'one box' stereo

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Discussion

phil_cardiff

Original Poster:

7,041 posts

207 months

Monday 25th January 2016
quotequote all
Brief is as follows:

Small, 'one box' stereo for the kitchen-diner; think a Sonos play 1/2 in size
Must have aux in or RCA in as it'll be used with a Chromecast Audio
Reasonable sound quality for casual listening
Up to £200.

Any ideas ladies and gentlemen?

knk

1,265 posts

270 months

Monday 25th January 2016
quotequote all
Get a Play:1.
Don't bother with the chromecast.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Monday 25th January 2016
quotequote all
phil_cardiff said:
Brief is as follows:

Small, 'one box' stereo for the kitchen-diner; think a Sonos play 1/2 in size
Must have aux in or RCA in as it'll be used with a Chromecast Audio
Reasonable sound quality for casual listening
Up to £200.

Any ideas ladies and gentlemen?
What do you mean by "think a Sonos play 1/2 in size"

The Play 1 is tiny, there isn't a Play 2 and the Play 3 is much bigger.

I can't think of much in the size range of a Play 1. I guess you could try a Bose SoundLink mini. It sounds pretty good and has the advantage of a battery if you want to take it on your travels or evne just around the house.

If you can move up to Play 3 size, that would open up a few more options.

phil_cardiff

Original Poster:

7,041 posts

207 months

Monday 25th January 2016
quotequote all
knk said:
Get a Play:1.
Don't bother with the chromecast.
No. The Chromecast meets my needs better.

I'll look at something play 3 sized. I've heard the play 1 and was impressed at the sq for its size. This will be for casual listening as I have a seperates system in the lounge (with chromecast) for more serious listening.

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
phil_cardiff said:
No. The Chromecast meets my needs better.

I'll look at something play 3 sized. I've heard the play 1 and was impressed at the sq for its size. This will be for casual listening as I have a seperates system in the lounge (with chromecast) for more serious listening.
B&W Z2? It is more Apple focused with a Lightning dock on the top and Airplay built in, but you can ignore all of that and just use the 3.5mm input for your Chromecast. It is about £170.

After getting a bit burnt by the reliability (for my use) of Sonos, I have replaced my zones with speakers that have got a secondary input just in case my Wifi or Chromecast does 'play up'. I like the idea of just being able to switch to another input and sort the issue out later rather than spending a long time resolving it there and then.

I really like the stereo image given by two separate speakers and am now using active speakers with a Bluetooth aptX input to supplement Chromecast. A great sound for not that much money, but probably overkill for the casual listening areas I use them in!


phil_cardiff

Original Poster:

7,041 posts

207 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
kingston12 said:
phil_cardiff said:
No. The Chromecast meets my needs better.

I'll look at something play 3 sized. I've heard the play 1 and was impressed at the sq for its size. This will be for casual listening as I have a seperates system in the lounge (with chromecast) for more serious listening.
B&W Z2? It is more Apple focused with a Lightning dock on the top and Airplay built in, but you can ignore all of that and just use the 3.5mm input for your Chromecast. It is about £170.

After getting a bit burnt by the reliability (for my use) of Sonos, I have replaced my zones with speakers that have got a secondary input just in case my Wifi or Chromecast does 'play up'. I like the idea of just being able to switch to another input and sort the issue out later rather than spending a long time resolving it there and then.

I really like the stereo image given by two separate speakers and am now using active speakers with a Bluetooth aptX input to supplement Chromecast. A great sound for not that much money, but probably overkill for the casual listening areas I use them in!
Thanks. I have been considering active speakers. But I'm not sure I can get them past my wife and onto the kitchen work surface. The B&W Z2 looks a bit more wife friendly. Plus I have an old ipod touch which is almost redundant at the moment.

Edited by phil_cardiff on Tuesday 26th January 12:19

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
Wow - are we on the same trip? I'm looking for exactly the same thing. hehe

In fact I've been looking for something like this for a couple of weeks, since I got my 2nd Chromecast (I've now got 3). I love our Sonos but I'm put off by the price when considering a solution for my kids' rooms. Both are too young to be into music enough to warrant spending money on a separates system or Sonos, so I thought to plonk a Chromecast Audio in each of their rooms connected to a reasonable boom box of some description. They both have iPads so can access our NAS and the internet radio stations themselves.

