Comments on: Whole House iPod + $5/mo. Gets You Every Song on the Planet

By: Lee Bannister

Lee Bannister — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:28:05 +0000

WOW - where would I be without my NerdVittles! Thanks for the great spot Ward - I signed up and am loving this on my Sonos system. It might just be why I give up the Sirius streaming to Sonos! The ability to tune into Napster "Radio" and find it is more a playlist and skip songs, add songs to your favorites, etc. and see what's coming up next on the iPhone Sonos app is awesome. Sure beats the fact that the Sirius stream kicks out after a bit as a "time-out" function... Oh yeah, and the commercials that have cropped up on "commercial free" satellite radio... I think my $60 annual Napster subscription might very well be the ticket for good!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:01:06 +0000

I wanted to second the comments by Darrell above. I picked up a few SqueezeBox parts from Amazon and Circuit City (while on final clearance), pairing them with a Synology NAS, and I absolutely love them. If you need more than about six rooms, Sonos is the way to go. But for a smaller install, Squeezebox is terrific (and comes in a few form factors).

To top it off, the Squeezebox was recently featured in Linux Journal, and it has passed the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) at my house.

Side note, they are now owned by Logitech. Site is http://www.slimdevices.com.

To tie this to PIAF, can we get PIAF to act as a SlimDevices client for music on hold? 🙂

By: Darrell

Darrell — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:22:45 +0000

The Slim Devices Squeezebox devices also support Napster in essentially the same way. I currently subscribe to Rhapsody and stream to all my Squeezebox devices throughout my house. