My Multi Room Audio quest can you help ?

[toscal]

OOH i do like SB (being a tweaker) do you know if the duet has an amp in as the spec doesn't really

Looking the the website it looks like it just has outputs to connect to an amplifier.

[Otto-Mate]

I've added rear view of the base receiver and the Engadget video to our news item...

http://www.wordpress-1219309-4387497.cloudwaysapps.com/New-Products/Logitechs-Squeezebox-Duet-to-Crash-the-Sonos-Party.html

M.

[toscal]

Yes this is what ive picked up from reading forums etc , the only issue that keeps coming up sonos wise is the 50k file limit.

If i could get any assurances that this is set to change dramatically id be sold but sonos are all tight lipped though they have said in the forums there will be no annocements at CES whilst SB seem to be moving and teh jive / ss7 setup could be interesting

Have a look at this on the Sonos forums.

http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=818&page=2&highlight=maximum+number+tracks

and here

http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=6317&page=2&highlight=maximum+number+tracks

Though I reckon there may be a track number increase in the next firmware upgrade. Originally Sonos could only handle about 20 to 30 thousand tracks.
Also how you tag your tracks depends on the exact number, so you may get less than the 50k limit or more.

[flipside]

@ TOSCAL

Yeah the last track increase was in firmware 2.1 (iirc) theres nothing on 2.5 and no announcments at CES or so i read in the sonos forum also im sure they must hit a hardware limit at somepoint.

I Think teh new SB remote has turned the tide for me

[iainshaw]

Let us know how you get on

I want to like SB / Transporter again...but if you subscribe to the mailing list you'll see the same stuff just going round and round. I think I'd rather have 50k tracks I were confident were going to work.

How many happy Slim users on this forum these days. Give us your views. Tell me I'm wrong

[flipside]

I want to like SB / Transporter again...but if you subscribe to the mailing list you'll see the same stuff just going round and round. I think I'd rather have 50k tracks I were confident were going to work.

How many happy Slim users on this forum these days. Give us your views. Tell me I'm wrong

Looks like the world ahs gone silent on this topic, im guessing ite being played out in so any otehr places its just boring

[iainshaw]

Shame

Looks like the world ahs gone silent on this topic, im guessing ite being played out in so any otehr places its just boring

This would have produced a torrent of stuff at one time. Maybe everyone is planning how to implement their Duo.

[TimH]

flipside,

Sorry for hijacking, but please check your PM

Tim.

[toscal]

One way round the Sonos 50K limit is to set up several music shares not too sure how to do this, as I'm waiting for my Sonos stuff to arrive. It is mentioned in several threads on the Sonos forums though.

[flipside]

from what ive read it involves setting up the librarys though wmp and pointing Sonos at the library though this would involve having a pc on running wmp which does kinda mean you may as well have a Duet system and slim server well aside from the sync/db issues that some people have , or am i being obtuse ?

[Paul_B]

I've got an SB3 with SqueezeServer (next version will be Squeezecenter) at home and have no probelms at all. The server software runs on a Mini-ITX running Windows 2003 server and the data is held on a QNAP NAS device.

All my music is ripped from CDs I own to FLAC (lossless codec) and any tag ambiguity resolved with MP3Tag. I tend to rebuild my library of Squeezeserver whenever a new version is released. The sync problems I believe can be caused by drifting during a song. Devices only re-sync at the beginning of a song. However, a huge effort has been made on improving sync'ing for Squeezecenter ver. 7.0.

My system is hardwired, although controlled via wireless laptops and Softsqueeze also runs wirelessly on PCs.

The VFD display of the SB3 is just beautiful and the number of plugins /add-ons for SB is simply amazing.

I listen to much more music now that I have an SB3 and easy access to songs than I ever did before purchasing the device.

[toscal]

This forum might be of interest to you flipside http://www.avforums.com/forums/archi.../t-320310.html

[flipside]

@TOSCAL

hi ive posted the same question in that forum (well the streamers forum) but got minimal repsonse though thanks for teh link ill ahve a look were it leads me.

I guess i should publish in both the sonos and squeezebox forums as well and try to even out the retoric

[flipside]

one CON of the SB possibly gone

Features

* True digital stereo amplifier
* 2 x 30 Watts into 6 Ω speakers
* S/PDIF RCA-type digital audio input
* Power supply output for Logitech Squeezebox® (or similar)
* Music auto detect, turns the amplifier on/off automatically
* Cables included + two sets of gold plated banana speaker connectors

http://www.sumoh.com/index-2.html

thanks to PSSO in the SB forums for the heads up

[TimMorris]

Mark keeps trying to persuade me how much easier Sonos is to implement, set up and use than Slimserver and I won't budge.

Version 7.0 (Squeezecentre) is now running as a very stable beta. I have 4 wireless SB3s all controlled by dedicated N800s and three PC clients, though I do have a "Jive" remote on order. My Server runs on a Windows 2003 SBS box, simply because that is guaranteed to be running 24/7 and has a tape drive that I can use to back up my music library from time to time. In over two years I haven't once had to reboot the server to correct an SB problem. I do have the flexibility that I can control any room with anything that has a web browser (I used an N95 at a dinner party on Saturday).

I personally use EAC and REACT together with FLAC and MP3TAG to manage my library but I have set up a 4 zone system for one of my doctors (he's a pain specialist that works out of St.Thomas's and has a three story town house in Pimlico). For him I simply used the iTunes plugin, and he rips to Apple lossless using secure-mode. The only thing missing is the Artist-sort tag, but you can't have everything!

I spent a bit of time customising SC for him, but minutes rather than hours.

The point is that SB can be used out of the box (certainly with Windows), and has the most amazing sound quality. Go over to the Meridianunplugged forum and the majority use the SP/DIF output of the standard SB3 in place of £2,000+ CD transports in systems costing tens of thousands of pounds, and the number of Sonos users are very few and far between. Mine is plugged into the back of a G68 driving 6 channels of analogue speakers. You can buy a QNAP NAS system pre-configured but I'd personally prefer to use a dedicated Mini-ITX PC with a solid state hard drive and a NAS box. Let's face it we all know that HD delivered on a shiny disc is only an interim measure and we're all going to be running media servers of one form or another befire long.

It does have its shortcomings - you can't directly plug in a second source and there isn't an amplified version available - though a set of AE Aego M 2.1 speakers are incredible value for those rooms where you do want just background music.

Don't let the fact that it has hundreds of customisation options put you off, it can be used "out of the box" but if the time comes where you want to do something clever or special the chances are someone else has done it before you and there's a plug-in available.

Until the Duet arrived then the Sonos won hands down when it came to the wow factor. The jury is now out.

Tim