Slashdot Mirror

Yaay, Apple caught up to squeezebox! Created by Slim Devices in 2000 and later purchased by Logitech. Of course, with squeezebox you can have squeeze player on Android/iOS/Windows/Linux/MacOS driving a $5000 amp and speaker or a $20 one. But.... enjoy your vendor lock-in Apple fans. I'm sure you will tell yourselves the sound is fabulous.

Squeezebox was a good idea, executed poorly, I had a Squeezebox radio and a Squeezebox Touch. The radio is one of the few items I've ever returned - even just a room away from the Wifi-router, it was unable to get a good enough signal to play music reliably. Having skimped on the wireless networking, it only had 802.11g. The Touch was a little better, but using it was a pain. All in all, Squeezebox was unable to succeed, and died many years before Homepods were even announced.

Apple seems to be competing mostly with Sonos, and a little bit with Google Home and Amazon Echo.

There is still no question that the obsolescence was built into the Apple TV by virtue of how it is designed and what it's required to rely on.

What? You're right there is no question, but you got the answer completely and totally wrong! How did you do that? The device is still working, and they are deliberately killing it! The obsolescence is NOT built in, they are creating it artificially.

The hardware was sold as an appliance, it is still working, and they are deliberately breaking it. This is not obsolescence, this is vandalism. It's exactly the same as Sonos deciding to deliberately kill off the CR100. Again, sold as an appliance, still working, and they are deliberately killing it off while people are still using it.

If you give Apple (or Sonos, for that matter) any money, you are not only an idiot, you are an asshole. You're funding your own abuse.

So, I'm looking at the product page for the Play:5 and I'm not seeing any information to support your claim that the Play:5 does beamforming. Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't find the lack of beamforming to be particularly surprising, simply given the design of the Play:5.

In a nutshell, speaker beamforming is (at least in this context) used to ensure that the sound from nearer speakers hits your ears at the same time as the sound from more distant speakers. The result is a tighter, better "sweet spot" for listening when you have speakers at different distances, but beamforming isn't necessary in the first place if the speakers are already the same distance from your ears to begin with.

...which is the case with the Play:5's relatively narrow, flat, unidirectional array of tweeters. So yeah, no need for beamforming.*

I'm guessing you thought the Play:5 supports beamforming because it has Trueplay? From what I can gather, Trueplay is simply their brand name for automatic EQing, which is a basic form of digital room correction that you'll find on many smart speakers (including the HomePod) and on any decent AVR (see: Audyssey MultEQ et al.).

More advanced forms of digital room correction (e.g. MultEQ) will do beamforming, but they require an ability to calculate the right delay for each speaker (i.e. they need to know how far each speaker is from the listener). AVRs like the one I own have the user go through a calibration process that involves placing a microphone at the desired listening location(s) while a sequence of sounds plays from each speaker.

Which brings us back to the HomePod and its use of a circular array for its tweeters and microphones, both of which do beamforming, according to Apple.

On the microphone side of things, Apple says it's using beamforming to hear voice commands better. The way that works involves adding a delay to any audio picked up by mics in the "front", then a lesser delay for mics on the "side", and then no delay for mics in the "back". Once the signals are combined any sound that originated on the "front" side (e.g. voices of users) will be amplified significantly, making it easier to hear. One of the reviews I read mentioned that it worked so well that the HomePod was able to pick up a whispered voice command while it was playing loud music (which is a feature I'd love, since I routinely have to shout my Echo Dot down after my wife leaves it playing loud music).

As for the speakers, because none of the tweeters face the same direction, the distances the sound from each tweeter will travel before it hits your ears is likely different. Assuming they can figure out the right delays, beamforming gives them a way to ensure you receive a consistent sound. But just how do they calculate those delays? My guess is that they measure (at each mic) the different times of arrival for the reflections of sounds generated by each tweeter. At that point, they'll know which side (if any) is the "front" and can then delay its audio by the right amount to give the audio from the back a chance to catch up, effectively ensuring that any user in the "front" will receive the sound from all of the HomePod's tweeters at the same time.

But, theoretically, they could actually be doing a lot more than just that.

