Please help me with a wireless music setup

[Jonboy_t]

Let me start by saying this - I am an idiot. I literally have no idea if what I'm after is possible, affordable or painfully obvious, but you guys know your salt, so here I am!

I would like to get a wireless music setup at home. My ideal setup would consist of:

- 3 or 4 wireless speakers - lounge, kitchen, conservatory and, if possible, an external one for the garden - and ability to switch between them. Oh, and wall hanging too.
- Ability to dock my iPhone and/or my iPad in it.
- Either have a built in hard drive of 250gb+ or capable of connecting to an existing one (again - no idea how I would do that).
- Good quality sound.

In terms of budget, it's pretty flexible really, but £500-£700 would be pretty much a ballpark maximum, so no £10k+ systems! This is going to be a 'keep for a long time' jobbie, so I don't want Lidl's own brand, but similarly, I doubt this would afford me any top end stuff. I do intend to pay a visit to somewhere like Richer Sounds before buying anything, but would really like to get some decent advice first so I'm not going in blind.

Again, I am fully aware that I am a luddite, so apologies if these are idiotic or foolish questions. I have never really had the spare cash to go for anything like this in the past, so they have kind of just passed me by!

[chockymonster]

Have you had a look at the Sonos stuff?
There are a few options in the range that would work for what you want.
It's simple to install and run too.

[LordLoveLength]

Jonboy_t said:

- 3 or 4 wireless speakers - lounge, kitchen, conservatory and, if possible, an external one for the garden - and ability to switch between them. Oh, and wall hanging too.

Apologies if this is a bit obvious but do you really mean wireless speakers? because they will still need power....
so even if you feed the audio to them wirelessly, they will still need a cable for power (unless get some battery powered ones with all the hassle that entails)

[Jonboy_t]

LordLoveLength said:

Jonboy_t said:

- 3 or 4 wireless speakers - lounge, kitchen, conservatory and, if possible, an external one for the garden - and ability to switch between them. Oh, and wall hanging too.

Apologies if this is a bit obvious but do you really mean wireless speakers? because they will still need power....
so even if you feed the audio to them wirelessly, they will still need a cable for power (unless get some battery powered ones with all the hassle that entails)

I did say I was an idiot, but there's a limit I can get power to all the areas, so mains is the preferred route.

I had heard of Sonos, but didn't really know what I was looking for so didn't go into too much detail with it.

[ASK1974]

Sonos meets all your criteria however you will be looking at their entry level solution and even there your budget is too. If you want the external speaker permanently available you'll need a Sonos Connect Amp and a pair of weatherproof speakers, this alone will eat most of your budget as the Amp is £400 alone.

If you don't enjoy an intimate relationship with technology you need something as simple as Sonos to make life easy, even then a little hand holding from a good dealer is required to set you on the right path. The crux though is that you really need to budget £500 minimum per zone for amp and speakers, so £700 is not going to stretch far.

Cheapest solution would be Apple Airport Express (£80), cheap amp and cheap speakers per zone. You could probably do it for around £250 per room if you tried. Frankly for the little extra Sonos makes Airport Express look very basic but both are still good options.