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After kicking around a bunch of these solutions and discovering that none of them work quite right or you still have to spend quite a bit on the hardware, I eve

by aidos 6y ago

After kicking around a bunch of these solutions and discovering that none of them work quite right or you still have to spend quite a bit on the hardware, I eventually bent the knee to Sonos recently. The interface is pretty garbage, but it just works and the sound quality is good. Part of it was that I just don’t think I could face the wrath of my family when it didn’t work. I guess you get to a point in life when you have kids, and hours for tinkering are reduced so you need to pick your battles. I like the Snapcast model though, it follows the Linux philosophy. From memory the audio stream is basically just wrapped along with a time stamp. Then you transfer those blocks to another device that plays them at the right time (where they’re unwrapped back into an audio stream).

gingerlime 6y ago
I think I'm in the same boat. I have a rpi, installed home assistant before, I do devOps/sysadmin stuff, setting up virtual machines, docker, creating and contributing to open source etc etc... ... buuuuuuuut, having looked at the article, my eyes started to glaze over, and a sinking despair sipped in quickly... I want to love this, but I just can't bring myself to. I guess I'm at this point of giving in and getting a Sonos :(
- elgfare 6y ago
  I get that. It's not exactly easy. But FWIW it seems quite stable, I'm not having to SSH in and restart services like i did when i tried a year ago. IMO snapcast, librespot, and hifiberry should all get fully integrated into raspbian so that it's easier to set up. Regarding cost, yeah i think it's only significantly cheaper than Sonos for the same quality if you can configure some of your existing setups to become clients.
lh7777 6y ago
I've had a Sonos system for maybe 5 years and just started dismantling it a week ago. The hardware is great, but the apps have always been terrible -- they add just enough friction that I've been subconsciously avoiding using the system for some time now. If you're into voice control, it's probably OK, but I'm not interested in that. The Spotify app (via Spotify Connect) is probably the best interface for Sonos, but I'm not a big Spotify fan and want to be able to easily play from other sources. I also looked into DIY options and came to the same conclusions about reliability and time spent fiddling with it. We have mostly Apple devices, so I decided to just give Airplay 2 a shot. I bought a used Airport Express for our living room hi-fi system and a portable Libratone Zipp speaker to use elsewhere (it's in the kitchen right now). If the system continues to work as well as it has over the past week, I'll probably get a couple more Zipps. But because it has its own battery power, it's easy to just unplug and carry it to where I need it, so I don't think we'll need one for every room like we did for Sonos.
- gingerlime 6y ago
  Sorry if this is a dumb question, but isn’t Sonos also AirPlay 2 compatible? Or is it locking you into its own walled garden? Edit: in other words what’s the trade-off between Sonos and Zips in this case?
  - lh7777 6y ago
    Definitely not a dumb question. The newest Sonos speakers are Airplay 2 compatible, but mine are older and don't support it. You're right that I could've bought one new Sonos speaker to enable Airplay 2 for my whole system, but I'd always have to group that new speaker with older speaker(s) to use Airplay. I could replace all my old Sonos gear with the new versions to solve that problem, but that's a pretty expensive proposition. The Sonos One and Zipp aren't that different in price ($200 vs $190), but the Zipp really competes with the $400 Sonos Move portable. And the Sonos Port (connects Sonos directly to a traditional amp) is ridiculously priced at $450, although I suppose I could just use the Airport Express if I'm not going to use the Sonos software. The real reason, though, is that I don't want voice control and you can't get Sonos speakers that support Airplay 2 but don't have voice control. The Zipp also supports Bluetooth and line-in, so they're more flexible. Edit: forgot that the Sonos Move also support Bluetooth (but that's their only device that does).

by aidos 6y ago

gingerlime 6y ago

I think I'm in the same boat. I have a rpi, installed home assistant before, I do devOps/sysadmin stuff, setting up virtual machines, docker, creating and contributing to open source etc etc... ... buuuuuuuut, having looked at the article, my eyes started to glaze over, and a sinking despair sipped in quickly... I want to love this, but I just can't bring myself to. I guess I'm at this point of giving in and getting a Sonos :(

elgfare 6y ago
I get that. It's not exactly easy. But FWIW it seems quite stable, I'm not having to SSH in and restart services like i did when i tried a year ago. IMO snapcast, librespot, and hifiberry should all get fully integrated into raspbian so that it's easier to set up. Regarding cost, yeah i think it's only significantly cheaper than Sonos for the same quality if you can configure some of your existing setups to become clients.

lh7777 6y ago

I've had a Sonos system for maybe 5 years and just started dismantling it a week ago. The hardware is great, but the apps have always been terrible -- they add just enough friction that I've been subconsciously avoiding using the system for some time now. If you're into voice control, it's probably OK, but I'm not interested in that. The Spotify app (via Spotify Connect) is probably the best interface for Sonos, but I'm not a big Spotify fan and want to be able to easily play from other sources. I also looked into DIY options and came to the same conclusions about reliability and time spent fiddling with it. We have mostly Apple devices, so I decided to just give Airplay 2 a shot. I bought a used Airport Express for our living room hi-fi system and a portable Libratone Zipp speaker to use elsewhere (it's in the kitchen right now). If the system continues to work as well as it has over the past week, I'll probably get a couple more Zipps. But because it has its own battery power, it's easy to just unplug and carry it to where I need it, so I don't think we'll need one for every room like we did for Sonos.

gingerlime 6y ago
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but isn’t Sonos also AirPlay 2 compatible? Or is it locking you into its own walled garden? Edit: in other words what’s the trade-off between Sonos and Zips in this case?
- lh7777 6y ago
  Definitely not a dumb question. The newest Sonos speakers are Airplay 2 compatible, but mine are older and don't support it. You're right that I could've bought one new Sonos speaker to enable Airplay 2 for my whole system, but I'd always have to group that new speaker with older speaker(s) to use Airplay. I could replace all my old Sonos gear with the new versions to solve that problem, but that's a pretty expensive proposition. The Sonos One and Zipp aren't that different in price ($200 vs $190), but the Zipp really competes with the $400 Sonos Move portable. And the Sonos Port (connects Sonos directly to a traditional amp) is ridiculously priced at $450, although I suppose I could just use the Airport Express if I'm not going to use the Sonos software. The real reason, though, is that I don't want voice control and you can't get Sonos speakers that support Airplay 2 but don't have voice control. The Zipp also supports Bluetooth and line-in, so they're more flexible. Edit: forgot that the Sonos Move also support Bluetooth (but that's their only device that does).