Smart speakers, or smart-enable a traditional setup?

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I want to get music playback into a few rooms. We have a load of CDs but mostly listen to streaming or downloaded music.

Good reviews as Sonos gets, the basic unit goes for £150 and is seemingly about as big as a can of beans. Even the 3 at £250 looks small. I'm struggling to believe they are decent speakers for a living room?

Whereas for £250 I could buy a basic Cambridge Audio amp and a pair of speakers from Richer Sounds, and a Chromecast Audio. In fact with the bottom end amp and wharfdale 9s, I can get it for £150. And while those are bottom end, they're still proper separates with great reviews.

By the time I get to the cost of a play 5, or dual 3s, I could be getting some half decent kit, so is Sonos actually any good when comparing cost, for audio alone?

Then looking at a bedroom speaker, the 1 seems great but £150 is quite a lot for a bedroom speaker if you just want quiet music.

So I'm seriously considering throwing my lot in with Google... The Chromecast Audio looks like a wonderful bit of kit, and buy a network drive to centralise storage?
 
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I think you need to learn how to use a tape measure properly.

size.jpg



A Play One might seem small in the adverts you've seen, but if you look at the actual dimensions rather than guessing what you think the size is then the truth is revealed. The Play 3 and Play 5 are quite a bit larger in real life than they appear on web ads too.

Whether a Play One fills a living room with sound depends on how large your living room is and how much sound you want. As Scotty said "Ya cannae change the Laws of Physics ". The Play One isn't a humongous stack system, but it is quite potent. I have customers all over the North West using them in kitchens, conservatories, living rooms, bedrooms and they're very happy with the sound. The Play 3 is a definite step up though. The Play 3 to Play 5 jump isn't so pronounced.

Your idea of a CA amp (Topaz AM1 / AM5) + speakers, while valid, isn't quite the giant killer you'd like to believe. Have you had a look at the amp specs? I mean from the user manual and not just the headline wattage figure from the RS or CA site. Do you know how much real world power both of those amps put out? The answer is 10W per channel in to 8 Ohms. Even then it's not clear if the measurement is continuous power or if they've just measured one channel to make the figures look flattering.

AM1AM5 true power.jpg


The AM10 has got a bit more about it. However it's spec is even more vague. "80% of the rated power" - what's all that about? Why not just write 28W; what's the need for the smoke and mirrors? Once again there's no indication if this is continuous power or whether they're driving a single channel.

You might get the impression I have a downer on Cambridge Audio. I don't. The company makes some superb gear. It's a simple fact that people buy on specs they don't really understand, and most of their decisions are based on nothing more in-depth than "this number is bigger than that number ". Before the days of everything-on-the-internet catalogue-style shopping for Hi-Fi these sort of spec' issues weren't really a problem. You'd have a chat with a dealer and they'd guide you through the products and show first hand why product X was better than product Y. They knew which products worked well together and why. You'd hear the difference that a better amp or more efficient speakers would make. As a result people made far better and much more informed choices when buying proper Hi-Fidelity stereo gear. There are still dealers doing that, but not with £80 amps and £40 speakers. That just doesn't pay the bills.

Now it's an arms race to have the most Watts per £ sterling and so the way things are measured has slipped back and started to get very murky. We've not gone back to the days of P.M.P.O and the stupid figures quoted for old stack systems and boom boxes, but there's definitely a lot of very misleading info out there.

It's the same story of dodgy specs with the little T-Class amps on Ebay. They post a big number as the headline wattage figure, but in real world tests you're lucky to get 6-8 Watts out of the sub £100 variants before they run in to serious distortion. You'll get even less from the sub £50 ones. Since it's distortion that kills speaker rather than too much power, there's always a risk that driving an underpowered amp will do some damage sooner or later.

You plan to use one of these amps with some equally budget speakers. I'm afraid there's more bad news on the way then.

The same cost cutting goes on with them too. Have you noticed how many budget speakers are now 6 Ohm impedance rather than 8 Ohm? Have you any idea why they do that and what it means for the amp that has to supply the power?


Sonos isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. If all you want is a bunch of speakers with Wi-Fi then there are plenty of other solutions on the market including Chromecast Audio you mention. They all play music from the net and some from a NAS drive. Sonos does this too and has done since it was launched. The difference with Sonos is that you don't need a specific NAS drive or a fancy one that can run a server app. They designed it to work with even the most basic NAS drives.

What sets Sonos apart is it's extremely broad support for online streaming service, and the way a Sonos ecosystem works as a multi-zone music system. You have to play with a system to really start to appreciate just how sorted it is. You see, when you're a newbie you think you know what you want, and it looks like there are lots of products out there that tick all your boxes. However, once you've lived with a system for a few weeks you start to realise that what you thought you wanted isn't really what you need and value. The longer you live with it the more you come to appreciate that Sonos knew what you'd need all along.

