Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

Sidehatch wrote:
what's your bill rate for audio consultation?

<a href="https://youtu.be/gJ_FfT-d5-s">Deez Guyz give free advice</a>

FYI…all the sonos stuff for $1200

Julian, wrote:

Sidehatch wrote:
what&#039;s your bill rate for audio consultation?

I just offered to loan him my champagne handbag this morning for his upcoming polo match as a thank you!

Hopefully you have better taste in handbags than your david byrne-esque insurance guy suits!

Yada wrote:
Hopefully you have better taste in handbags than your david byrne-esque insurance guy suits!

It's quite nice. If you were encyclopedic in your recollection of the original Julian's America thread, you'd know what it looks like already.

Julian, wrote:
To get started, I think I&#039;m going to get the Sonos Soundbar and a connect. The connect will work with that receiver you&#039;re giving away, yes?

Yes.

Julian, wrote: And then I can just take my currently existing turntable and buy a component CD player and hook them up to the receiver and would be able to play the music in the TV room too, right?

No.  You should sell all of your CD's, but yes, your turntable will hook up to it.  And if you ignored the first part of that sentence, then yes, a component CD player will also hook up to it.

Julian, wrote:
Can I have the amp both hooked up to the Connect and my current speakers at the same time?

This one is interesting.  Yes they can both be hooked up, but can they play simultaneously?

I'll have to check the back of the tuner.  What you would like is for the wired speakers in the Parlor to play at the same time as the wireless speakers in the TV room?  If that's the case, then the tuner will need a dedicated out (RCA Jacks) that we will plug in to the Connect.  Dedicated outs were common during tapedeck days for recording, but I'm not sure on this particular tuner.  I'll have to look at the back of the unit when I return home on Sunday, but I'm sure I can make something work.   

Julian, wrote:
Then, if I want a few months down the road, I can get actual Sonos speakers for each room? I&#039;m still a little confused on which of the 1, 3, 5 models to get, and how many I need for each room. I saw somewhere that 2 3-series and a soundbar replicates 5.1 surround sound?

Yes, you can mix and match the Sonos speakers as you see fit.  I have gone with the soundbar and 2 Play:1's for my surround sound in my TV Room and will be adding a separate Play:3 or Play:5 for the bedroom, which can be moved to the kitchen or the backyard as we see fit.

I think 2 Play:3's with the soundbar would be over kill for 5.1, but can you really ever have too much sound?

Sidehatch wrote:
what&#039;s your bill rate for audio consultation?

For friends, I only work for food and drink.

Yada wrote:

Julian, wrote:

Sidehatch wrote:
what&#039;s your bill rate for audio consultation?

I just offered to loan him my champagne handbag this morning for his upcoming polo match as a thank you!

Hopefully you have better taste in handbags than your david byrne-esque insurance guy suits!

You know I've been wondering who he was emulating.  I hadn't thought of David Byrne.  I was more in the Richard Cheese or Les Nessman camp.

vansmack wrote:
No.&nbsp; You should sell all of your CD&#039;s,

I will do no such thing.

vansmack wrote:
This one is interesting.&nbsp; Yes they can both be hooked up, but can they play simultaneously?

I&#039;ll have to check the back of the tuner.&nbsp; What you would like is for the wired speakers in the Parlor to play at the same time as the wireless speakers in the TV room?&nbsp; If that&#039;s the case, then the tuner will need a dedicated out (RCA Jacks) that we will plug in to the Connect.&nbsp; Dedicated outs were common during tapedeck days for recording, but I&#039;m not sure on this particular tuner.&nbsp; I&#039;ll have to look at the back of the unit when I return home on Sunday, but I&#039;m sure I can make something work.&nbsp;

 
I don't think I would actually use them simultaneously. The wired speakers are just a stop gap until I buy a 3 or 5 for the room.

vansmack wrote:
I have gone with the soundbar and 2 Play:1&#039;s for my surround sound in my TV Room and will be adding a separate Play:3 or Play:5 for the bedroom, which can be moved to the kitchen or the backyard as we see fit.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm negotiating with a guy who has a pair of unopened 1's on craigslist right now.

Do the speakers have any sort of battery whatsoever or do they have to be plugged in at all times during use? My deck has no outlet.

Let me know what you want to ship the amp.

jaded wrote:
You know I&#039;ve been wondering who he was emulating. &nbsp;I hadn&#039;t thought of David Byrne. &nbsp;I was more in the Richard Cheese or Les Nessman camp.

I was going for Billy Eichner (loud, shrill, half insulting everything) crossed with Art Mann (an actual attempt at pretending hanging out with freaks is "journalism").

