Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Sonos wireless digital speakers

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/17692.html

from an installer rather than Sonos direct.

Nice idea... but I wonder how good they will sound. This concept, whether Sonos or another brand, could be really popular with the general public.

They'll never be totally wireless of course - power will be required.

And that's where a Devolo type system for Meridian speakers would be so elegant - mains power, audio data and comms signals all in one lead plugged into the humble mains socket. It would make multi-room a doddle too.

Mark

I agree, powerline technology would be a very elegent solution for Meridian's next gen DSP speakers - comms and SPDIF over via the plug. Netgear sell this stuff for �50 so a hi spec version shouldn't add much to the cost.

Andrew

M should just build powerline networking into their components and speakers and be done with it. one plug (power) for everything. you get signal and control and power and badabingbadaboom.

doody.

Mr. Doody:

If only it truly were that easy! Unfortunately adding network connectivity is at least as complex for some people as serial is.

Me, it's second nature; but I realize I'm not the average person from a tech perspective.

Cheers,

John

Serial is a pain and even if you know what you're doing it doesn't always work.

At least with a network it usually stays working once set up and would be much better and "always on".

AD

Hi Doody,
I think that would be great, but, can you imagine all the smake oil threads we'd have to do to work out the effect of uber-power cable-XXX on network performance

Powerline networking would not only add noise to our sacred AC power lines - it would likely be filtered out by many of the power cleaning solutions many of us have invested in.

How about just WiFi in each DSP? Plenty of bandwidth and TCP IP is packet-based, so no jitter issues.

I am sure M could figure out picking up the Powerline signal from the AC and then filtering the AC inside the unit. The cost of that sort of tech is not that great on a �4000 plus unit.

Besides if AC conditioning was that important would M sell one?

How reliable are powerline networks? If its anything like X10, it doesn't take much for that to get scrambled/lost in our domestic environment - and thats only on short ad-hoc packets - I can't see a high bandwidth network being reliable without having to retransmit many times over. The issues with buffering all this within an acceptable amount of time would IMHO be insurmountable in the average domestic environment.

In our household, it only takes a low voltage light transformer to be on between X10 controller and source to make the whole system unreliable. Let alone interference from outside the household.

Granted you can add filters to isolate you from the outside world or add filters on pieces of kit that introduce mains borne interference, but many of these things would require professional installation by a qualified electrician - hardly a plug it in and forget it by Joe Average.

Much better for standard wireless or CAT5+ wired to be used IMHO. Still not perfect, but at least doable by the average person.

Ian,

Better introduce myself - I've been using X-10 stuff since 1997, been installing it for clients since 2000, and been running the UK X-10 training courses for electricians since 2004, so I've come across more X-10 problems than most :-) I also chaired the xAP group for Home Control for a couple of years, so have quite a bit of experience with networking for home entertainment.

On the X-10 problems - if your LV transformer conforms to the latest set of CE specs, then it shouldn't interfere with X-10. The problems tend to come with kit bought before about 2000 (or, to be fair, kit bought on "Chinese Manufacturer CE Self-Certification". We tested one product that put out 230v across the pins for about 15 seconds after unplugged - needless to say, we don't sell that! The FM10U filter is, erm, a plug in device - you plug it into the wall, and the "noisy" appliance into it.

Powerline networks are better, but the kit I've seen isn't great in terms of life expectancy. I had a 12Mb/sec (first gen) powerline network between three zones at home - which ran fine for about 18 months, then died mysteriously.

Turning to the "networked speakers", this is one of the things that more and more of our trade customers are asking for (we don't sell Meridian kit, alas, but sell a lot of the Sonos / RussSound / Opus multi-room audio systems.)

As you say, however, buffering is likely to be the killer for synchronous audio (such as, well, a speaker signal.) Read-ahead buffering works very well for, say, WMA / MP3 audio where the playback device can buffer up a minute's worth of audio, BUT ONLY HAS TO SYNC WITH ITSELF.

In a network where each speaker buffered independantly, it would be a complete 'mare to keep the sync going, without adding an additional load of sync messages.

Personally, my house is flood-wired with CAT5e, and I'd recommend the same for the next few years :-)

Regards,

Mark
Main system: 562v / 518 / 565 / Chord Amps / B&W speakers
Bedroom: 562v / 565 / 555 / Infiniti speakers
Lusting after a 5-series DVD player (or two) :-)