I've been a longtime consumer of the good opinions/advice on this board. I'm not a sophisticated computer guy, so apologies if this post is too pedestrian. I have used MC since the first MJ days, and after painstakingly creating my beloved playlists and smartlists, and also enjoying some internet radio thru MC, searched for about 2 years for an effective way to stream this stuff through my house. I've used the Tivo for a while, which was nice enough, but the lack of digital audio output was a big minus and I experienced hiccups in the radio performance. There are many posts where MC users explore the limitations of various devices, and I was always looking for a post where a user summed up something that works, so that's why I'm trying this. I'm not involved in any way with Sonos, just pleased with how it worked out, so here goes.
I wanted: (1) digital audio output, (2) control by remote among various zones, so that I did not have to change songs by logging onto the computer, and perhaps most importantly, (3) the ability to synchronize in zones, so that when I have a party I didn't have to crank the receiver in the den up to 11 to allow everyone in other rooms (ie., mostly the kitchen) to enjoy the bliss of my playlists.
The first and third criterion together eliminate most of the sound bridges that are for sale today. I read carefully Mastiff's many postings on how to use cheap PCs and a NetRemote to create zones that can be synchronized, but I sadly realized this was pretty much beyond my expertise and ability to remain employed.
The Sonos devices accomplish all 3 of my objectives. They're not cheap, and they are not UPnP compatible, so I had pretty much given up on them. But, much thanks to Peter Engrav, who explained a workaround that allows you to enjoy all the benefits of your MC library with just a few extra steps (see
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33280.0). All you need to do is to export all your playlists to a folder that is shared with the Sonos devices, and your playlists and smartlists are there for you to choose on the sonos remote. The drawback is that, if you make a change to your playlists or smartlists, you have to perform another export, but this is really not that big a deal to me, as I just do it once a week or so. All the internet radio stations I like actually came as choices already programmed into the sonos remote, so I am enjoying those too.
The benefits to me are the quality of the digital sound, which is demonstrably improved compared to the Tivo. The devices are extremely easy to set up and they work very well, and the interface of the remotes are so easy that my wife picked it up and without any instruction was able to find music she liked while using her laptop in the kitchen. Best of all, the synchronization is awesome, and you can even change the volumes of the various zones with the one remote, so if you have company and there are people sitting in the dining room, you can turn that zone down while still playing more loudly for those in the den. You can change the queue of songs while music is still playing (if you stream your MC to a stereo receiver like the Denon 4306, you are familiar with the extreme limitations of the interface there).
Like I said, you can do this cheaper following Mastiff's method, but for me this is (so far) a great solution. And who knows, maybe enough MC users will try one so that Sonos will go ahead and implement full UPnP compatibility. For now, I'm just excited that, after so many years, my hard work with all my MC libraries are following me all over the house!
john
Author
Topic: Sonos: An Effective (for me) Workaround to Stream MC (Read 1854 times)