Lots of companies have had a go at stealing the Sonos crown. Some of them have huge resources at their disposal. None have succeeded.

I'm not saying Sonos is perfect. It isn't. Right now the company has updated its control app and ****ed off a load of users in the process. They'll fix it, but in the mean time there's a few users who have fallen out of love with their systems. But it's only a speed bump in what has otherwise been a remarkably smooth road as far as the customers are concerned.
 
Hmm so the One is more comparable in size with one of the speakers you'd get on a mini hifi?

Quality is all relative I guess. You're saying my suggested setup is lacking but compared to what? Most of my life I've had £100 mini hifi systems!

Are you saying that soundwise, a £150 single Sonos will compare with what I could buy, or a £250 Sonos 3, or that both suck to different degrees?
Clearly neither is a £1000 setup but that's not a route I'm interested in.
 
I should add in a techy, so I can set up Plex, etc as needed.
 
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Hmm so the One is more comparable in size with one of the speakers you'd get on a mini hifi?

Quality is all relative I guess. You're saying my suggested setup is lacking but compared to what? Most of my life I've had £100 mini hifi systems!

Are you saying that soundwise, a £150 single Sonos will compare with what I could buy, or a £250 Sonos 3, or that both suck to different degrees?
Clearly neither is a £1000 setup but that's not a route I'm interested in.

Size-wise yes. Sound-wise I'd put the Play One ahead of a £100 minisystem.

The crux of it is the speaker design, or more specifically the way the amplification drives the speakers. It's active, you see.

With a conventional Hi-Fi system the amplifier provides the whole audio spectrum and it's the speaker's crossover that filters the sound to the tweeter and the mid/woofer. This is a passive system. Crossovers waste a bit of power and introduce distortion at the blend frequency range. If you're mix-n-matching product (as you do with separates) then the amp has to be universal rather than being tailored to just one speaker design. Those are the compromises we've come to accept.

Mini/midi/micro systems are slightly different in that they're designed as a complete package including speakers.

This gives the designer an opportunity to tailor the amp output to suit the speaker. For example, it's relatively common to find small systems use a single full-frequency driver. It won't be large, possibly a 4" or 4.5" driver, and it certainly won't produce much in the way of useful bass output down to 20Hz or up at 20,000Hz. From knowledge of similar products a reasonable frequency range would be 120Hz ~ 14,000Hz. A bass port in the speaker cabinet will help to create the impression of some bass thump. Since the driver doesn't cover the whole audio spectrum then why bother wasting precious watts to produce bass? Therefore the amp is tailored more to the drive characteristics than would be possible with a standalone amp.

In a true active system there are amps for each of the drivers (speaker cones). In the case of the Sonos Play speakers, the signal is generated at source from the internal electronics and already split by frequency. The amps are dedicated and optimised to each driver. This is a far more efficient and much cleaner way of producing sound from a tweeter and bass driver array.


You're correct, neither is a £1000 setup, but my points from the first post haven't been made with a comparison to a £1000 Hi-Fi in mind. When all is said and done, £250 doesn't buy a lot of real world performance when it comes to Hi-Fi separates. There just isn't the critical mass of funds at the manufacturing stage to cover anything more than the absolute bare minimum.

It's both a testament to the manufacturer's ability to cut production costs, but also a sad sign of the state of the industry that so much gear is available in the sub £200 market. When I started buying Hi-Fi in the mid 80's the typical entry-level system was £500 minimum. That got you a turntable, amp, speakers and cables, and possibly speaker stands too. In today's money and factoring inflation that would be the equivalent of spending £1550. That's how much times have changed. It does create a false impression of the value of things though. I see it regularly where people are considering spending £400-£500 and thinking they're buying state-of-the-art gear.

If it was me I wouldn't hamstring the Hi-Fi performance with the Diamond 9 speakers. I've used a previous version of the current Onkyo 9010 (£149) with Monitor Audio BX2 (£249) as a very successful combination. If you went for the CA AM10 or the Onkyo then either deserve something along the lines of the current Bronze 2 speaker to do the amp justice. On a limited budget I'd look at second-hand before compromising the performance with something new but cheap.

If your point of comparison is a typical £100 mini system then IMO you'll be very pleasantly surprised by a Play One. The CA amp/Diamond 9 combo will sound different. Stereo, for a start; bass will be a bit more limited unless you can buy some decent stands and put the speakers hard up against a back wall with plenty of space (2ft+) to the closest corner. As a desktop monitor or perhaps as rear surrounds these would be fine. IMO they need too much power to be considered a decent partner with a low powered amp for main stereo duty, and that's their Achilles heel: They're so cheap that they'll rarely get put with the sort of powerful amps they need to come alive, and if someone does have the sort of high current amps capable of driving the 9.0s, then they'll be looking at altogether better speakers anyway. These are almost zombie speakers caught in some kind of twilight zone.