For instance, something that should be possible but that I haven't seen them mention is that they can use the different times of arrival from sounds in the room to infer the point of origin of those sound within the space (i.e. akin to passive sonar). Their hardware seems to have the capacity to do so, and if they were to do so it would allow them to infer a user's location within the room. With that information, they could fine tune the speaker beamforming to create a "sweet spot" that followed the user around the room, ensuring that the "front" of the HomePod that has

So, I'm looking at the product page for the Play:5 and I'm not seeing any information to support your claim that the Play:5 does beamforming. Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't find the lack of beamforming to be particularly surprising, simply given the design of the Play:5.

In a nutshell, speaker beamforming is (at least in this context) used to ensure that the sound from nearer speakers hits your ears at the same time as the sound from more distant speakers. The result is a tighter, better "sweet spot" for listening when you have speakers at different distances, but beamforming isn't necessary in the first place if the speakers are already the same distance from your ears to begin with.

...which is the case with the Play:5's relatively narrow, flat, unidirectional array of tweeters. So yeah, no need for beamforming.*

I'm guessing you thought the Play:5 supports beamforming because it has Trueplay? From what I can gather, Trueplay is simply their brand name for automatic EQing, which is a basic form of digital room correction that you'll find on many smart speakers (including the HomePod) and on any decent AVR (see: Audyssey MultEQ et al.).

More advanced forms of digital room correction (e.g. MultEQ) will do beamforming, but they require an ability to calculate the right delay for each speaker (i.e. they need to know how far each speaker is from the listener). AVRs like the one I own have the user go through a calibration process that involves placing a microphone at the desired listening location(s) while a sequence of sounds plays from each speaker.

Which brings us back to the HomePod and its use of a circular array for its tweeters and microphones, both of which do beamforming, according to Apple.

On the microphone side of things, Apple says it's using beamforming to hear voice commands better. The way that works involves adding a delay to any audio picked up by mics in the "front", then a lesser delay for mics on the "side", and then no delay for mics in the "back". Once the signals are combined any sound that originated on the "front" side (e.g. voices of users) will be amplified significantly, making it easier to hear. One of the reviews I read mentioned that it worked so well that the HomePod was able to pick up a whispered voice command while it was playing loud music (which is a feature I'd love, since I routinely have to shout my Echo Dot down after my wife leaves it playing loud music).

As for the speakers, because none of the tweeters face the same direction, the distances the sound from each tweeter will travel before it hits your ears is likely different. Assuming they can figure out the right delays, beamforming gives them a way to ensure you receive a consistent sound. But just how do they calculate those delays? My guess is that they measure (at each mic) the different times of arrival for the reflections of sounds generated by each tweeter. At that point, they'll know which side (if any) is the "front" and can then delay its audio by the right amount to give the audio from the back a chance to catch up, effectively ensuring that any user in the "front" will receive the sound from all of the HomePod's tweeters at the same time.

But, theoretically, they could actually be doing a lot more than just that.

For instance, something that should be possible but that I haven't seen them mention is that they can use the different times of arrival from sounds in the room to infer the point of origin of those sound within the space (i.e. akin to passive sonar). Their hardware seems to have the capacity to do so, and if they were to do so it would allow them to infer a user's location within the room. With that information, they could fine tune the speaker beamforming to create a "sweet spot" that followed the user around the room, ensuring that the "front" of the HomePod that has

Nice! So it's a big, Bluetooth speaker! Hurray! We can listen to the HomePod - one at a time - until I have to run out to the store to get some more food, and then the party stops until I return and pair again. If only there was a way to to build a speaker that would stream music from the Internet itself so you didn't have to be tethered to your cell phone all the time...

This is FUD. Sonos has been working on allowing voice assistant (Siri / Alexa) integration with their speakers, and it's a well known fact they're going to start releasing speakers with microphones. The fact that this is now covered in their privacy policy is not surprising. Other changes include sending error information to Sonos, and sharing data about your usage with tie in services (as in, use your spotify account with your sonos, and sonos will need to talk to spotify).

While it would be great if Sonos could invent a way to stream subscription services without actually talking to them, or a voice assistant with an AI living in the speaker instead of sending your voice to a server farm for processing, that's not really possible.

You can read about the changes yourself at: http://blog.sonos.com/en/sonos...

From a personal level, I've been a Sonos user for five years now, and couldn't be happier. Their speakers would stand up to much higher end systems, and I can't tell you how many times I hear a song on them for the first time surprised me about some little details in the background you just don't hear on your car radio.

And the fact that you can set up wireless zones that are all magically in sync is amazing.

Seriously, once you try it you'll be hooked...

Ok, you want to be a leader? How about coming out with a well thought out product every decade or so?

