finally a competitor for Sonos??????

finally a competitor for Sonos??????

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AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Wednesday 6th January 2016
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kingston12 said:
Very impressed with Chromecast Audio with two set up so far.

The set up was a bit flaky with one taking ages to connect and the other needing a hard reset, but after that they have been fine.

I have got them connected at 5ghz which seems to do the trick in terms of drop outs, but only time will tell.

The controller is nowhere near as good as Sonos, but I am sure it will be fine once I am used to it. The one thing I will find more useful is the ability to create preset groups and name them with any combinations of the zones. Not sure if this was in Sonos, but all I ever did was to assemble a group as I needed it.
I bought one the other day when I finally twigged that it would with the iThings that my work give me. I stuck it in the back of my main separates downstairs (Cambridge Audio Azur, Monitor Audio GS 10's + JBA sub) and after a bit of fiddling about had it working off my iPhone and iPad, my wife's Moto X and my son's Moto G.

It replaced the HK BTA 10 Bluetooth dongle that was there before. Nice and easy to cast from Spotify (99% of what we do these days) and notably better sound that the the HK dongle (better defined base and crisper top end, moving towards proper CD quality).

Cheap as chips, fantastic sound quality. Why pay more?




phil_cardiff

7,043 posts

207 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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kingston12 said:
Very impressed with Chromecast Audio with two set up so far.

The set up was a bit flaky with one taking ages to connect and the other needing a hard reset, but after that they have been fine.

I have got them connected at 5ghz which seems to do the trick in terms of drop outs, but only time will tell.

The controller is nowhere near as good as Sonos, but I am sure it will be fine once I am used to it. The one thing I will find more useful is the ability to create preset groups and name them with any combinations of the zones. Not sure if this was in Sonos, but all I ever did was to assemble a group as I needed it.
Mine works well but there's a few bugs that I need to fix. Namely:

1. Google play music doesn't recognise my pre-loaded music on my 'phone.
2. Google play music won't play from my NAS, when I get one.
3. LocalCast is a good app that fixes points 1 and 2 but doesn;t have a search function unless you pay a subscription
4. Spotify app on my phone doesn't work. Not sure how to fix this one.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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AC43 said:
I bought one the other day when I finally twigged that it would with the iThings that my work give me. I stuck it in the back of my main separates downstairs (Cambridge Audio Azur, Monitor Audio GS 10's + JBA sub) and after a bit of fiddling about had it working off my iPhone and iPad, my wife's Moto X and my son's Moto G.

It replaced the HK BTA 10 Bluetooth dongle that was there before. Nice and easy to cast from Spotify (99% of what we do these days) and notably better sound that the the HK dongle (better defined base and crisper top end, moving towards proper CD quality).

Cheap as chips, fantastic sound quality. Why pay more?
I agree. The sound quality seems very similar to the Sonos Connect devices that I have got connected to my main system and is actually better in one zone as I have replaced 2 x Play 3 with a pair of Q Acoustics BT3.

I know that is more due to the quality of the speakers than any difference in quality between the streams themselves, but I paid £250 in total for the Chromecast and the speakers in that zone so to get a better sound than the previous £500 system is a bonus.

Annoyingly, multi-room has now stopped working for me. I can send music to either of the zones independently, but it won't connect to the group I have set up at all. Googling reveals that it is something to do with my Netgear router not having a certain setting, but not sure this can be right as it definitely worked last night!

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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phil_cardiff said:
Mine works well but there's a few bugs that I need to fix. Namely:

1. Google play music doesn't recognise my pre-loaded music on my 'phone.
2. Google play music won't play from my NAS, when I get one.
3. LocalCast is a good app that fixes points 1 and 2 but doesn;t have a search function unless you pay a subscription
4. Spotify app on my phone doesn't work. Not sure how to fix this one.
Interesting - thanks for posting this. My experiences, related to yours:

1. Mine does see my local music - I think it's just a setting identifying where your library is.
2. No, I cannot get Google Play to "see" my NAS.
3. I use the ES file manager app which allows me to look around anywhere including my NAS. It links to it's own media player too, and you can cast from that. I've not tried searching but I suspect it'll search only on file names, rather than the metadata which Sonos uses (to great advantage).
4. I haven't tried Spotify - I rather line the free TuneIn app though. I've managed to get stations on the Sonos and Chromecast to operate together - within a "beat" of being in sync with each other.