The Play One will be less fussy about its room placement. If you use the TruPlay room optimisation app (only works on iOS at the moment) then the Play One can be dialled in very successfully to even out the sound. You can't do that with a conventional Hi-Fi system even with Google Chromecast.
 
There is a sale at the moment so Sonos Play:1 are currently £134. Sonos One (with Alexa) are £179 (and £309 for two).

Or, if you buy direct from Sonos they offer a 100 day money back guarantee:
https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/legal/terms#return-policy

I think the Play:1 is fantastic value. A great speaker, and an amazing user experience. Buy one/try one, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
 
Interesting, thankyou. I'd not looked at the onkyo but it seems a direct competitor to the CA AM10, or the Pioneer A10?https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/amplifiers-receivers/pioneer-stereo-amplifier.html

Richer Sounds actually have the pairing you suggest as a bundle £379, and a few other alternatives, here: https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=a9010&brand=

I see the diamond 220 is one option, aesthetically I'm quite taken with the floor mounted option too but no idea if it's any good.
 
But then as we're now approaching £400, as Rich points out that would buy a pair of small Sonos speakers. I wonder how that would compare for a living room, would either have any low end?

Two issues I'm thinking about:

1)I would still like CD access ideally. With a traditional system I can add a player, or even get a mini system (amp with integrated cd).

2) once you're with Sonos you're presumably trapped, you will want it in every room not a mix of Sonos and Google? In the kitchen or bedroom a cheap system might be just fine but now Sonos don't do a bargain basement product, or their smart system without integrated speakers.

Problems problems :)
 
In the kitchen or bedroom a cheap system might be just fine but now Sonos don't do a bargain basement product, or their smart system without integrated speakers.

I suspect most people only play CDs if they have loads of obscure ones that aren't on Spotify/Napster/Prime. Otherwise IMO it is easier/better to stream. (Plus you could rip CDs to a NAS so you can play them in anycase)

You only want it in every room if you buy into the usability & quality. I have Sonos in my kitchen & bedroom. But have a Pure Radio in my study (because I just listen to the radio).

At £134 the Sonos Play:1 is pretty much an entry level system. It will be at least on a par (and likely much better) than anything else at anything close to that money.

Brand/type aside what would you suggest for a bedroom/kitchen at, say, less than £100.
 
Ripping CDs is fine, but I feel having a stack of them to flip through is still nice. Maybe this would never happen, hard to predict.

For a small room you could just get a Bluetooth speaker for £30-50. JBL flip?
 
Interesting, thankyou. I'd not looked at the onkyo but it seems a direct competitor to the CA AM10, or the Pioneer A10?https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/amplifiers-receivers/pioneer-stereo-amplifier.html

Richer Sounds actually have the pairing you suggest as a bundle £379, and a few other alternatives, here: https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=a9010&brand=

I see the diamond 220 is one option, aesthetically I'm quite taken with the floor mounted option too but no idea if it's any good.

BIB: Diamond 220 is not a floor-stander. It's a stand-mount speaker. The Diamond 220 is barely 12" tall FGS.


Look, floor-standers put the tweeter (the smaller of the two drivers) at approx ear height when the listener is sat on a chair. Just because you can leave a speaker on the floor it doesn't make it a floor-stander.

Take a look at this pair of Monitor Audio Bronze 5 speakers . See how they have a more elongated profile that the Diamond 220? Do you notice how there is a lot more cabinet below the lowest driver? This is what a floor-stander looks like.

Floor-standers are tall. By tall I mean somewhere in excess of 30" tall. They ate tall and relatively slim columns compared to stand-mount speakers.


Putting stand-mount speakers on the floor is a bad idea. They're not designed to live down there. They need to have their tweeter at roughly ear height for an adult sitting in an armchair. This is achieved by putting the speaker on a stand - hence the name - stand-mounter.


"Cheap floor-stander speakers look a bargain. Are they?"

Simple answer is No. They're not a good deal. The problem with them is cabinet flex. It's not that they're floppy to the touch. What happens is that the cabinets vibrate in time to the music. This is because its expensive to make large well braced cabinets that don't vibrate. When something vibrates it gives off energy, and in speakers we hear that energy as a colouration of the sound. UIf someone describes a speaker as "boxy sounding" then they're describing one facet of a poorly braced cabinet. Other aspects include timing changes - the bass notes don't start and stop cleanly because of the way the cabinet is poor at handling the energy from the driver.

