blorty wrote: > I'm looking at about 8 zones, some of which consist of in-ceiling > speakers whose speaker wire runs back to central home theater panel in > the family room. The other zones would simply be local bookshelf or > outdoor speakers.
OK. Are you looking to replicate that setup (all zones playing the same music) or do you want to be able to play different music in each zone? > Here are some questions/concerns: Do I need to marry each SB receiver > with an amplifier? Yes. Or, more correctly, you will need to have an amplifier (or powered speakers) for each zone. i.e. one Duet Receiver could send the same music to several zones > That starts to seem more kludgy. Kludgy? What makes you think that? > Doesn't the cost of an amplifier plus SB receiver start to equal the > cost of a Sonos ZP100 zone player? Well, the ZP100 is $500, the Duet Receiver is $150, thus you have $350 to buy an amplifier. Now, depending on your needs, you could buy something small and discrete, or something much larger. Or you could even buy some powered speakers. > > What the heck is a powered speaker? Apologies for being dumb, but > the only powered speakers I'm familiar with are sub-woofers and the > speakers that you attach to a computer. Powered speakers are simply speakers that have an amplifier built-in to them. There are a couple of common types: - central low-frequency box + two satellite speakers (e.g. Aego M [1] - two full-range units (e.g. JBL LSR range [2] There are quite a few other options; the exampleS I've given are not particularly recommendations, although I have three sets of Aego M and they're very good. > To provide audio to the various rooms with in-ceiling speakers, could > I locate all the SB receivers in my family room and connect them > through my receiver there? In that case, I suppose one couldn't > watch TV in the family room while listening to music in another room > whose speakers are powered by the family room receiver. Generally, you would need one pair of amplifier chanmnels per Duet Receiver, so it's not a great idea connecting all your speakers to one receiver (by which I presume you mean amplifier). Also, as you point out, if you use the same receiver to power your home cinema set up you would not be able to listen to music and watch TV at the same time. > Listening to music without the computer on: I understand I can use > the squeezenetwork to listen to Pandora, Internet radio, etc. without > the computer on. But could I listen to my music collection on my > NAS without the computer on? It seems like I would have to load my > collection online to listen to music without the computer on. All the Slim Devices (now Logitech SMS) products need to be connected to a server to work. This can either be a locally installed SqueezeCenter or the remote SqueezeNetwork. So, you will need to have a computer on to listen to your music collection. It is possible to run SqueezeCenter on a NAS device, but that can be tricky - NAS devices are generally under-powered. > Finally, what about the whole (draft) wireless N issue? Although > debated hotly on the Sonos forums, there sure seems to be an issue > with how well the Sonos system can co-exist with a wireless N system. > Would the new SB family be at an advantage here? It seems to run > wireless G, so perhaps this is just an issue with any wireless > product today. Wireless G is a ratified standard; Wireless N is not finalised yet. Wireless G works just fine. Hope this was useful, R. [1] http://www.acoustic-energy.co.uk/Product_range/Aego_series/Aego_M.asp [2] http://www.jblpro.com/products/recording&broadcast/index.html) _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