I love Sonos too, but their current line up is several years old. Have speaker and wireless technologies not moved on at all?

Not to mention the state of the app. Despite the open letter from their CEO over a year ago accepting that they might have missed the boat on streaming technologies and need to catch up there is still no AirPlay support. No Chromecast audio either. No bluetooth. If you're going to pay twice as much as the competition, then it would be nice if you could actually use your speakers with the main technologies out there.

But that's okay, because they've been concentrating on the local music capability right? For example, acknowledging that 4 people in the house might have completely different music tastes and do not want to merge their music library into one big pool? Nope, nothing has changed.

In the last couple of years they've launched their TruePlay app, added Apple Music and allowed Spotify users to control the music from the (superior) Spotify app. That doesn't seem to be very much to me.

This thing isn't an Apple TV competitor. Apple TV doesn't have a built in amplifier and cannot run in "party mode" and sync music around the house (AFAIK).

The real things the Q competes with are devices like the Sonos Connect or Connect Amp which do have similar features and are of a more comparable price. It even bests the Sonos as it displays video too.

The one thing that all the others do that the Q doesn't is the ability to play local-network media from my NAS (AFAICT), which is a disappointment.

This thing isn't an Apple TV competitor. Apple TV doesn't have a built in amplifier and cannot run in "party mode" and sync music around the house (AFAIK).

The real things the Q competes with are devices like the Sonos Connect or Connect Amp which do have similar features and are of a more comparable price. It even bests the Sonos as it displays video too.

The one thing that all the others do that the Q doesn't is the ability to play local-network media from my NAS (AFAICT), which is a disappointment.

Sonos CC200 docking station

From the link: "it’s so useful we included it with every Sonos Controller, complete with an AC Adapter for power. Of course, if you want another Cradle for another room, we’ve made it easy to get an extra."

I believe the first-gen controllers required you to purchase the dock separately (though both controllers can just plug into a wall outlet with the included adapter).

The Sonos S5 is a speaker/amp/zone player all built into one unit. This technically is a speaker and amplifier, but my post said "separate audio equipment."

Another vote for Sonos. It's the wife-friendliest, kid-friendliest, overnight-visitor-friendliest, drunk-out-of-your-mind-friendliest system out there. Install and setup is a breeze -- truly as easy as the diagram portrays. The mesh network is excellent, or you can run it wired. You can source music from your computer/CD player/iPod, or let Sonos grab internet radio streams or services like last.fm, Sirius, Rhapsody, etc. Use Sonos to feed your own amplifier(s), or buy amplified Sonos nodes.

Slashdot covered 'em when they were new; many favorable comments. They were kick-ass at launch; these days they're miles better. Totally modular, so the system can grow as budget/desire dictates. The secure mesh network is excellent, or you can run 'em wired with CAT5. The new handheld controllers are great, or use an iPhone, iPod touch, or computer. (I've never hooked one up for a linux user, but Wine should do the job just fine.)

• Uses my existing amps/speakers -- I have an existing audio setup in each room already. Sonos can just plug into that.
• No media synchronization required -- it can read files off of your NAS.
• No computer involved -- I don't want to have to boot anything, or log into anything, or launch any apps, or care about remote endpoints. (yes, I'm sure there is a cpu in these things, but it's not a 'computer' to me.)
• Expandable -- You can get just one and add more as you want
• iPhone controllable -- I always have my phone on my person, so I can always adjust whatever's going on anywhere.

It does have downsides. The magic peering technology seems complicated and is not very well documented (at least when I was reading about it). I don't think you can use it purely wirelessly, I think at least one device needs a cat5 network connection. I think it then NATs all the other devices over an 802.11 network. It's also on the pricey end of things, although for a couple rooms it is not thousands of dollars.

They also have new models and capabilities pretty regularly so the above may already be out of date. Check it out, though.

I've also heard good things about Squeezebox, but it didn't appeal to me for several reasons that I forget.

SONOS

Could not be simpler to set up and use, I won't go into all of it here as the site lays it out pretty well. Plays many non-DRM formats (MP3, FLAC, WMA, etc) but WILL NOT play anything with any DRM of any kind. Rhapsody, Pandora and a bunch of others are available for streaming.

All of the zone players (including the recently released all-in-one player/speaker) can be hooked up via ethernet or use their proprietary zigbee mesh network, and are all controlled with their own wireless (zigbee) controller, your iPhone/Touch, or a computer running the Sonos software.

