Putting the pieces together
I had grand plans for this evening; few of them got accomplished. In particular I had planned to finish up my writeup on last year's trip to New York so that I could get back to catching up on the more "normal" blog entries, which don't take as much time, and tear through those.
Instead, I conducted a bit of an audio experiment, and thought I'd write it up while it's still fresh on my mind. I'll get to that in a minute.
First, a little background on Sonos. Sonos makes several components which comprise a system for wireless playback of music from a computer, distributed to multiple "ZonePlayers", which can act as either a source for an amplifier or powered speakers (ZP 90, $349 each), or a source with a built-in amplifier to drive traditional passive speakers (ZP 120), depending on the model. These units are tied together nicely by a remote control with a color LCD screen and an iPod-ish scroll wheel ($399). I've not used one myself, but apparently they've done a nice job with the interface.
So you take one of the ZP units and wire it up to your home network, and then add additional ZPs to various rooms in your house, and you can have the same thing play in each room, or different music in each room, whatever you like. There's some other cool tricks it can do, like using a subscription to a streaming music service like Rhapsody to play music that's not on your computer. There's some things I consider technical downsides, like the fact that instead of riding your existing wireless network, the units set up their own, but that's just nitpicking.
They seem to be doing a pretty good business, because Logitech's SlimDevices has a new product named SqueezeBox Duet, which comprises a Squeezebox Receiver ($199) analogous to the ZP 90, and a remote control similar to the Sonos unit ($299). If you'll recall, I have one of their $299 Squeezebox 3 units for my bedroom stereo, which similarly plays back music over the network, but includes a rather less advanced (monochrome, relatively low resolution) display on the unit itself, and a regular, screen-less remote. It's a nice little piece of gear, I must admit.
So let's say you wanted to wire up your a existing home theater setup and bedroom stereo for wireless playback from your computer. Going the Sonos route, you'd buy two of their ZP 90s and one remote, for $1100. You could probably bring that down a bit by buying one of their handy bundles.
Alternatively, you could go the SlimDevices route, getting two receivers and one remote for $700, a potentially substantial savings. .
At this point, I'll mention that Apple has a little device called the Airport Express (AX). It's a rather anonymous looking device, not much bigger than most of Apple's laptop power adapters. Its chief function is to act as a wireless router, but it's got two bonus features: it can act as a print server, and, of more interest to me, it can act as a wireless receiver of digital audio transmitted from a copy of iTunes. It retails at $99, or $59 if you grab a clearance last-generation model which lacks 802.11n wireless networking.
So for half the price of the Logitech unit, or just under a third the price of the Sonos, you get fairly similar functionality. You can even have different computers playing over different AX units, or have one computer play over multiple AXes simultaneously. Apple's close to giving you the pieces to make your own Sonos system at a fraction of the price. What you miss out on is the cool remote controls that have nice interfaces and pretty album art. You could use a laptop for this purpose, but it'd be both bulky and expensive.
But with a completely tossed off bit of software for the iPhone/iPod touch, suddenly, Apple has a wireless remote that looks to be the equivalent of the Logitech and Sonos units. It's called, simply, "Remote", and is a free download. The app can browse any iTunes libraries on your network, and play them over the computers themselves or any AXes on the network. So if you already own an iPhone, you get the functionality of the $299 Logitech or $399 Sonos units. If you don't, buy an 8 GB iPod touch for $299 (or $199 refurb if you want to be cheap).
So all of a sudden, Apple offers a system for $500 ($320 if you bargain hunt) that competes with a $700 Logitech setup and a $1100 Sonos setup. Pretty cool for a company that's not really in the hi-fi business.
Speaking of which, there are bound to be some downsides to getting audio out of a device as multipurpose as the AX, and that comes from the fact that it uses a relatively low performance digital-analog converter. But... the AX's analog output doubles as a digital output, letting you take advantage of a better DAC if you have one (and if you have a home theater receiver, you already do).
