Wireless Whole House Audio for $299 a Zone?

[Micah]

I ran across a mention of the SqueezeBox on AVSForum in reference to multizoned audio.

A little googling and I found there's actually a SqueezeBox2 and it looks a little something like this.

It's wireless, can be controlled with a remote or a web interface, and supports all the major music types I recognized. At $250 per unit (wired) or $299 (wireless) and the fact that it seems pretty idiot proof makes it something worth looking at, I do believe.

The original has a 5/5 rating on Amazon.com but I haven't been able to find any actual reviews for the newer model. I was wondering anyone's taken a look at it for music distribution and if so what do ya' think?

 

[Stinger]

If background music or announcements are what you're looking for than this is fine. However don't expect a great range of frequency with wireless. It's similar to using the tape deck adapters or FM broadcast units when listening to an MP3 player or CD quality music.

As with anything else, the best thing to do is find a place you can demo it and hear it with your own ears!

 

[smee]

The wireless part is wireless networking (WiFi), not broadcasting the audio wirelessly.

I've never used any of the slim/squeeze boxes or SlimServer but I've heard plenty of good things about them. There should be plenty of information/reviews/comments out there with a little googling.

At $250+ a station for audio only, I think they are a little expensive these days.

 

[Micah]

you're right smee. I looked up some prices from other manufacturers like Netgear, Linksys and Creative and they're cheaper. Even so, I dig the Sqeezebox. I've been trying to figure out if I really want to put a computer in every room or go with 1 computer to serve all the music and then figure out how to get the info to the different Zones.

A box like this eliminates all the planning for the most part and seems like a drop in solution.

The only problem I have is that in order to sync the box (and other zones) with my HTPC I need to be able to interface it with Meedio which isn't possible at this time. I think a uPnP plugin is being worked on but it's back shelf at the moment.

 

[smee]

That interoperability thing is a big sticking point for a lot of these devices.

If you are willing to go wired and want to start playing with something, look into the Hauppauge MediaMVP. It's typically only $80 and supports music, video, and photos. It has some drawbacks like no digital audio out (unless you hack it) and a less-than-stellar interface (which requires a TV). It also requires a proprietary server (using the standard firmware). But it's very cheap and pretty capable. There's a lot known about the software running on the box itself (people have created their own firmware).

There may be someone working on an interface to work with Meedio (there are Sage, BeyondTV, GBPVR, and others out there). The MediaMVP forums on www.shspvr.com have a lot of info.

In my setup, I have audio and video in 3 rooms. I use combinations of line-level audio distribution, composite video distribution, speaker-level distribution, and network connections to get music/video from one place to the other. I use one PC running Winamp for music. Video is played using the MediaMVP or GoVideo D2730 (and distributed line-level). I use PCs to record video, but not to play it back.