope the wireless works out!

We're moving to an old home with old wiring on the first floor, so might not be safe to go the traditional way, unless we want to rewire first which we don't want to bother with right away.[/quote']

*Speaker* wires babe!

Well, yeah, I knew that, uh...mmm...yeah, whatever. That's your department.

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If I were to do it again I'd get a duet and a Vortex Box as the server.

Looks cool but so many questions!

What advantage is there in running a Vortex Box server vesus streaming from your everyday computer?

Can you plug computer speakers into the receiver or do you need a traditional amp and speakers combo?

Theoretically speaking, could I just buy the receivers with no display and run everything from my computer? Seems to be the best way to have them in 3 or more rooms on the cheap.

Also, any interference with internet traffic? i.e. Does the streaming slow down your browsing and downloads?

Thanks!

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i can't speak about the vortex box.

i have a squeezebox duet though, and love it. you could definitely plug computer speakers into the receiver, provided you have the right cable... L and R rca outputs on the back. a cheap amp (used) and some decent speakers would be better tho.

my biggest complaint of the squeezebox is the lack of functionality on the remote. it's very basic and only has a few commands. i wish i could manipulate the playlist more once i have songs added. also, wireless is a temperamental technology... so its nice to have a backup (cd player/turntable).

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Ideally I'd like to have speakers all over the house being fed from a single source. Doing this the traditional way means lots of wires and lots of work getting those wires in place *and* hidden.

Having speakers where you want is worth the effort but all over the house? You may only need a couple of locations and it may not really be as difficult as you imagine.

You could wire some of the house and go with one of them wifi solutions. Apple makes an Airport that would probably work for some of the wireless needs.

But then, I think that's meant for iTunes so that would probably be against your rules.

I've read good things about sonos, but I don't think it's easily available in canada.

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One concern I have is that wireless home stereo technology might be in its relative infancy, meaning I'll have to spend a lot more to get something that sounds as good as a wired setup. Or go cheap and get something that sounds like crap. I don't like either of these scenarios.

Enough fucking around.

Mike is right. You are going to have to redefine what you want. In our place we have one room that is the main music room and the rest of the time we use an IPOD boombox thingie so we can have music outside, or in the kitchen, or if we want to sleep to tunes, or in the shower.....it's a heckuvalot more convenient in a house with more than one floor if you catch my drift.

I couldnt imagine having speakers all over the place, as cool as that seems. At some point you are going to need the room those speakers are taking up and if you dont, then you arent using good enough speakers to begin with so why waste space and money?

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Guest Low Roller

I used to be of the school of thought of wiring the entire house under one system, but the more I think about it, the less that I think it is practical, unless you plan on turning your house into a club and need loud uniform music throughout. Otherwise you have to look at the application aspect of your music. I foresee several scenarios for which a singular solution would be a hindrance, most notably what if there are two people in two rooms who want to listen to different music? The money spent into a singular solution would not be used in this situation.

I think I am now leaning towards the Booche model of having one pimped out music room with all the bells and whistles, and then rest of the house would be dependent on a portable solution.

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I foresee several scenarios for which a singular solution would be a hindrance, most notably what if there are two people in two rooms who want to listen to different music?

I think the Sonos can handle different music per receiver but I'm not sure about the Squeezebox.

Sonos has the slight edge in the reviews I've read but the price difference for the Squeezebox is incredible. So far I'm leaning towards that.

I also appreciate the other feedback and will consider all my options.

Keep it coming! Thanks.

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Guest Low Roller

Sonos does look like it can handle multiple rooms, so that's real cool. I was worried that there is just a single controller (whose design is questionable), but the fact that you can also use a computer to control the music does alleviate that concern.

The Squeezebox looks better as far as general design goes and seems to offer the same features.

I'm happy to see that there are solutions like this available as I will be in the market for one in about a year's time.

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i can't speak about the vortex box.

my biggest complaint of the squeezebox is the lack of functionality on the remote. it's very basic and only has a few commands. i wish i could manipulate the playlist more once i have songs added. also, wireless is a temperamental technology... so its nice to have a backup (cd player/turntable).

I have a SB2, my way around the remote problem is to use my Ipod Touch or Phone with the Ipeng App.

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you could definitely plug computer speakers into the receiver, provided you have the right cable... L and R rca outputs on the back.

How would I use that to plug in computer speakers, which typically have the single 1/8" jack as output?

Thanks.

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What's the difference between an SB2 and an SB3? I've seen both of these acronyms used but on the SqueezeBox site they refer to the different models with brand names like Classic and Duet.

Thanks.

The SB3 is now called the Classic, as far as I know the only difference between the SB2/3 was the shell(all the internal compenents/capabilities are the same)

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