[Closed] General HiFi set up advice required

Personally i would looking into Sonos as a solution - I have tried many options and for me this is the winner for simplicity and function. But you do need some kind of network drive.

Another option is a simple PC or Mini mac - both you can use your ipad/pod/phone as a remote. Assuming your Hifi is near your tv also gives iplayer, c4od.

I looked at the Sonos when it was discussed last week and I couldn't really get my head around the whole solution.

HiFi and tell are nowhere near each other
I was tempted by the idea of a minimac as a music server. I guess I would still need to get a Digital/analogue converter and have the PC on all the time?

Could that cope with playing music in different rooms or would I need some other networking stuff like the airport as well (already getting expensive)

Could that cope with playing music in different rooms or would I need some other networking stuff like the airport as well (already getting expensive)

You would need an airport/AppleTV/Long cable for each additional room that you wanted to play music in. Even then I don't think that airplay can play different music in different zones in the same way that sonos can.

We have the macMini/airport setup controlled from phone or ipad and for us it works very well. The mini is on all the time and attached to the telly so doubles up for iPlayer/4OD/photo viewer etc.

You ought to go annd have a chat with a reasonable hifi dealer like sevenoaks or some such.

What you're attempting sounds expensive so best get the right advice.

I want to be able to build it up gradually so I guess I need the right foundations.
Having all of our music in itunes certainly makes the apple route more appealing, maybe the first step is just to get an analogue converter and plug the pc into the amp.
I'll look at the Sonos thing too now.

You've two issues really that you're trying to solve. From what you've said the first is the quality of the replay you're currently getting and the second is the flexibility of multi-room listening.

The first problem may well be solved relatively easily and relatively inexpensively by a Rega DAC. This came out fairly recently, is £499 and sounds fantastic. Plug your laptop into it using a high quality USB cable and the DAC into your Rega amp and you will get a big improvement.

The other challenge is a little more difficult and certainly more costly to solve.

Here are two possible solutions.

One is to go the HiFi separates route, in which case whatever you use to serve up music, Sonos or whatever other brand of music receiver you chose, you will still need an amp and speakers in every room you want music in.

The other is a much bigger compromise but much cheaper and that's to think about something like a B&W Zeppelin. I'm not saying that they're separates quality but actually they aren't all that bad and they will receive a wireless digital signal, do the DAC and then replay for you. At £500 per room it's a lot cheaper than a separates approach.

high quality USB cable

OK Sonos looks cool.

What are the drawbacks?

I could get a connect for the amp/speakers that I already have and then gradually build from there using the ipad/iphones as controllers.

If you already have and ipad/ipod (and a computer), just get an airport express.
The ipod remote app can be used to control itunes on the computer, that will stream music to the airport express (lossless if you want the best quality).
The computer doesn't have to be on all the time - a mac at least (might work with a pc, not sure) will wake up from sleep when you open the remote app on your ipod/phone/pad.

I looked into Sonos when I wanted to set ours up and as a music solution I couldn't see any real drawbacks, I only know one person with a Sonos system and they said that it was a breeze to setup. They also highly rated the iOS controller for the Sonos system.

The only reason I went with the macMini route was that I already had a AppleTV and an airport express that could be repurposed and I also thought that having a computer attached directly to the telly was a pretty future proof way of accessing streaming TV services and other computer related malarkey in the living room.

[edit]

will wake up from sleep when you open the remote app on your ipod/phone/pad.

This is true. It used to be a little flakey, but since the upgrade to iOS five the wake from sleep has been faultless.

If you have an airport express, do you need an analogue to digital converter to get good sound quality or is it OK with the splitter cable you can get from apple plugged into the L and R channels?

Due mostly to the way the rooms are organised ours aren't really set up with the full hifi experience in mind so in terms of audio quality it may not be the best. But, we do just use a 3.5mm to phono lead straight into the back of the amp. The files are all encoded as cd quality .wav files so it's a good source material to begin with. To my ears it sounds OK, and given the limitations of the room and the rest of the HIFi I think it's good enough for the time being.

I did have it in mind that if I ever upgraded the amp and set it up for proper listening then I could always add a DAC at a later date.

The Squeezebox touch supposedly has a decent DAC built in. You could pair it with a NAS if you have a wireless network or just a USB hard drive connected directly. Either way, you could archive all your music to a hard disk, and not need your PC switched on in order to play it.

If you have an airport express, do you need an analogue to digital converter to get good sound quality or is it OK with the splitter cable you can get from apple plugged into the L and R channels?

The analogue output is surprisingly ok, but a decent dac is a good idea if you want the best quality obviously (something like the musical fidelity v-dac is ideal I reckon).

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple

If you have an airport express, do you need an analogue to digital converter to get good sound quality or is it OK with the splitter cable you can get from apple plugged into the L and R channels?

it's better if you get an optical cable to go into the dac this bypasses the AExpress dac and feeds a lossless signal into the standalone dac.

i do this with a cheap(but good) beresford dac.
i'll probably replace my naim pre/power with a unitiqute though as this ticks all the boxes and a few i didn't know needed ticking for me.

Or just get a dac for your ipod as a stop gap?

I think I'll get a dac. The ipod doesn't have a dock at the moment so there is also a charging issue.

The optical output from the airport express is appealing, but then the cost of the set up is £100 for the airport and the cable.
Then I need to decide which DAC to get.

Off yo what hi-fi i suppose.

Any recomendations? there are some on eBay for about £30 but I guess they are not that good.

That Logitech Squeezebox came up recently and was recommended. They do refurb'd ones quite cheaply and the advantages are mentioned above, might do exactly what you want for just a couple of hundred quid.

Main drawback to Sonos is the cost. If you're building up gradually it's less of an issue but to do the house gets pretty spendy.

Otherwise, I love it as a solution - really flexible, excellent apps on iPhone and iPad (better than the expensive controllers to be honest), hooks up to Napster, Spotify, Last FM etc really easily.

re. DACs, the Muscial Fidelity VDAC is pretty good and (was) reasonably priced (about £150 IIRC).

is the music on your iPod lossless or compressed? It might be worth checking with some lossless files if you haven't already, it'll make a great deal of difference. Then just buy a 160Gb iPod Classic to play all your tunes!