School me on SONOS and other home streaming systems

https://www.lifewire.com/what-to-know-about-bluetooth-3134591

^ more than I wanted to know about Bluetooth audio codecs

tl;dr newer Bluetooth devices handle compression better, but the Bluetooth signal is still compressed

in many cases it might not be possible to tell exactly what's happening, anyway:

Most Bluetooth audio products are built not by the company whose employees wear their brand, but by an original design manufacturer you've never heard of. And the Bluetooth receiver used in an audio product probably wasn't made by the ODM, but by yet another manufacturer. The more complex a digital product is, and if there are more engineers working on it, the more likely it is that no one knows everything about what's really going on inside the device. One format could easily be transcoded into another, and you'd never know it because almost no Bluetooth receiving device will tell you what the incoming format is.

This is on top of other factors affecting sound quality like the resolution of audio sources, the quality of DACs, the quality of speakers, the position of speakers, competing environmental noise, etc., etc.

this kind of shit would drive me crazy if I really wanted to optimize sound quality, but fortunately limitations of budget and hearing obviate that tendency

fwiw upthread, I am not trying to claim golden ear status and I'm sure a well encoded mp3 would sound far better through a well engineered DAC (the comment was facetious). But re compression algorithms, given the choice between lossless and lossy, in this age of massive storage and high bandwidth I can't fathom why anyone would accept the aesthetic / perceptual decisions made by some software engineer or consultant about what can and can't be heard, for the sake of a few MB of storage. All formats are flawed but deliberately throwing away part of the signal is just nuts to me. Give me a non-proprietary audio waveform that the artist approved as the final master, not some carefully constructed facsimile. If nothing else you can then encode it as needed for devices that need particular formats or have storage limitations. Bluetooth is the worst example for precisely the reasons stated above, plus with proprietary systems the people providing data about the compression are the same people who want you to buy the devices, so of course you're going to have their best assurances.

I feel like a chump for buying an ex-demo Sonos Connect just a few months back. I already had a Chromecast Audio but I don't recall being able to use it with Bandcamp or the NTS app, which I use quite heavily. The NTS archives are available on Mixcloud (which is supported) but I want the live streaming too.

Just picked up a second-hand Airport Express last gen. Thanks chaps. I had one before but it didn’t work that well - this one does. I don’t need multiroom so it’s exactly what I need.

Glad to hear it - that last gen is far better at streaming than the earlier models. I was a bit amazed by its measured quality, too -
https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/airport-express-audio-quality-2014.htm
You can also do multiroom with them - just check as many output devices in iTunes / Music as you wish to stream to.

Digging around on Alibaba I found this

https://a.aliexpress.com/_s86sQP

Claims to be exactly what I want, a cheapo airplay receiver. Can’t vouch for the sound quality but at less than 40 Australian delivered seems worth a punt.

I've seen things like that on Amazon and the sound quality is said to be problematic.

I’ve rolled my own airplay receiver with a raspberry pi and a nice usb dac before. Already had the pi in the room for other nerd reasons, worked seamlessly

The recent revive prompted me to finally get a Chromecast Audio. Didn't realize until recently that it could output digital audio! Found one for just over retail and bought a miniTOSlink cable to go to this old receiver -- it sounds amazing, thanks! Does the grouping thing where it plays to multiple Chromecasts in sync work well?

I've heard it does, but I never use it myself.

Even if it's going for slightly more than it used to it's a good buy, the optical out is a great feature....IT WAS SUCH A GOOD DEVICE GOOGLE YOU ARE SO DUMB

I bought a Hifiberry DAC for $20, so my Raspberry Pi project is definitely happening.

A fool asks: with the digital output for the Chromecast Audio, would it need to be TOSlink to 3.5mm (ie, into the back of my amp)?

Chromecast audio can do analog or digital out from the same port. If you are going to an analog in 3.5mm on your amp, then you can use the regular 3.5-to-3.5 cord they include in the box. Or if you have digital optical in on your amp/DAC, they you can get this miniTOSlink (which is in the same shape as a 3.5mm normal plug) to TOSlink cord which fits in the optical port on an amp or DAC.

If I’m doing Airplay > Raspberry Pi > receiver, or Chromecast Audio > receiver, will putting a DAC between the Pi/Chromecast and receiver improve the sound at all?

chromecast has a dac, so you’d be doing double conversion. if you use the optical digital out, in theory you could put a dac in if your receiver doesn’t have optical

with the raspberry pi the dac you’d want would be either a usb soundcard or dac like the hifiberry ones that integrate directly with the board

if the Chromecast puts out a digital stream going into a DAC, it's not double conversion - that would be if the CC put out audio which was resampled (i.e. CC -> ADC -> DAC). It's using different converters to whatever cheap ones are in the Chromecast. For example I had a setup with an Airport Express going into analogue inputs on my receiver, and then I switched it to put out optical digital which was then converted in a much better standalone DAC. It looks the same from the "sending" end but the signal path is different and the conversion is better.

Does the grouping thing where it plays to multiple Chromecasts in sync work well?

yes, it's easy to set up and the sync is accurate

I use the optical out on the CCA into a DAC, works great

V happy with my Airport Express. Rock solid so far even when streaming video & downloading torrentz. And YouTube is in sync! The old AEs were like 1 second out iirc.

my turntable-> sonos woes might have been related to a mediocre pressing of a recent recording. I was doing an A/B comparison between the vinyl and a digital copy streamed directly in and it sounded crappy

the needle also might not have been clipped firmly into the stylus, so I can also blame human error!

So is there any point to this Sonos Radio?

