Sonos and alternatives - OMO

[johnnyrod]

Dear mighty orgers, we are thoroughly confused about what to do about your hifi at home. I am hoping you can help.

I've got a Nad 320 amp and am using a Yamaha DVD player for CDs, but Mrs. Rod wants to be able to stream her Justin Trousersnake collection from our new NAS. We were hoping a sound bar would make the telly sound good for films (which we don't watch that much TBH) but they're just not all that for music. The Sonos play bar isn't bad but a lot of money and (apart from being irritatingly smug) restricted in terms of connectivity - I couldn't just take an output to a normal amp for playing music, because there isn't one. The Sonos beam is better than the telly but that's about it, at least it's cheaper, but you can't get an output from it either. Chumps.

So I know this is all a bit haphazard, but I guess the question first is, for a sound bar for the telly, what's worth a look? I'm hoping the rest will start to fall into place after that.

[Bibio]

buy a new AV amplifier as pretty much every single one of them comes with streaming facility or a USB.

sound bars come in loads of different flavours and what your concerned about is codecs. no point in a sound bar if it only does dolby digital.

a new AV amp will let you look at much more options.

i'm not a fan of cheep sound bars as they sound like a bad plastic boom box.

BTW your old NAD 320 are still sought after.

TBH your better off using an ipod classic rather than NAS.

there are other options such as a raspberry pi.

it all depends on what you want to do exactly.

[Sir Trev]

One of these days I am going to get myself something like this to make the telly sound better and if it can also accept cast from my tablet or phone to play Spotify then happy days. We have several branches of Richer Sounds nearby and your nearest is Sheffield - they have a lot of offers, usually superseded models or last year's colour, so better prices. So I'll probably go and see what they might have and start there.

[embee]

Worth registering with Richer Sounds if you are thinking of buying from them, they regularly have additional discounts for "VIP" members. The website has lists of clearance stuff usually. Often great value on open box items etc.
Not connected with them, just a customer.

[kaivalagi]

Android versions of Kodi or Plex side loaded onto a cheap firetv stick could also stream music from a NAS, but you'd still need a decent sound system for the telly and it would be a more technical solution

Does your TV have any smart TV functions? Connects to WiFi? If fairly new it may well stream MP3 files atleast from your NAS already...

And yeah, ALWAYS worth visiting Richer Sounds if you're looking for sound/home cinema stuff...its where my AV receiver came from

[maviczap]

I'd go with Bibs advice, as he's the audio guru.

I've got a dennon soundbase under my TV, doesn't output, just input, but has Bluetooth, so I can connect a tablet with my music on it, to have better quality music sounds. I have my Sky box and blu ray player connected to it, so I can improve upon the TV speakers.

I have a better quality system sitting in the garage, but no space to put it anywhere, well not until I do a Bibs style clear up

[johnnyrod]

I guess convenience costs money. The TV has no smart features. I'm perfectly happy with the sound I get from the NAD, it's galling that it could end up redundant because of a lack of a source. Has anyone tried the Chromecast Audio?

After some playing around last night I found the QNAP music app on my phone can send music to the Sky Q box via Airplay. You can get HDMI audio extractors to provide an analogue input to the amp, I don't know if they're any good, but they are cheap. Not sure how you'd control the telly volume, presume from the amp, however we're really only bothered about the TV sound for films.

We're also after a wifi speaker for the kitchen, many of which just don't sound very good. The Sonos Play 3 sounds a lot better than the Play 1 and apparently you can hook it up with one of their soundbars and put it at the back of the room for some sort of surround sound. So, there's a grand right there! Blimey.

Um...

[maviczap]

How about a Bluetooth transmitter from the NAD and hook it up to some Bluetooth speakers

Or a WiFi transmitter, then find a cheaper WiFi speaker system

Sonos is nice, but expensive, the Play Bar was tested on the Gadget show a while back, but it didn't win their test group

[johnnyrod]

I haven't played around with Bluetooth audio as it's more compressed, all our CDs are ripped in Apple lossless format.
What beat the Sonos?

[maviczap]

Can't remember for sure, it might have been a Yamaha sound bar

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