At this point, you're probably asking, how does this affect you, Ward? Well, I'll get to that in part 2.
Instead, I conducted a bit of an audio experiment, and thought I'd write it up while it's still fresh on my mind. I'll get to that in a minute.
First, a little background on Sonos. Sonos makes several components which comprise a system for wireless playback of music from a computer, distributed to multiple "ZonePlayers", which can act as either a source for an amplifier or powered speakers (ZP 90, $349 each), or a source with a built-in amplifier to drive traditional passive speakers (ZP 120), depending on the model. These units are tied together nicely by a remote control with a color LCD screen and an iPod-ish scroll wheel ($399). I've not used one myself, but apparently they've done a nice job with the interface.
So you take one of the ZP units and wire it up to your home network, and then add additional ZPs to various rooms in your house, and you can have the same thing play in each room, or different music in each room, whatever you like. There's some other cool tricks it can do, like using a subscription to a streaming music service like Rhapsody to play music that's not on your computer. There's some things I consider technical downsides, like the fact that instead of riding your existing wireless network, the units set up their own, but that's just nitpicking.
They seem to be doing a pretty good business, because Logitech's SlimDevices has a new product named SqueezeBox Duet, which comprises a Squeezebox Receiver ($199) analogous to the ZP 90, and a remote control similar to the Sonos unit ($299). If you'll recall, I have one of their $299 Squeezebox 3 units for my bedroom stereo, which similarly plays back music over the network, but includes a rather less advanced (monochrome, relatively low resolution) display on the unit itself, and a regular, screen-less remote. It's a nice little piece of gear, I must admit.
So let's say you wanted to wire up your a existing home theater setup and bedroom stereo for wireless playback from your computer. Going the Sonos route, you'd buy two of their ZP 90s and one remote, for $1100. You could probably bring that down a bit by buying one of their handy bundles.
Alternatively, you could go the SlimDevices route, getting two receivers and one remote for $700, a potentially substantial savings. .
At this point, I'll mention that Apple has a little device called the Airport Express (AX). It's a rather anonymous looking device, not much bigger than most of Apple's laptop power adapters. Its chief function is to act as a wireless router, but it's got two bonus features: it can act as a print server, and, of more interest to me, it can act as a wireless receiver of digital audio transmitted from a copy of iTunes. It retails at $99, or $59 if you grab a clearance last-generation model which lacks 802.11n wireless networking.
So for half the price of the Logitech unit, or just under a third the price of the Sonos, you get fairly similar functionality. You can even have different computers playing over different AX units, or have one computer play over multiple AXes simultaneously. Apple's close to giving you the pieces to make your own Sonos system at a fraction of the price. What you miss out on is the cool remote controls that have nice interfaces and pretty album art. You could use a laptop for this purpose, but it'd be both bulky and expensive.
But with a completely tossed off bit of software for the iPhone/iPod touch, suddenly, Apple has a wireless remote that looks to be the equivalent of the Logitech and Sonos units. It's called, simply, "Remote", and is a free download. The app can browse any iTunes libraries on your network, and play them over the computers themselves or any AXes on the network. So if you already own an iPhone, you get the functionality of the $299 Logitech or $399 Sonos units. If you don't, buy an 8 GB iPod touch for $299 (or $199 refurb if you want to be cheap).
So all of a sudden, Apple offers a system for $500 ($320 if you bargain hunt) that competes with a $700 Logitech setup and a $1100 Sonos setup. Pretty cool for a company that's not really in the hi-fi business.
Speaking of which, there are bound to be some downsides to getting audio out of a device as multipurpose as the AX, and that comes from the fact that it uses a relatively low performance digital-analog converter. But... the AX's analog output doubles as a digital output, letting you take advantage of a better DAC if you have one (and if you have a home theater receiver, you already do).
At this point, you're probably asking, how does this affect you, Ward? Well, I'll get to that in part 2.
Labels: Apple, hi-fi, technology
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 2:26 AM