This is kinda cool (Philip Glass made them a jingle): https://blog.sonos.com/en/sonic-branding-by-philip-glass/

Anyway, I just turned it on, the Indie Gold station, and it's playing Joy Division. We'll see.

This is... not good.

I’m scared that they’re trying to expand their offerings rather than honing their speaker product and selling more units tbh

this is how companies either lose the plot or end up tanking completely!

This
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/21/21228460/sonos-radio-announced-features-streaming-music-date-price
says

Listeners will enjoy a stream of new, well-known, or rediscovered music, behind-the-scenes stories, as well as guest artist radio hours from the likes of Angel Olsen, JPEGMAFIA, Phoebe Bridgers, Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Vagabon, and more. Artist hosted radio hours, released every Wednesday, will start the stream of Sonos Sound System for a 60-minute radio show with music and commentary about inspiring artists, releases, and the host’s latest work.

hrrm

Hm is right

🤔

Sorry:
hrrm is right

In any case, their radio algorithms seem obviously inferior to any of the other ones I have encountered in the current era.

Oh crap, Sonos One SLs have gone back up to $179 from the $119 sale price. I guess I'll be waiting a while before I buy a pair.

i really love the move. It is better than the one and portable. If you are looking at a One and might want to move a speaker around, just get a move.

i also don't hate the radio. One advantage of sonos is certainly the source side options. The option to listen to their own radio streaming just adds to that.

alba, i tried posting that a minute after your post and got the warning. It wasn't a response. Definitely hold out for sales.

I've been making slow progress on my amateur Sonos-replacement Raspberry Pi project. I got the Pi to play an mp3 file through the Hifiberry DAC, using VLC. I also wrote a little script to copy music files from my PC to the Pi through FTP. Next step is to build a bare-bones web app that will let me control playback from my phone.

I've been making slow progress on my amateur Sonos-replacement Raspberry Pi project. I got the Pi to play an mp3 file through the Hifiberry DAC, using VLC. I also wrote a little script to copy music files from my PC to the Pi through FTP. Next step is to build a bare-bones web app that will let me control playback from my phone.

Any reason you wouldnt use an off the shelf solution like Volumio? seem to do most things you might need for a PI based audio streamer.

Ended up buying two Sonos 1s on a warehouse deal for not much more than the discounted SLs. Excited to have some decent sound again after years of putting up with having a Canton soundbar as the best 'hifi' in my home and the rest covered with Echos. Interested how they will compare with the sound of my budget separates system of old.

Also wondering how easy it is to combine control via Alexa and the Sonos app. And whether I'll be able to listen the BBC in stereo! Anyway, all this to be discovered in a few days.

They're pretty punchy and bassy sound-wise but also really detailed, I don't use mine as the main speakers in my house but they work well in the kitchen. Are you planning on having two in the same room?

Yeah - in a largeish living room. I miss having stereo sound!

Good move - in my experience one doesn't quite fill a big living room.

It's weird that their only subwoofer is so expensive. Would be great if they released a budget one too.

Any reason you wouldnt use an off the shelf solution like Volumio? seem to do most things you might need for a PI based audio streamer.

Mainly just because I wanted to tinker. Also, it looks like Volumio takes over the whole device, and I wanted to keep the Raspberry Pi with a regular Linux OS so I can do additional hobbyist projects on it if I'm so inclined.

i really love the move. It is better than the one and portable. If you are looking at a One and might want to move a speaker around, just get a move.

Yeah, I'm thinking of picking one up, if only to add some dimension of sound to different rooms. Pity you can't set up L/R splits between different models.

Still not clear why I should care about Sonos Radio. Between Spotify playlists and TuneIn for local stations, I'm sorted.

So I built my Raspberry Pi fake Sonos thing. It actually works! My requirements were basically:

- ability to easily transfer music to it from my PC, music is stored on the device, so PC doesn't need to be on for it to work (I just drag and drop a music folder to an icon on my desktop, and it transfers to the Pi)
- ability to control playback from my phone, so again PC doesn't need to be on
- music organized by artist and album, if I start playing the album, it should continue playing the whole album, etc
- the music webservice starts up on boot, so I can just plug it in. Also, I can shut it down from my phone, to make it safe to unplug

Sound quality is pretty good, though I'm wondering if I should have sprung for the more expensive Hifiberry model, now that I know it's something I'm going to use fairly often.

lol i'm trying to set up my new SONOS BEAM (bday present)

— the app won't download to my iphone (4s = too old and doesn't support)
— it does download to my laptop but the set-up procedure can't be undertaken from a laptop (needs a phone or an iPad)
— w/o the start-up procedure i can't register it and hence find it for other apps that could e.g. control it from my phone (e.g. possibly sonophone)

my BiL (who part-gave me the present) suggests connecting it via ethernet to my router and doing the start-up via the laptop as if it's just speakers -- we shall see if this works shortly

<3 this brave new world of effortless connectivity.

In a fit of trackerphobia I recently went into my google account and disabled all personalisation including 'Web and App Activity' which is described thusly:

Saves your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated information like location, to give you faster searches, better recommendations and more personalised experiences in Maps, Search and other Google services.

However it turns out that if you turn it off, Google Home integration with Sonos stops working.

xp Dang. Curious to know how you get on. My parents are getting on good with the Chromecast Audios I got them... but a big wrinkle with those is you have to use the mobile Spotify app to start playing on them (and then you could, conceivably, queue up tracks on a laptop).

Still on Logitech Server ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

definitely not working -- i'm not even sure what's meant to work, i need to create a sonos system (i.e. register) before i can add this beam and it's not letting me do that yet (bcz my otger tec is too ancient or just not able to do it)

Not shocked they would straight up require a recent mobile device. Yuck. Maybe you could borrow one to get it to a usable state?