Cheap floor-standers are made because they look impressive, but if your dealer knows their stuff then they can demo all the trade-offs that cheap cabinet design/manufacture creates compared to the smaller buy significantly stiffer cabinets of stand-mounters at the same price.

As a rough rule of thumb I would avoid any floor-mounter under £450 RRP because there just isn't enough money in the pot at manufacture to do the job right.
 
Ripping CDs is fine, but I feel having a stack of them to flip through is still nice. Maybe this would never happen, hard to predict.

For a small room you could just get a Bluetooth speaker for £30-50. JBL flip?

[If you leave the room or take a call the music cuts out].

I would suggest you try a Sonos for 100 days top see what you think. As I said above you don't need to have them in every room. I have a radio in the study, my son has a radio in his room, we have Sonos in living room, kitchen and master bedroom.
 
But then as we're now approaching £400, as Rich points out that would buy a pair of small Sonos speakers. I wonder how that would compare for a living room, would either have any low end?

If you're comparing the sound that say an Onkyo 9010 + CD player + Bronze 2 speakers would make compared to a NAS Drive and 2 x Play 1 or Play One then IMO it's no contest, the traditional Hi-Fi walks it for anyone with an ear for music. What I mean by "ear for music" is that a good traditional stereo system will dig out information from the recording and communicate in a way that makes music more than just a series of notes. It's not detail or sharpness or how much bass; that's just technical detail. It's more like the difference between an okay actor playing a part and a really good actor who convinces wit their performance. There are a lot of people who spend silly amounts of money chasing the detail and the imaging and the bass extension yadda yadda yadda but never get that moment of communication every time they press play. On the flip side, there are just a few combos of gear where this just clicks. A lot of the time though it depends on the listener. Some folk are only looking for the technical details. Others are happy with background music.

The catch with the trad Hi-Fi is you need a few more bits to get things working properly. Decent speaker stands, which are a cost, possibly an equipment table too (though Ikea Lack tables at <£10 are surprisingly effective. The system needs setting up properly, preferably by a dealer who knows what they're doing and can position the gear to best effect.

But the biggest single factor is the room. It puts a massive sonic signature on the way any set of speakers work - Hi-Fi or streaming. A simple example is the train station. You can't hear the Tannoy announcement clearly because of all the echoes from hard surfaces. It's the same in a sparsely furnished listening room. If you've got a space with hard wooden floors, bare walls, an almost square room shape, and a bit bit of glass - especially patio windows or a bay window - then no matter how expensive the gear and how much tweaking the room will win out.

1)I would still like CD access ideally. With a traditional system I can add a player, or even get a mini system (amp with integrated cd).

2) once you're with Sonos you're presumably trapped, you will want it in every room not a mix of Sonos and Google? In the kitchen or bedroom a cheap system might be just fine but now Sonos don't do a bargain basement product, or their smart system without integrated speakers.

Problems problems :)

Play 1/One IS the Sonos bargain basement system. Prior to the arrival of the Play speakers the entry-level point for Sonos was £400 + speaker cost for the Connect AMP.
 
I suspect most people only play CDs if they have loads of obscure ones that aren't on Spotify/Napster/Prime. Otherwise IMO it is easier/better to stream. (Plus you could rip CDs to a NAS so you can play them in anycase)

You only want it in every room if you buy into the usability & quality. I have Sonos in my kitchen & bedroom. But have a Pure Radio in my study (because I just listen to the radio).

At £134 the Sonos Play:1 is pretty much an entry level system. It will be at least on a par (and likely much better) than anything else at anything close to that money.

Brand/type aside what would you suggest for a bedroom/kitchen at, say, less than £100.

I have both streaming and traditional CD based playback (vinyl too :D ). Even though my CD collection is ripped to a NAS I still find that listening digitally I'm constantly nagged by the thought of what else I can play. :confused:
 
I have a bit of Sonos kit (Playbar, 3x Play 1's and a Sub).

The Play1's are a very punchy speaker, I have one on the landing upstairs and it gets used quite a lot.

The App is a bit of a distraction but considering what it's capable of it just takes some getting used to.

Sonos have done multi room from 2005, others have had 3 or 4 different systems in that same time. An orignal Sonos speaker will still integrate into their newest system.

Only caveats with Sonos is if you want to feed it "line in" you'll need a Play5 or a Connect amp. Good Wifi coverage is needed as well.

I mainly use mine with Deezer Premium Plus/ TuneIn Radio and my CD'S on NAS drive.

I ripped 300 CD'S to NAS (they were just sitting on the shelf and in the loft before hand).

The Play1's are a bargain at £135 imho.

The Sonos One has Alexa integration but limited voice control for streaming services other than Amazon providers so far..
 

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