I have an old Sony docking station for one room which is OK-ish but the other room only has a pair of crappy PC speakers at the moment. I've run out of ideas for a single-box stereo solution and I'm concerned that, without a mono option, the Chromecast Audio would only play one channel if I connected it to a single speaker. Sometimes this sounds odd.

JBL does a few Bluetooth boomboxes but they are expensive and I don't want the Bluetooth and any other "extras". I didn't really want to spend the sort of budget you'd indicated because I'd probably rather just buy a Sonos Play:1 for each of my kids at that price. So, like you, I've been looking at active speakers on Ebay. There are a few but they are approaching the price of a Play:1, or they're just crappy like the PC speakers we have already.

If I had the budget for a new solution, and I wanted that sort of quality sound I'd look at the following:

Yamaha HS5, 7 or 8. You can get them in white too WITH white speaker cones, so they'll blend-in with my wife's aesthetics better. Beware these are usually sold as a SINGLE unit, not a stereo pair. They are nice that they have an amp in each unit too. The bigger ones are genuinely top notch too, and I think you can get a sub if you need more depth.

Fostex PM0.3 is OK but has an amp in one unit, with the other being a slave. I am less keen on this because it tends to lead to an imbalanced sound. They come in white but I think it's just the fascias, the rest of each cabinet (including the cone) is black.

Fostex PM0.4 has amps in each speaker. Colour scheme as above, although the previous gen version of this speaker seems to come all in white (not the cone itself though). There's a guy on Ebay selling a pair of the prev gen versions but the price is too close to a Play:1 AND he wants you to collect.

Fostex does subs too - I haven't looked into them in detail to know which sub matches which pair of speakers.

KRK Rokit 8 - seen a few pop up cheap on Ebay but don't think they do them in white. They look decent and I think they come with an amp in each unit.



Now that I've started looking into this a bit more, I have started to re-appreciate the Sonos. I've not had it long (November) but since subsequently buying the Chromecast Audio "pucks" I had started to question the Sonos. The CAs offer such fabulous sound quality.

Thing is though (as you've tried to help me on the other thread), casting to the CAs isn't quite as seamless as controlling the Sonos (although I'll work something out eventually), the Sonos's wifi network is a fabulous range extender for my Android phone (my router is at the opp side of the house), and I don't have a supply of old stereo components lying around like I did once in my life.


Keep this thread alive - I'm interested in what you buy.

Zodiac M

135 posts

129 months

benz0

339 posts

132 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
Since getting the chromecast audio i'm now looking to cover the house with them!

Particularly in the dining room where im looking for a pretty antique valve radio. I think that would be cool.. Ideally one that works with a phono input, but i could also get one thats not working and shove my spare t-amp inside it with some different speakers.

phil_cardiff

Original Poster:

7,041 posts

207 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
I keep changing my mind! Dug out our old Roberts Vintage DAB and was pleased to find it had an aux in. The sound quality is a bit meh (as it's tiny) but passable.

Then I remembered I have a pair of Wharfdale bookshelves in the garage so have been scouring ebay for tiny amps despite knowing they won't get past the wife on aesthetic grounds!

benz0

339 posts

132 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
phil_cardiff said:
I keep changing my mind! Dug out our old Roberts Vintage DAB and was pleased to find it had an aux in. The sound quality is a bit meh (as it's tiny) but passable.

Then I remembered I have a pair of Wharfdale bookshelves in the garage so have been scouring ebay for tiny amps despite knowing they won't get past the wife on aesthetic grounds!
Get a cheap T-amp, they're tiny and could even be gaffer taped to the back of one of the speakers.

WelshChris

1,173 posts

253 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
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Just picked one of these up - can't fault it to be honest:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/mini-hi-fi/pio...

dmsims

6,450 posts

266 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
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Audio Pro Addon T3

and it doesn't sound ste like Sonos

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
Think I have a solution. It's not a one box solution like I wanted but it was cheap and should be significantly better than the crappy PC speakers I had put in my son's bedroom.