phil_cardiff

7,043 posts

207 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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Watchman said:
phil_cardiff said:
Mine works well but there's a few bugs that I need to fix. Namely:

1. Google play music doesn't recognise my pre-loaded music on my 'phone.
2. Google play music won't play from my NAS, when I get one.
3. LocalCast is a good app that fixes points 1 and 2 but doesn;t have a search function unless you pay a subscription
4. Spotify app on my phone doesn't work. Not sure how to fix this one.
Interesting - thanks for posting this. My experiences, related to yours:

1. Mine does see my local music - I think it's just a setting identifying where your library is.
2. No, I cannot get Google Play to "see" my NAS.
3. I use the ES file manager app which allows me to look around anywhere including my NAS. It links to it's own media player too, and you can cast from that. I've not tried searching but I suspect it'll search only on file names, rather than the metadata which Sonos uses (to great advantage).
4. I haven't tried Spotify - I rather line the free TuneIn app though. I've managed to get stations on the Sonos and Chromecast to operate together - within a "beat" of being in sync with each other.
Thanks. I'll give ES file manager a look.

I get the feeling that the 1st person/team to develop a Spotify esque app for the Chromecast Audio will make a mint.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
quotequote all
phil_cardiff said:
Mine works well but there's a few bugs that I need to fix. Namely:

1. Google play music doesn't recognise my pre-loaded music on my 'phone.
2. Google play music won't play from my NAS, when I get one.
3. LocalCast is a good app that fixes points 1 and 2 but doesn;t have a search function unless you pay a subscription
4. Spotify app on my phone doesn't work. Not sure how to fix this one.
What do you see on the Spotify app? I have got mine up and running on my iPhone and iPad.

What I found a bit messy to start with was that I opened the Chromecast app, saw my two rooms and then clicked into Spotify on the 'apps' tab. When I played something on Spotify, it started playing through the phone rather than the Chromecast I had selected.

Now I go straight into the Spotify app and it always says 'devices available' at the bottom of the screen. When I click on that I can select either of the two Chromecasts or the group (both of them at once) that I have created. If I select either of the single Chromecasts, it says 'connecting' for about a second and then the zone name comes up in green and the music starts.

If I select the group it just says 'connecting' indefinitely and nothing happens, but I think that is just a router setting that I need to change.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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kingston12 said:
What I found a bit messy to start with was that I opened the Chromecast app, saw my two rooms and then clicked into Spotify on the 'apps' tab. When I played something on Spotify, it started playing through the phone rather than the Chromecast I had selected.
For me, that's the difference between the Chromecast and Sonos - the app itself is more flexible on Chromecast but that flexibility is messier, definitely.

kingston12 said:
Now I go straight into the Spotify app and it always says 'devices available' at the bottom of the screen. When I click on that I can select either of the two Chromecasts or the group (both of them at once) that I have created. If I select either of the single Chromecasts, it says 'connecting' for about a second and then the zone name comes up in green and the music starts.

If I select the group it just says 'connecting' indefinitely and nothing happens, but I think that is just a router setting that I need to change.
Hopefully my second Chromecast will turn up today (ordered Monday) so I'll have a play with the grouping tonight.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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Watchman said:
For me, that's the difference between the Chromecast and Sonos - the app itself is more flexible on Chromecast but that flexibility is messier, definitely.
Yes, I liked the Sonos app very much. I can see myself not really using the Chromecast app unless I want to make changes to the devices or groups. I'll just access them directly from the Spotify app and I am hoping that the Plex app will enable me to cast my own music.

Watchman said:
Hopefully my second Chromecast will turn up today (ordered Monday) so I'll have a play with the grouping tonight.
I'll be interested to see what you find. I was delighted to start with as it allowed me to set up permanent groups which appeared in the Spotify app and worked perfectly. Then suddenly the app would not connect to the group any more.