One zone player/bridge has to be hooked up to your network, the rest can be wireless.

For your living room system, or anywhere that features other components, be aware that Sonos is an entirely closed platform - you can't control it except as mentioned above, and it will not send any feedback to a 3rd party system (you'll need one remote to control your receiver/dvd/etc, and another for Sonos).

I haven't tried it myself, but this looks like a very interesting product. http://sonos.com/

Also:

iTunes + AirPort Express + iTunes Remote for iPhone/iPod touch = win. It's a poor man's Sonos.

There's a few things I wish iTunes had, like auto-syncing with folders on the filesystem, being able to manage your collection over the network via shares (e.g. set ratings, make playlists, etc), syncing to another instance of iTunes (as if it was an iPod).

The auto-syncing of folders I missed when switching to iTunes (from Amarok), but its only a minor inconvenience and its generally a great player especially when you take into account the integration with Apple's devices.

Standard Network latency and timing is not precise enough to reliably sync audio between rooms in such a way that you won't hear an echo. At least that was what I found when I researched this a couple of years ago.

Buy a Sonos and forget about it. It's an amazing set of hardware that's worth twice the price.

Imagine being able to have your music collection centralized at home on ONE MACHINE. NOT files strewn about all over the place, but one centralized location.

Or release them in more mangled formats or infected with rootkits and the like.

When iTunes came out I like being able to buy single songs off an album, sample music I never would have heard before and get some immediate gratification. And the price was right. I bought a couple hundred tracks all told. In general I down download pirate tracks because I like to support the artists that I enjoy. (note: Don't tangent on the economics of the record business, I know them better than you do.)

Then I bought a Sonos, which streams audio to different rooms of my home. It plays a lot of different formats and is really a wonderful (if a little pricey) bit of hardware. Except, of course it can't play songs that I "bought" at iTMS.

Well "duh" you're saying. And yeah, you're right, but you know, it had all of those advantages...

So my options were to 1) No listen to those songs in other rooms of my house, or 2) burn, then re-rip all the music I got from Apple. Which I did, and the quality drop is dramatic. And took a few days. (And yes, 3) pirate them. But...)

So I've stopped buying from the iTMS. And I'm slowly replacing all the my "rented" music with CDs, which sucks because I'm buying it twice, but 1) I'm vaguely supporting the artists, and 2) It's the last time I'll have to buy it. And the Sonos plays Apple losselss compressed...

I already own a Squeezebox 2, so having the DS act as one would be OK, but what I'd really like it to have it act as a WiFi remote. That's the one thing I really covet from Sonos is their slick remote.

There is a stripped down version of the Slimserver interface that can be accessed via PocketPC, but it's pretty slow to navigate. There is also a stand alone program that can control Slimserver for PocketPC (3rd party makes it, wants $45 for it), but the interface requires the use of a stylus, and is pretty cumbersome.

I agree. Most of the HTPC cases that I've seen haven't been works of art. However, that's because they are so generalist. The closest that I've seen to having a nice looking HTPC is the Bose Lifestyle systems. While these aren't strictly HTPCs... they techincally are... (just like an XBox360 is technically a PC). The drawback, of course, is that these suckers start at such a ridiculously high price (oh, and they aren't MythTV type boxes... but music playback type of boxes). Another good whole house audio solution is Sonos, but again... it costs a small fortune.

The big thing that bothers me about most HTPC cases? Their stupid brand name being on the front of them. Silverstone's seem to be the least obtrusive... but come-on. If I'm building one of these suckers... I want it to say my name or no name.

It's not exactly Apple's patent to begin with, it's Synaptics. Now I don't exactly know what deal they have with Apple as far as who else can use it, but seeing the amount of things with scroll wheels out there, I don't think apple as total control of the use of a scroll wheel.

...When used with a portable music player, then for any third-party accessory to match the ipod, they'd have to license Apple's patent...charge extra for the right to use Apple's "White Power certified" trademark on their accessory.

Apple isn't a noble, white horse riding advocate of personal freedoms and the exchange of ideas, they're a cutthroat corporation looking to make money. Were they otherwise, they'd have been bankrupt years ago.

It's a wee bit expensive, but in my opinion Sonos is the best complete system out there. Check it out - http://sonos.com/

Have a look at the Sonos System at http://www.sonos.com/

Ok. I'll bite. If Apple was to release a thing like this, they'd price it in a better way so semi-normal people could afford it. Sure, they're not known for low prices but they have (recently) been very smart about dividing their products into segments matching the buyers wallets.

