[Archived] Home Music Systems

[Hughesy]

Can anyone recommend a good music system for use in the home?

Looking for a good quality system, ideally one which can have speakers around the house. I use an iPhone and also have iPods etc so perhaps one that use's airplay may be good?

Was originally thinking something like Bang & Olufsen or a Bose system but im open to recommendations?

Ideally looking around the £500 mark...or is that too cheap?

[Stuart]

Try one of these bud.

Sonos

Amazon links:

Sonos Play 5

Sonos Play 3

And one of these might be useful

Then get yourself a Spotify Premium Account for £5 a month...

[Ozz]

Hughesy-Dont bother with B&O or Bose. Waaaay overpriced, and the sound not good enough, esp B&O.

The Sosnos set up is spectacular, but I personally have not heard enough of it to give a judement on its sound quality. What sort of music do you want to listen to?

[Hughesy]

Cheers Stuart, do you have this set up?

Music - pretty much everything apart from classical and folk/ country music.

[ABBEY]

Hughsey and classical music? Wtf. Haha

[MarkBRFC71]

Would recommend you go to Richer Sounds, let them know what you're after and they'll sort you out. Got my home cinema set-up from them about 10 years ago - still going strong, still sounds as good as anything else out there for the same money.

If you fancy an iPod dock, this http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4892/philips-fidelio-ds9000-dock-review gets good reviews, and a guy at work just picked one up on ebay for £200 and thinks it's fantastic.

[Biddy]

Love Richer Sounds but they always try and flog you the Cambridge Audio stuff if you have an in store trial. They have been brilliant with me though letting me take sets of speakers home to try out for a few days etc.

I believe they re-sell the sonos stuff as well. I've heard great things about Sonos but its far too expensive for me.

[LeChuck]

Nothing wrong with Cambridge Audio! Got the A1 amp, plus DAB/CD separates for less than £40 and it sounds great.

I've heard a lot of people go on about Onkyo stuff for quality equipment at a decent price, probably worth taking a look.

[Stuart]

Cheers Stuart, do you have this set up?

Music - pretty much everything apart from classical and folk/ country music.

Yeah. Works very well.

It'll stream music from a PC or networked hard drive, but I definitely recommend a streaming service like Spotify.

I've had Napster for the last 12 months or so. £10 a month for unlimited (no-ad) streaming and including 12 download tracks per month - so the streaming pays for itself. Unfortunately, Napster have sold out to Rhapsody who have canned this service, so I'll be moving to Spotify as soon as it ends, mainly out of principle - even though the offer is very similar. Looks like the streaming services are all going to price fix at the same rates.

The Sonos player works with iPhone/iPad or even Android via a free app. It just means buying one or two of the speakers, which you can use independently or combine them.

There maybe somewhere nearer but I know John Lewis have one set up in their shop at the Trafford Centre if you want to have a look at it in the flesh.

I'll be honest, I love it.

[LeChuck]

What is the bitrate of streamed music?

If it's around 128 then doesn't that defeat the point of having an expensive sound system?

[BiggusLaddus]

Whatever you want it to be. Sonos and it's equivalents will steam lossless formats.

[Stuart]

I think the benchmark is now 320 but as BL says, you can stream files from PC in FLAC or other formats.

[mode_m]

I have a pair of klipsch bookshelf speakers, great sound and not too expensive.

http://www.klipsch.com/b-20-bookshelf-speakers-pair

[old darwen blue]

I have these a5 babies for my iPod. Awesome sound

http://www.audioengine.org.uk/

[Glenn]

I did the whole Richer sounds thing about 6 years ago, got a great sounding Yamaha AV amp and Eltax 5.1 speakers, they've served me very well, though the amp is getting swapped out soon and only one true optical 5.1 input and no HDMI support has left it a bit limited by modern standards, but it still sounds amazing.