I forgot that I have a pair of Scandyna pod speakers and iPod docking amp stashed amongst the boxes of crap in the garage. They're white too.

Bought a female iPod dock cable to 3.5mm jack off Amazon for under a fiver. That should turn up over the weekend or early next week. I won't need the amp visible so I'll plug the Chromecast Audio into that and hide it down the back of the shelves.

If it works, I'll feel a bit smug.

phil_cardiff

Original Poster:

7,041 posts

207 months

Thursday 28th January 2016
quotequote all
benz0 said:
phil_cardiff said:
I keep changing my mind! Dug out our old Roberts Vintage DAB and was pleased to find it had an aux in. The sound quality is a bit meh (as it's tiny) but passable.

Then I remembered I have a pair of Wharfdale bookshelves in the garage so have been scouring ebay for tiny amps despite knowing they won't get past the wife on aesthetic grounds!
Get a cheap T-amp, they're tiny and could even be gaffer taped to the back of one of the speakers.
Ha! Damn you autocorrect! I actually typed t-class amps and it changed it to tiny amps! The point was roughly the same though.

Now to scope out the reaction to bookshelf speakers in the kitchen. There may be a possibility of placing them above the wall units...

kingston12

5,473 posts

156 months

Thursday 28th January 2016
quotequote all
phil_cardiff said:
Ha! Damn you autocorrect! I actually typed t-class amps and it changed it to tiny amps! The point was roughly the same though.

Now to scope out the reaction to bookshelf speakers in the kitchen. There may be a possibility of placing them above the wall units...
I'd be a bit careful with that. I bought some Q-Acoustics BT3 active speakers which sounded great on the worktop, but not quite right now they are above the units.

I am going to try to angle them down which will hopefully sort it out.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Saturday 30th January 2016
quotequote all
Watchman said:
Think I have a solution. It's not a one box solution like I wanted but it was cheap and should be significantly better than the crappy PC speakers I had put in my son's bedroom.

I forgot that I have a pair of Scandyna pod speakers and iPod docking amp stashed amongst the boxes of crap in the garage. They're white too.

Bought a female iPod dock cable to 3.5mm jack off Amazon for under a fiver. That should turn up over the weekend or early next week. I won't need the amp visible so I'll plug the Chromecast Audio into that and hide it down the back of the shelves.

If it works, I'll feel a bit smug.
Mmm... NOT smug. Doesn't work. grumpy

Have asked seller whether he knows of a compatibility issue.

I can't help wondering whether the Scandyna dock is at fault here though. It can partially control an iPod (play, pause, skip forwards and backwards) so I wonder if it refuses to play unless an iPod is present. Thing is, the cable is for use on any "generic" iPod dock. I imagine many of them offer limited control of the iPod in the same way, and reviews suggest it does work with some, and doesn't work with others.

Tempted to buy a more expensive one. This was the cheapest one available. Wish I could go somewhere to try them.


Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Monday 1st February 2016
quotequote all
The seller of the cable I bought AND the seller of the more expensive one both confirm the Scandyna amp is not compatible, as I suspected.

So, I am working on a DIY solution. I'll publish more when I've made some progress.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Tuesday 2nd February 2016
quotequote all
First component turned up today. It's not a 100% colour match but it'll be separated from the two satellites by several cubicles in the shelving.


gizlaroc

17,251 posts

223 months

Friday 5th February 2016
quotequote all
Watchman said:
Mmm... NOT smug. Doesn't work. grumpy

Have asked seller whether he knows of a compatibility issue.

I can't help wondering whether the Scandyna dock is at fault here though. It can partially control an iPod (play, pause, skip forwards and backwards) so I wonder if it refuses to play unless an iPod is present. Thing is, the cable is for use on any "generic" iPod dock. I imagine many of them offer limited control of the iPod in the same way, and reviews suggest it does work with some, and doesn't work with others.

Tempted to buy a more expensive one. This was the cheapest one available. Wish I could go somewhere to try them.

Why don't you just go Chromecast->Amp? What is the dock doing other than adding another link in the chain that is not needed?