I mean come on. $899 for this piece of metal? That's steep in my eyes as you can get a pretty nice machine for that kind of money. Even Sonos seems like a bargain now...

Litter the floor
Beyond Sonos
One thing I need more:
Burma Shave

"[if (blahblah) and if (blahblah2)...] then the Sonos Digital Music System is for you. It's the current state of the art for wirelessly controlling music in a large home or business where you need just the right music in the right room at the right time.

Analog loophole, analog loophole... a whole page raving about that and the fact that you can rip CDs to MP3s on your computer and play them on this thing! And there isn't even a single real-life photo, only those found on the official site. Nobody seems to be complaining about the slashvertisment now, eh?

"[if (blahblah) and if (blahblah2)...] then the Sonos Digital Music System is for you. It's the current state of the art for wirelessly controlling music in a large home or business where you need just the right music in the right room at the right time.

Analog loophole, analog loophole... a whole page raving about that and the fact that you can rip CDs to MP3s on your computer and play them on this thing! And there isn't even a single real-life photo, only those found on the official site. Nobody seems to be complaining about the slashvertisment now, eh?

I assume you are trolling, but here you go.

to see if somebody already mentioned this system from SONOS its just an add and I saw it in Tech Review but it sounds like what you were looking for.

Just saw this on Ubergizmo this week. The Sonos ZonePlayer looks like it does every thing you're looking for. They have a PDA-like controller, too, that you can carry around with you.

It's not cheap, though. the ZonePlayer costs $499 and the controller price is $399.

Just saw this on Ubergizmo this week. The Sonos ZonePlayer looks like it does every thing you're looking for. They have a PDA-like controller, too, that you can carry around with you.

It's not cheap, though. the ZonePlayer costs $499 and the controller price is $399.

Take a look at sonos. It looks like the best system out there. The scroll wheel and color lcd remote are killer. I wonder if the licensed with apple to use the scroll wheel?

So it turns out that this is harder that you might think. Getting different wireless audio into different rooms isn't too bad. It's mostly a function of throughput. But getting the SAME wireless audio is into different rooms and keeping it in sync is a surprisingly difficult.

I have the SlimDevices Squeezebox (http://www.slimdevices.com/), and it works great at the first task, but only moderately well at the second. There's a new company called Sonos (http://www.sonos.com/) that just released their product which does both very well.

I had a chance to beta-test the product and it really is as good as described. It's Linux-based, but not open-source. It utilizes a proprietary mesh-network running on top of 802.11g and it worked flawlessly in my three zone setup. All three zones could play high-bitrate audio in perfect sync with no drops.

The downside is that it is fairly expensive. If you don't need sync'd audio, I might go with a cheaper option. But if you do, I've yet to find anything that can top Sonos.

.. even better because it runs Linux, works very well with your existing PC/network archives, and even gives "Apples Design Co." a run for their money or two ..

You might look into the Sonos system (previously discussed on /. It's wireless and allows unique content at each location. I saw an early demo and it was very impressive. Cost might be a factor, but the system and controllers have a very nice look and feel.

Am I reading the website correctly? I see each audio "Zone Player" costs $500? Isn't that a bit pricy, considering you'd want one in several rooms?

Ok...I love my IPOD....in the car and at the gym! What I don't love is my IPOD at home. I too have all my music on my PC and can play it just fine when I am on my pc. But I want it everywhere in my house. Having it stream off my computer is ok with me, having to GO TO MY PC to change the music is not ok.

The airport express seems like a steping stone to something greater. I always do a ton of research before I buy any technology. I waited a year for the IPOD, and it has proven to be the best! Those other products mentioned just seem to fall short. I want something where I can control my music easily anywhere in the house.

The only thing I have found so far is something called a zone player and controller from Sonos www.sonos.com. However, is it real, or is it just a fancy website with great photoshoped images? Why hasn't apple done something like this, or is that what they are planning? I have a hard time even considering a product from a company I haven't heard of. Does anyone else know anything about Sonos? Are they legit? Are there any other companies doing something like what they claim to have?

cheers- raga

One of the great features of the Squeezebox (and the recently announced Sonos) is that you can sync multiple devices together and have the same audio playing around the house, regardless of location. There are other ways to do this, of course, but it'd be great to be able to do the same with the Airport Express.