Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic OT: Sonos vs. Squeezebox

I'm a longtime multiple SB owner, but am getting frustrated w/the relatively new Duet, which among other issues, often takes forever to pick up the wifi signal and get online, and then can take even longer to activate a selected player. I often wind up simply walking (OMG!) to that player and using the IR remote to turn it on.

Am considering Sonos as people seem to be happy w/it. Pros/cons -- in and of itself and vs. the SB?

Thanks.

Will be installing my 4 zone Sonos system as well as a NAS tonight and should then be better able to answer your questions...in the meantime, RHurley is the resident Sonos expert here with VK and bunch of others being the SB experts..

What are you running for a Server?

rblnr

I had this, with early release versions of SqueezeCenter, going to a later version 7.0.1 release 19643 cured it for me. I would try downloading the latest nightly release before putting it all in a skip!

Mr Perceptive

I'll try the new sqeezecenter software. My duet keeps freezing when it tries to update itself.

Am running off a Mac via iTunes.

If it freezes just press and hold the back button to abort the update. I know this freezing problem was a issue once but I thought it had been sorted.

I'm not having any issues with the 7.1 builds at present but only 7.01 is formally supported. I really like the latest Jive 7.1 releases for the Controller as they have a neat search-within-song function and also offer IR control of the SB3.

Cliff

The back button doesn't work, I have to pop the battery. At the moment anyway, I'm unable to update controller software.

Good to hear that 7.1 works for you, I'll try it out tonight.

One of my favorite things about the Squeezebox over the years is that it was one of those few game changing products that just worked. Plugged it in, automatically found my network, etc., and five minutes later I'm streaming music. The duet gives me functionality that I've been wanting but hassle that I haven't.

-- Bob

Let me know how it goes...

Installation was breeze took a total of 45 minutes...read the first 15 pages of the manual then gave up because the ergonomics are wonderful -- most intuitive product and best documented product I have ever owned, certainly very anti-Meridian in this regard.

In fact, at one point I was actually getting frustrated with the manual because of the painstaking detail of their description...that said, very good for the novice or computer unfriendly.

Not to sound like an advertisment but the configurability and flexibility is excellent and, in fact, more than I would ever need...all this while being terribly simple to use...

What about the sound you say...well I spect 4 hours listening to about 15 CDs in my home theater and could not -- and I do hate to say this given the money I spent on my 800V4 DVD player -- tell the difference other than, and this is a biggie, I am going tobe listening to a lot more and, this final point, has nothing to do with Sonos byt music servers in general..

With that there are two points that I need to make...

1. Although once up and running the ease of use is fantastic the time it takes to rip (I am using Apple Lossless) one's music collection and properly tag same is huge and MUCH MUCH greater than I thought.

2. A real challenge was setting up the NAS...horrible documentation....horribly unintutive for a non computer power Windows user (i.e. the concept that a shared folder can only be created used drive management software was foreign)...that said, very cool once understood and running, even created shared folders for picturs, etc. for my family given that by NAS is 2TB.

Hope that helps...anything else let me know (and, inc ase you did not get it...I am thrilled with the product)...

Can anyone summarise the relative outlay costs of a Sonos, compared to a Squeezebox solution?

Thank you

Neil

Neilf:

A litt;e difficult to do as there is an apples to oranges issue her -- at least in some aspects due to the folllowing:

-- No squeezebox has amplification whereas the Sonos ZP100 does meaning that to the extent amplification is needed I would think that the Sonos would be less costly and less intrusive spacewise. A fairer comparison would be a SB versus a Sonos ZP80 and, to that end, I do nopt know the price of a standalone Sonos ZP80.

-- Ergonomics are, in my mind, fundamentally different in that the Squeezebox (other than the Duet) need to be in line of sight to see what is being selected whereas the Sonos can be hidden as all information appears on the controller.

Also, in this regard, there are things one can do with a Sonos that cannot be done with a SB...there is a discussion on this very subject on the Sonos forum at http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=7325 .

-- And finally, I believe that the Sonos network is more reliable because it uses a mesh network which means that each unit acts as an extender...this is particularly useful for greater distances between the source and the unit.


Hope this helps a little.

For a NAS recommendation, I'd suggest the HP MediaSmart EX470 - which is a Windows Home Server box. You then get integrated backups for the PCs around your house, and can install the SlimServer software (the WHS runs Windows Server 2003 underneath) should you go the Squeeze route.