Alternative to Gramofon?

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Ok, I am a Sonos Dealer, but I have been working on a packages that drop the price of doing a multi-Room systems.

It was based around the Gramofon system, but that has disappeared from the market, so I was wondering what else people had found around the £50 a zone mark.

One for Driller I think! Lol

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They will be specialist AV ones, 8, 12 or 16 channel to give me the 4, 6 or 8 multi room capability at about half the price of Sonos.

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miniman said:

Interesting product, strange website. Doesn't appear to be any way to buy it, although it states they ship to many places.

You could only buy it from the website and now that option seems to have gone.

I supported a support question and got a ‘this is an unmonitored website, please refer to our support forums, so it doesn’t look good.

Will ChromeCast offer DNLA, Spotify and TuneIn playing from iOS as well as (obviously) Android.

V

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bristolracer said:

Which manufacturer?
I’ve got a multi room to do for a client soon.

All the main line manufacturers in the AV/CI market offer them.

Russound, Sonance, MonitorAudio, Origin, Denon are the ones I am looking at, as well as a couple of commercial audio brands. I have accounts will all of these, which helps.

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The beauty of the Gramofon’s was the Ethernet port.

These are all Wi-fi, which I don’t want.

Ethernet only please.

V.

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Ordered one of the iEast boxes to play with.

But I can also get the Yammy trade, so it will be interesting to see how that cost stacks up too.

Off to play with some spreadsheets and report back.

V.

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Exept!

Wireless Only
and
Not DNLA Compliant

So no go on two points.

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appologies, I couldnt see a photo of the rear, but checked the spec and it only mentioned wireless.

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I have been playing with costings today.

I now have Sonos Smashing Pricing for 4 / 6 and 8 Zone systems, Using Yamaha MusicCast, a Quality Amp, Monitor Audio Ceiling-Speaker and Fire/Accoustic hoods.

Thanks for all your help and ideas

V.

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AIrplay2 will let you do mulit - room.

But it looks like it may have just been pulled on ios devices as HomePod isnt ready for multi-room or stereo yet! Doh, Apple seem to have got HomePod wrong from day1!

V.

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unlikely, it is so upgradable it will be upgraded rather than discounted.

The previous versions held thier prices to the bitter end as well.

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GravelBen said:

You could combine two components into one by using Yamaha amps with MusicCast built in? Whether it would work out cheaper than a MusicCast adaptor with another amp depends on the amp I suppose.

Edited by GravelBen on Wednesday 21st February 09:53

Even going with the MusicCast Amp, out version is about £125 per zone cheaper.

It really depends on how you set Sonos up, we tend to centralise everything so it is all in a rack together, nice and neat.

Yes Sonos and Yamaha can be decentralised, but equalliy we could mix and match with our kit to reduces cable runs and complications.

V.

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dhutch said:

So you have a single amp, and cables to each room? Run from multiple sources? But with the benefit of wireless control? Just trying to get my head round it as isn't half the point of Sonos type systems that you don't have to run wires room to room?

Daniel

So all the speaker cables in each room come back to a central location and wire into a csingle, centalised box that has 8, 12 or 16 descrete amps in it.

These are individually fed with the left of right from 4, 6 or 8 MusicCast Streamers to be able to play different things in different rooms at differing volumes at the same time all from within the Yamaha App. Or within the Yamamha / MusicCast App, you can group rooms together and they will play the same thing in different rooms.

Does that make sense.

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survivalist said:

Apologies if this has already been mentioned. I’ve got a couple of these used mainly for Spotify Connect, although the Qualcomm AllPlay App will also allow you to stream for a network share. Have been flawless for me and have Ethernet as well as analog and optical output. They also have a standard usb power socket, so if you had loads of them in a AV rack you could use a power supplt with multiple USB connectors to avoid having loads of individual power adapters plugged in.

Looking at the specifications, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the same hardware as Gramaofon (well, same qualcomm chip anayway)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Goodmans-Module-Adaptor-S...

Cheap as chips as well. I’ve been using them for ceiling speakers as even though I’ve got multiple Sonos sound bars, we found we were using Spotify 99% of the time. Compared to a Sonos connect amp this (combined with a couple of old hifi spererates I had anyway) was massively cheaper.

That, Sir, Is a billy bob bargin.

As long as it stays around then a valuable option. You are looking at over £100 cheaper again than my Yamaha Music Cast option. Oh 6 Zones that is £660 saved! On top of the £1200 or so against Sonos.

V.