Ok, I need your help. I am installing my whole home audio system and have just ordered a complete Sonos system! There is still time though.
I just heard the exciting news about the Duet. Frankly, after reading the press material and searching through a number of posts, I'm still confused about how exactly the SB & Duet system stacks up against Sonos. I'm looking at about 8 zones, some of which consist of in-ceiling speakers whose speaker wire runs back to central home theater panel in the family room. The other zones would simply be local bookshelf or outdoor speakers. I would love to go with the SB family, because I feel it is much newer technology, comes with an awesome user group that will continue to press the envelope and seems less expensive. Plus I'm quite peeved with the fine folks at Sonos for not updating most of their (admittedly good) hardware for 3 or so years. It will kill me to plunk down my semi hard-earned money on a system that might be obsoleted within months. I currently own a wonderful SB3 and have been very happy with it for providing us with single zone audio (before we moved to a bigger place). Here are some questions/concerns: Do I need to marry each SB receiver with an amplifier? That starts to seem more kludgy. Doesn't the cost of an amplifier plus SB receiver start to equal the cost of a Sonos ZP100 zone player? What the heck is a powered speaker? Apologies for being dumb, but the only powered speakers I'm familiar with are sub-woofers and the speakers that you attach to a computer. To provide audio to the various rooms with in-ceiling speakers, could I locate all the SB receivers in my family room and connect them through my receiver there? In that case, I suppose one couldn't watch TV in the family room while listening to music in another room whose speakers are powered by the family room receiver. Listening to music without the computer on: I understand I can use the squeezenetwork to listen to Pandora, Internet radio, etc. without the computer on. But could I listen to my music collection on my NAS without the computer on? It seems like I would have to load my collection online to listen to music without the computer on. Finally, what about the whole (draft) wireless N issue? Although debated hotly on the Sonos forums, there sure seems to be an issue with how well the Sonos system can co-exist with a wireless N system. Would the new SB family be at an advantage here? It seems to run wireless G, so perhaps this is just an issue with any wireless product today. I hope I don't come across as a Sonos plant or something. Believe me, nothing would please me more than to switch to a SB system at the last minute and teach the Sonos team a lesson about the importance of STAYING innovative with both hardware and software. So any answers/insight you can provide related to the above is most appreciated!!!!! -- blorty ------------------------------------------------------------------------ blorty's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8530 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41911 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