Julian, wrote:
Do the speakers have any sort of battery whatsoever or do they have to be plugged in at all times during use? My deck has no outlet.

They do not have a portable sonos speaker yet, no.  Because they all have at least one amp that needs to be powered, they all need to be plugged in to a power source to operate.

This is the #1 request in the community right now and Sonos has been pretty steadfast that doing so with current technology would degrade the sound quality to a level they are not comfortable with.

A competitor has done it though.

vansmack wrote:

Julian, wrote:
Do the speakers have any sort of battery whatsoever or do they have to be plugged in at all times during use? My deck has no outlet.

They do not have a portable sonos speaker yet, no.&nbsp; Because they all have at least one amp that needs to be powered, they all need to be plugged in to a power source to operate.

This is the #1 request in the community right now and Sonos has been pretty steadfast that doing so with current technology would degrade the sound quality to a level they are not comfortable with.

A competitor has done it though.

Hmm. I'll have to figure out something there.

This fits the bill for outdoors, but my biggest gripe with Sonos is the non outdoor speaker.

UE Mini Boom

I think that maybe part of the knock on "wireless" speakers.

Sonos works over WiFi and can transmit much more data much more quickly at a much greater range.

Bluetooth speakers are low power, low data and low distance.

Putting any BT speaker in the same category as a WiFi speaker is apples to oranges, albeit in the outdoor portable category, it's the only option. 

Truthfully, I dislike BT sound so much, I have a rechargeable speaker that I plug a phone into rather than use BT.

Managed to find a brand new in box Sonos soundbar and two (one new, one used) Play:1s off craigslist for $820 total. Very impressive clear sound. Need to spend more time researching all the online music services it integrates as I've never used/signed up for any of those (sans the MLB audio) but physical setup and integrating my entire library and getting the app on my three iOS devices was right at an hour. I like the radio integration since my place is older with thick brick walls and NPR and the two local indie stations have poor antenna reception inside, and it will make it much easier for me to listen to Michigan Insider with Jim Harbaugh every week without firing up a laptop and listening through the tiny speakers.

I'm going to have to play around with a Play:1s in another room this week when I have more time to get a better sense of how much sound one produces on it's own but thinking the kitchen, master bedroom, and parlor might be better off with a 3s or 5s in a month or two when I expand out my system. Need to find some place I can actually hear all three models one at a time to decide if the sliding hundred dollar price scale between each of the three is legitimately worth it since my rooms are not enormous.

I still can't quite wrap my head around buying a bunch of mono speakers and having them all play simultaneously.  It's only the 5 that's true stereo, yes?

jaded wrote:
I still can&#039;t quite wrap my head around buying a bunch of mono speakers and having them all play simultaneously.&nbsp; It&#039;s only the 5 that&#039;s true stereo, yes?

I don't think that's correct. The Play:3 when put in horizontal mode has left and right speakers in it and assigns the left and right channels of any stereo recording to them automatically, from everything I've read. (Obviously this does not provide you good stereo separation as two speakers placed ten feet apart.) If you're planning on putting two 3s in the same room like as part of an actual physical surround-sound setup, you put the speakers in vertical mode and it runs the entire speaker as a mono device then.

But that costs you $600.  For 2 speakers.  You can buy <a href="http://www.axiomaudio.com/stereospeakers">phenomenal bookshelf speakers</a> for that.

I made it quite clear that I wanted someone else to make my purchasing decision for me and I could not run wires where I am at. Take it up with Smackie.

*kind of just ambles out of the thread*

jaded wrote:
I still can&#039;t quite wrap my head around buying a bunch of mono speakers and having them all play simultaneously.&nbsp; It&#039;s only the 5 that&#039;s true stereo, yes?

No, the Play:1 is the only mono speaker in the bunch.  But if you have two and assign it to channels with the app, you no longer have that problem, hence why I told Jules to buy 2 and assign one to the left and one to the right.

The PLAYBAR has nine amplified speakers ? six 3.5-inch midrange drivers and three 1-inch tweeters that provide a Left, Right and Center setup.  Add the Play:1's and you've got a 5 channel system, and if you're completely insane you'll add the sub woofer for full 5.1.

jaded wrote:
But that costs you $600.&nbsp; For 2 speakers.&nbsp; You can buy &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.axiomaudio.com/stereospeakers&quot;&gt;phenomenal bookshelf speakers&lt;/a&gt; for that.

Have you priced out what it costs to run speaker wire through the walls, and to multiple rooms?

$600 all of a sudden looks cheap, and 2 Play:1's only cost $400.

And that's if you live in a home where you can run wires and not, say, in a brick place like Julian where you don't have that option.