How to set up speakers

afatbollix

Hi folks

Im just moving house and want to set up my new house the way I like it from the start.

I will have 4 zones which are

Bedroom
Sitting room
Garden
Bathroom

As everything is now mobile and wireless I want to control my playlists/music from my phone, Ipad and Macbook.

I just bought a few of these http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=111184 Which all my devices can run through. Should put a Hi fi in each room and run it like that?

Or should I set up a server in the middle of the house with a amp and get a blue tooth switcher to choose which room it goes into? Is there such a thing as a bluetooth switcher?

RockyTwoArms

I'm assuming you have no wiring in the house? I'm also going to assume that you will have wifi?

XMBC or similar on a device in each room connected via Lan / wifi with a shared database. Use android / iphone app / windows / linux / html..... to control it. (circa €300 per room)

I wouldn't recommend bluetooth given the poor range and hassle connecting multiple devices.

Not sure if apple supports it but another option worth looking into might be DLNA certified devices to play the music in each room if you are storing your music on the ipad etc. you can send it over the network.

Of course the easiest (and least fun) of all is sonos;
http://www.sonos.com/

andy1249

Not sure if apple supports it but another option worth looking into might be DLNA certified devices to play the music in each room if you are storing your music on the ipad etc. you can send it over the network.

Thats the big problem with the current rampant mis-selling of the DLNA logo/Badge , everyone seems to think its a one stop solution for streaming media , its not , take a look here ....

https://members.dlna.org/industry/why_dlna/key_components/media_format/

Note that the only audio you need to support to get a DLNA logo is mp3 , or mp4 aac , or LPCM 2 channel.
Note , no lossless formats like flac or alac , alac will never be covered by DLNA as it is not an open source format , so with no lossless formats required ,a DLNA logo can never mean a quality music system !!

Thats pretty poor ... the other formats are optional and the choice of whether to do that or not is purely down to the manufacturer.

If you want a quality setup from a server , you need to be looking at systems like Sonos or Squeezbox , which handle most music formats. Squeezbox is the only quality ( audiophile standard ) system out there that handles high res material , thats material of SACD/DVD audio quality.

Bluetooth is a joke for music steaming , a complete waste of money. Its not nearly stable enough for listening to music , so unless constant re-starts and drop outs dont bother you , forget bluetooth.

cnocbui

Alac may not be embraced by DNLA, but it is Open Source now.

MP3 and AAC at moderate to high bit rates can deliver very high quality audio so no need get too concerned over a lack of a lossless audio option IMO.

andy1249

MP3 and AAC at moderate to high bit rates can deliver very high quality audio...

No , I dont agree , its heavily compromised , back when bandwidth and download speeds were a big concern , mp3 had its place , its backers lied through their teeth trying to convince everyone it was indistinguishable from CD but thats simply not true. See here

http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html

With todays bandwidths there is no excuse anymore , all music can and should be available in a lossless format.

I used to have all my music in MP3 lame VBR 0 , and I have a lot of music, after many months of listening I decided to re-encode everything to flac , something which took months , and something I didnt want to do if I didnt have to.
Bottom line , compressed music sucks , and there is little point spending money on a distributable server based music system and then sending the likes of mp3 over it !

RockyTwoArms

Granted DLNA is not great & one has to check the actual ability of the device purchased. The main issue I have with it is that libraries need to be loaded each time you connect and next tracks don't seem to be cached well enough.

That said for send music from a mobile device to a client and being able to remote control the playback it's the easiest I know of...

WRT the music quality I'm not convinence that converting music from mp3 to flac or ogg will improve quality as it's already degraded. While I agree that these are better formats until the new wifi standard is adopted it's probably impossible to stream loss-less audio from mobile devices.

We seem to be getting off topic a bit;

Is there any client that will receive music over a wifi network other than dlna?
Cling is the only thing I've come across but looks like hard work especially for i-things;
http://4thline.org/projects/cling/mediarenderer/

Airplay is the apple answer to the dlna available to the rest of the world, also works on xbmc but still limited in terms of formats;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Supported_formats

kennethsmyth

OP you have an iphone, ipad and macbook, may i suggest purchasing some apple airports and while you're at it an apple tv for the tv. You're already halfway there you might as well do a full apple config.

andy1249

WRT the music quality I'm not convinence that converting music from mp3 to flac or ogg will improve quality as it's already degraded. While I agree that these are better formats until the new wifi standard is adopted it's probably impossible to stream loss-less audio from mobile devices.

I never mentioned converting to lossless from compressed audio types , that cant be done , lossy files cannot be restored.
I was talking about re-ripping from scratch.

I stream lossless from mobile devices all the time. I have a squeezbox system for music , and ipeng for iphone , ipad , etc. will stream lossless with its
" playback " feature.