If you do have issues, this answer to an FAQ from the Chromecast site covers what I think is wrong with mine:

"Make sure that you disable AP/Client isolation on your Access Point/Extender and that Multi-cast forwarding is not disabled between the W-Fi networks."

I can't find these options on my Netgear R7000 router, but I have also got a Virgin Superhub and an Apple Airport Extreme so I am going to connect those back up to see if I can isolate the issue to the router.


Edited by kingston12 on Thursday 7th January 14:58

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
quotequote all
It was shipped on Monday but might not reach me until Monday coming. Hasn't turned up again today. frown

My first one was delivered the day after ordering.

paulrockliffe

15,639 posts

226 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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I've had issues with Google Play Music with the Chromecast too; anything that I've uploaded to GPlay refuses to cast, even though it'll play on my phone no problems. I can't remember the exact error message but it sounds like a DRM thing, which makes no sense as Google put no checks on where my MP3s came from when I dumped them onto their server, so they can't have a view one way or another. It did work once though, so no idea what's going on.

My phone is a Sony, the Music player that came with it is basically the same as GPlay, and will play from DLNA servers too, so you can play from your network if you set it up that way, Chromecast works fine on that, though that's all local media rather than streamed from your Google Play account.

I don't used Spotify, but I understand only the paid service can be Cast. You also can't Cast to Chromecast TV devices, for no reason other than they don't want you too, which would piss me off massively if I used Spotify.

The grouping stuff looks great, I only have one Audio, so haven't tried it, but will be extending my setup soon.

What is a bit frustrating is that some sound-only Apps, such as Pocket Casts will cast to a TV, others won't. Pocket Casts puts the podcast logo, programme title and time elapsed/length on the screen, though that's not necessary, just the sound would do. It's annoying because as well as the loss of function from some Apps, the list of options is inconsistent between Apps. Some Apps will also pick up other DLNA devices, such as XBMC as Cast options too, which adds to the inconsistency, though these are minor complaints.

Another complaint is that you can't add the TV devices to groups. I understand that the technology is much harder to implement with video, but it would be really nice if they found a way to allow it for audio only. That would be useful to allow you to cast music etc to a wider range of devices, particularly rooms with TV, but no separate audio setup, but more usefully you could use a video device to manage a playlist, that then plays across the audio devices.

I think the answer will eventually be something like Chromecast support form within something like Kodi, though that would limit you to one TV device.

Anyway, I'm using Plex for network audio which works really well.

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Friday 8th January 2016
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paulrockliffe said:
You also can't Cast to Chromecast TV devices, for no reason other than they don't want you too, which would piss me off massively if I used Spotify.
The information around this is a bit confusing but I tried it before I bought my Chromecast Audio and it worked - I cast Spotify Premium to a Chromecast TV dongle already attached to one of my TV's. The audio came through as did the Spotify graphics.

I've no idea as to the audio quality as the TV is just hooked up to some cheapo Bose PC speakers. I only did it to get the Chromcast App and Spotify configured but the signal certainly gets through


Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 07:33

paulrockliffe

15,639 posts

226 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
Sorry, my recollection was wrong - I don't use SPotify.

To cast to Chromecast Audio you need to be a Premium user.

It's this aspect of discriminating between different types of CC that is the most worrying, you just want to be able to buy the hardware and have everything work, you don't want to be worrying about how you mix up the different devices to ensure that everything works. Hopefully this doesn't become a common approach. I can understand where there are hardware limitations, but when it's a deliberate crippling of the software to drive behaviour it's a bit annoying. I don't blame Spotify, they're there to make money, but Google should have one unified protocol across both devices to stop this sort of stuff as it'll hurt the take-up of their system for no benefit. A simple solution could be to designate Audio/TV in the device setup perhaps.

If you're non-premium on Spotify it's trivial to extract the audio from a normal Chromecast, either TV to your 'proper' audio system, or with a HDMI splitter device, but that device can't be grouped for multi-room, so it's not a complete solution.

paulrockliffe

15,639 posts

226 months

Friday 8th January 2016
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Oh yeah, I meant to add, Currys had the CC Audio for £25 before Christmas, but it's now £30 again. John Lewis have it at £25 now though.

