Music Streaming Tech Advice Please!

[andrewducker]

If I wanted a box I could stick in my kitchen that would stream music from any DLNA-compliant server, what would the best option be?

Must be all-in-one (nothing that needs added speakers), and have a reasonably simple interface.

My searches are showing up all sorts of things that plug into TVs, but no collection of things that are entirely stand alone. You'd think that "Stream your music to the kitchen" would be a selling point...

Note: I'm not looking for "Spend a large wodge of cash on Sonos" here. I'd like something standards compliant that will hook into my existing standards-compliant infrastructure.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Looks like this kind of thing is about as good as it gets:
http://www.whathifi.com/review/roberts-stream-83i

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Did you not buy one of the O2 jogglers when they were £50 last year? That's what we use to stream our music in the kitchen from our NAS

[andrewducker]

I do, but I need to play around with adding decent speakers to it. But I also want to offer suggestions to a friend, who doesn't have one.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Logitech squeezebox radio then?

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Lots of options - Squeezebox, Roku, much of the Pure DAB radio range. While we have a Sonos setup, I'd note that the new Sonos 3 is a lot cheaper than you'd normally think.

[wig.livejournal.com]

I have a Pure Evoke Flow radio. The sound is good but the interface is awkward.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I love it but the interface is flaky to the point of psychotic. (Most recent update made it slightly better).

[andrewducker]

Looks like Roku have discontinued the SoundBridge.

Squeezebox Radio looks plausible.

And the Sonos 3 range is still £250/room, which is way more than I'm happy spending on a music player.

Roberts, oddly, seem to be the best option so far! I didn't expect that...

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Oh and google will help - try being a little less literal 'zone 2' or 'second room' will bring results rather than kitchen.

[andrewducker]

I have googled lots. And not used the word "kitchen" once :-p

The best results have come from "wifi radio upnp"

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

There's always a speaker dock for a phone and stream through a mobile? That's what I use in the bathroom/bedroom. Get proper analysis done - your requirements are rather vague - your friend hasn't specified their current tech, they may already have everything they require, I have speaker docks in every room in my house so just need to connect via an app. There's more than one way to crack a nut - especially on a budget!

[andrewducker]

My requirements are fine - I want something that streams from any DLNA-compliant server, and has speakers built in, with a reasonably simple interface.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Your phone meets all those requirements.

[andrewducker]

I can't leave it in the kitchen.

(And frankly, the speakers on it are rubbish)

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Philips have a decent range of speaker docks which will charge androids.

[andrewducker]

I want something I can put in the kitchen, and _leave_ there. Sorry, I thought that bit was obvious, I should have been clearer.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Typical developer requirements :p NOTHING is obvious!!! Want to work here for a month? I have an email dated 23/12 from 'colleagues' 'Yes we can support this new app from Development wef 24/12', then a failure on 27/12 where the same 'colleagues' have commented - we cannot rectify this as we do not have access to the server. What did they think they were supposed to be confirming they could support? I thought it was obvious - I check I can access stuff BEFORE agreeing to accept support. Grrrrr sorry I'm grumpy and pedantic.

[andrewducker]

I think you're allowed to be, when people say they can do something that they clearly can't.

And that's not _developer_ requirements, that's _user_ requirements. Business people are even worse at specifying...

I will happily maintain that "I want a box I can stick in my kitchen that's an all-in-one." heavily implies that I want a single device that can be placed in the kitchen and left there :-p

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Slightly different suggestion:

Streaming stuff seems expensive. It might be just as cheap to buy another mp3 player and a dock. You will have one more device to sync of course every time you get new music.

[andrewducker]

As a low-end solution, that's actually pretty good. I generally can't be arsed with synchronising stuff a lot, but it looks like I could pick up a decent MP3 player for £45 and speakers for £25.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

This is what we use in the car of course and we find that we gradually get more and more fed up of the music selection (quite slowly as it's a full iPod) but almost never get round to refreshing it. In the kitchen we have Airport Express plus old computer speakers, but I did like the look of the Squeezebox Radio if it also does iTunes.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, if I was an Apple house then it'd be Airport Expresses all round.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I do so love my Sonos system.

I've just bought MLW a Pure Evoke to go in the bathroom as Sonos don't do anything with a battery. It was not exactly cheap.

We'll spark it up in the next day or two. I'll let you know how we get on with it.

[andrewducker]

Cheers!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Radio machine up and running.

I can listen to radio, digital radio, internet, internet podcasts. Not tried listening to music on a server or a subscription service.

Sounds good.

Interface is a little clunky and so far I've not worked out if the iphone app will let me drive the radio (cool if it does) or not (not so cool because it was kinda of implied in the brochure).

[andrewducker]

Cheers - I'd love to see it in action. I've been meaning to organise a pub thing with you, but I've been ill for a few days, under a lot of stress, and have jury service lined up for this week. Once the current wall of stress passes I really will sort something out!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Feel free to pop round and have a gander.

Pint or it's equivalent much looked forward to.

It's the season to be ill. I had a nasty cold between Christmas and New Year.

Jury service is an odd thing. I'm not sure I've ever written anything my brief experience with it.

[broin.livejournal.com]

As it's important to avoid answering your question and instead witter on about my own audio solution, I'm quite enjoying a Creative D100 - batteries last for ages and it's Bluetoothy. I tend to stream music from Grooveshark on my phone rather than across my network - I don't have a big library. In the future, I'll velcro a tablet to the fridge and stream from there instead.

Reasonable audio quality for a small kitchen - doesn't raise the roof, but loud enough.

[andrewducker]

That's a neat bit of kit.

[broin.livejournal.com]

That, 8 Eneloop rechargable batteries in rotation, and I've got loud music I can carry anywhere. It makes me do the dishes more.