We seem to be talking about spending a lot of money here , if we are talking all apple devices and a central server then we are certainly running into thousands ... so why limit the system to likes of lossy compressed music is my question ... who would spend that kind of money on an inherently compromised system ?

Slaphead07

cnocbui wrote: »

MP3 and AAC at moderate to high bit rates can deliver very high quality audio ....

That's not true. By their very definition they can't deliver high quality audio.

mossym

andy1249 wrote: »

Note , no lossless formats like flac or alac , alac will never be covered by DLNA as it is not an open source format , so with no lossless formats required ,a DLNA logo can never mean a quality music system !!

.

just to check, did you mean flac will never be covered by dlna as a mandatory format? it reads a little confusing, to me at least. just to point out(although i'm sure it's just my misreading of your point that is causing my confusion) , that although not mandatory, several DLNA servers support flac, as do a large number of clients. totally at manufacturers discretion however

kennethsmyth

andy1249 wrote: »

We seem to be talking about spending a lot of money here , if we are talking all apple devices and a central server then we are certainly running into thousands ... so why limit the system to likes of lossy compressed music is my question ... who would spend that kind of money on an inherently compromised system ?

you're not talking thousands here,
No central server needed as iPhone iPad and MacBook can play directly to below using wifi

4 zones as per op's desires
=
3 apple airport expresses for other rooms = 99eur x 3 = 297eur
1 apple tv for sitting room= 109eur

Op prob has a wifi router if not get apple airport extreme 159eur

All these systems work really well together and would be a vast improvement on the Bluetooth op had intended to use.

Total is either 406eur or 565eur
And you would have a very usable system that can be transferred to another house in future etc...

andy1249

just to check, did you mean flac will never be covered by dlna as a mandatory format?

No , ALAC will never be covered because its Apples codec , and while it is currently distributed under the Apache license it is not open in the true sense of Open source.

Flac is open , see here
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Any formats required to be implemented by DLNA must be truly open. So unless Apple change their very Litigious tune , ALAC wont be supported any time soon.

just to point out(although i'm sure it's just my misreading of your point that is causing my confusion) , that although not mandatory, several DLNA servers support flac, as do a large number of clients. totally at manufacturers discretion however

In a nutshell thats my point too , DLNA is mis-sold , it doesnt mean what everyone seems to think it means , that something with the logo will play anything !

Theres nothing stopping support for Flac at the moment , but is not a requirement , requirements are very basic indeed, So DLNA as a logo essentially means nothing , you must trawl through manufacturers manuals to see what file formats are supported , regardless of logo.

There are many players supporting lossless codecs , specifically flac , at the moment , squeezbox and Sonos have already been mentioned , but there are many many other media players available.

I see airport express mentioned , well the likes of Boxee , Roku , and WDTV would wipe the floor with the basic specs of an airport express for the same or less money when it comes to music playback from a server.

They are not nearly as sophisticated as a Squeezbox or Sonos , but certainly better and cheaper than kitting out with Apple gear.
And regardless of budget , there is no need to "Settle" for mp3 or other compromised formats.

Hifi Keith

In theory the idea of wireless streaming everywhere is a fantastic idea in practise the network can easily be swamped depending on how god your connection at home is.

A lot of the denon/marantz/B&O amps seem to be including Apple airport as a feature which makes sense if you have to buy new and want some decent power. I would always prefer a central server in these setups

earpiece

I'm with Neil on this one.....

http://allthingsd.com/video/?video_id=26CFE0B4-3677-4CD5-AA27-6071B2765CEB

andy1249

you're not talking thousands here,
No central server needed as iPhone iPad and MacBook can play directly to below using wifi

Be fair now , last time I checked an ipad , an iphone , and a macbook were the best part of 2000 euros. If they are to be the heart of the system they must be part of the cost.

I could just as easily say that a squeezbox system costs just 200 euro , but that would be assuming you already have a decent amp and speakers to connect it too !

mossym

andy1249 wrote: »

No , ALAC will never be covered because its Apples codec , and while it is currently distributed under the Apache license it is not open in the true sense of Open source.

Flac is open , see here
http://flac.sourceforge.net/
.

okay, knew i was misunderstanding it, way you wrote it above i thought you were saying both flac and alac, you just meant alac, was obvious once i reread it after reading this bit.

mossym

andy1249 wrote: »

Be fair now , last time I checked an ipad , an iphone , and a macbook were the best part of 2000 euros. If they are to be the heart of the system they must be part of the cost.

don't think he meant you needed all of them. the music can be stored on the iphone or ipad, or on itunes match, and streamed to the apple tv. you don't need the macbook, think his post should have said or.

you're right though, the addition of a macbook as a neccesity would make it an expensive proposition.

in essence, an ipad + an ATV for each room would do it. personally i have issued with that setup, as it's tied to apple formats, bit it also has the advantage of being a video solution as well