However, Currys are punting them through their ebay channel for £22.50 delivered, so I've ordered two more.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
AC43 said:
The information around this is a bit confusing but I tried it before I bought my Chromecast Audio and it worked - I cast Spotify Premium to a Chromecast TV dongle already attached to one of my TV's. The audio came through as did the Spotify graphics.

I've no idea as to the audio quality as the TV is just hooked up to some cheapo Bose PC speakers. I only did it to get the Chromcast App and Spotify configured but the signal certainly gets through


Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 07:33
I am going to pick up a Chromecast 2 video today, so will try that as well.

What I have found out is that Spotify will not cast to groups of Chromecast Audios, so the problem that I was having appears to be with Spotify rather than my router.

That is a great shame for me as Spotify is my main use for the Chromecast Audios. It seems to be a licensing issue where the Chromecasts are seen as separate devices where a full Sonos system is seen as one. That will be a major advantage that Sonos retains if they don't sort it out.

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
kingston12 said:
AC43 said:
The information around this is a bit confusing but I tried it before I bought my Chromecast Audio and it worked - I cast Spotify Premium to a Chromecast TV dongle already attached to one of my TV's. The audio came through as did the Spotify graphics.

I've no idea as to the audio quality as the TV is just hooked up to some cheapo Bose PC speakers. I only did it to get the Chromcast App and Spotify configured but the signal certainly gets through


Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 07:33
I am going to pick up a Chromecast 2 video today, so will try that as well.

What I have found out is that Spotify will not cast to groups of Chromecast Audios, so the problem that I was having appears to be with Spotify rather than my router.

That is a great shame for me as Spotify is my main use for the Chromecast Audios. It seems to be a licensing issue where the Chromecasts are seen as separate devices where a full Sonos system is seen as one. That will be a major advantage that Sonos retains if they don't sort it out.
My BIL assures me that you can group Chromecast Audios together and that he's done it.

Not an issue from me as it's not something I think I'll ever use but next time I speak to him I'll ask him.



Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 12:47

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
AC43 said:
My BIL assures me that you can group Chromecast Audios together and that he's done it.

Not an issue from me as it's not something I think I'll ever use but next time I speak to him I'll ask him.



Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 12:47
Thanks, I'd be interested to know if he has been able to cast Spotify to a group.

The group function itself is definitely there and works really well in that you can make as many permanent groups as you like.

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
kingston12 said:
AC43 said:
My BIL assures me that you can group Chromecast Audios together and that he's done it.

Not an issue from me as it's not something I think I'll ever use but next time I speak to him I'll ask him.



Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th January 12:47
Thanks, I'd be interested to know if he has been able to cast Spotify to a group.

The group function itself is definitely there and works really well in that you can make as many permanent groups as you like.
Got it - I'll ask what it is he's casting - now I think about it'll be Google Play music.........

14-7

6,233 posts

190 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
Output Flange said:
I don't currently have an Sonos kit, but because of how my house is wired all the devices would sit in the same cupboard and would be wired directly into a switch - no wireless required.

Some of my friends have Sonos and at various times they've all had issues connecting. I think they're all setup wirelessly, but don't know. I don't really want to buy a bunch of Sonos kit only to find that even hard-wired it still loses connectivity.
Have your mates set it up using their existing WiFi routers?

I have had 3 separate Sonos zones for years now all connected using the Sonos bridge and never ever had any problems. Most of my house is networked for things like TV's to stream from the network drive but there are also 3 tablets and 2 phones pretty much permanently connected.

I can imagine the Sonos stuff dropping out if connected via just the home router due to how much data is transfered wireless when using tablets/phones nowadays.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
My 2nd Chromecast Audio came today and I've now got them streaming my fav "Chill." station in a group. Works really well, and there's the capability to add a delay so it might be possible to tie these into my Sonos kit more accurately.

Love them.

As they're Android products too, they might be able to lock onto the Sonos network like my phone does. Not to receive the Sonos stream mind, just that my Sonos kit has extended my WiFi network around the house further than my router can manage.

I'm experimenting now.

Edited by Watchman on Friday 8th January 19:49

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Friday 8th January 2016
quotequote all
No, they won't see the Sonos network. frown