Another Sonos Airplay Question

[bobby.is.rad]

I picked up an Airport Express, connected it to my router, disabled the wireless in the AE, set it to bridge mode, and connected it to the audio in on the Connect.

This definitely feels like a hack. Volume and speaker management (which speakers are playing) is done through the Sonos app. Music selection through a secondary Spotify account or music on your iPhone is done with those respective apps. So the process is, go to the music app on your phone, pick a song you want to play, and then pick the AE airplay as the output. Then go back into the Sonos app and select the line-in source, and the speakers that you want to listen to, and press play.

If that worked great, I guess it would be ok, but the speakers are causing interference that makes my airplay stop working. Meaning, if I'm playing a song from my iPhone over the WiFi to the airport express and I walk too closely to a speaker or the connect, the music breaks up and then stops playing. I have manually set my access point to be on 802.11G channel 1 and the Sonos speakers to use channel 11, so there should be absolutely no interference, but the interference is still there. No amount of channel changing has been able to fix this.

If I turn off the sonos system and connect the airport express' audio out to my stereo, I can walk wherever I want in the house and the audio is never disrupted, so it's not an issue with my iphone, wifi access point, or airport express. It's frustrating that airplay works just fine this way, but not with the sonos system on.

So here I am with a $1,000+ wireless speaker system that doesn't work the way it should. To say this has all been a frustrating experience is an understatement.

[jgatie]

bobby.is.rad,

Sonos is obviously not for you, and I doubt you are going to grow to like it. Your first post seems to indicate you have owned Sonos for less than 30 days. If so, you should save yourself some frustration, return it and get your money back. Enjoy your Airplay!

[Mummer]

In case someone stumbles across this thread wanting to learn about AirPlay & Sonos...

Like bobby.is.rad, I am a heavy airplay user & big fan, so i wanted to clear up one error.

While AirPlay can go to multiple speakers via iTunes via a PC/MAC computer, it cannot currently do this via an iOS device (iphone, iPad, etc...) & the native iOS airplay selector. There are some work arounds like airfoil, but IMHO not nearly as elegant as Sonos. Hence my addition(not switch) to Sonos.

A fan of both...

[Teejay]

Apologies for digging up an old thread but I'm looking for a bit of advice on this matter.

I just worked with a client who had a few Sonos units around the house and I was blown away by the sound. I've been a bit of a B&W fanboy for some years now (proper B&W not the Zeppelin) and have always been skeptical about all these wireless setups. However, hearing these Sonos units quickly crushed my arrogance and got me interested.

The problem is, I would ideally like to be able to stream from my iPhone/iPad since both my Wife and I both use laptops and we don't have a 'main computer' that is always on. I love the idea of waking into a room, getting my phone out and just selecting a track off of there. I also use iTunes Match/iCloud so my whole library is available from the phone.

I was kinda disappointed to see there's no native Sonos solution but I understand why, based mainly on the fact that Sonos was around long before AirPlay.

With that said are there any alternatives that rival the Sonos' sound but have the AirPlay functionality?

[buzz]

Teejay,

Warning, these things are addictive.

You've come a long way, but you need to release a little more arrogance. Look into adding a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive to your network. These are simply a dedicated LINUX appliances that deliver files on demand. They are low power and always ON. Store a copy of your music on the NAS and define the drive as your SONOS music library.

Many of the current NAS drives offer all sorts of server functions. None of these are required for SONOS. SONOS simply fetches files, the NAS has no idea why SONOS wants the file. Any computer on the network can access the NAS.

NAS drives are inexpensive and they will change your computing life as much as SONOS will change your music life. In addition to storing music on the NAS, you can store or backup any files. I recommend configuring multiple "shares" on the NAS. "Music", "His", and "Hers" come to mind, but "Kids", and "Photos" are good too.

Many of us store our music on a computer or NAS and simply copy (sync) our music to the portable. Since SONOS can play directly from the primary storage, there is no need to play directly from the portable -- unless guests arrive with portable iDevices. In this case look into the SONOS DOCK. Anything playing on a docked iDevice can be distributed to any combination of SONOS players. The DOCK is wireless and will charge the docked device. Plus, play from the docked device's library can be controlled from any SONOS controller. Note, however, that only one track can be played from a docked device at a time. Multiple DOCK's are welcome for large parties. Another plus is that one does not need to dish out the WiFi password just to play music from the docked device.

Personally, I have no use for Airplay or storing my music in the Cloud. In my opinion Airplay is rather limited compared to SONOS functionality and Airplay uses WiFi. WiFi is not well suited for playing music. This is why SONOS uses a private wireless network and why SONOS works so well compared to any other device.

"Cloud" or not is a more personal choice. "iCloud" will likely remain a private Apple domain, at least for the near future. I don't like the Cloud for my music storage because it introduces a link between me and my music that I cannot control. If the Cloud is having a bad hair day, my music will be stranded. Multiple locations? True, there is some convenience in the Cloud, but I'd rather use multiple NAS drives. This also gives me an excuse for an off site backup. (It is not a question of "if" a hard drive will fail, but "when")

[Teejay]

Thanks so much for the reply, Buzz.

That looks like a perfect solution. I'm quite pleased that I can stick with the Sonos.

I've actually considered NAS before for my network backup drive but hadn't even began to think about it for media streaming.

Are there any specific systems you recommend? There seems to be a lot of different options on the market. I've heard good things about Drobo for backup but I've no idea for streaming.

Thanks again.

[spoontee]

I do not believe you can natively transmit using airplay to multiple devices in sync. however, the program Airfoil seems to do that just fine. Sync doesnt seem to be a problem because it is multicasting 1 stream to multiple devices just like sonos rather than sending multiple streams.

The problem with Airplay is it is a PUSH based system and there is no central control device - the iphone or itunes system needs to keep pushing the file rather than the speakers PULLING the stream from the internet. If i walk outside to check the mail with my iphone, music stops.

Lets face it - Airplay sucks. Thats why we all have Sonos.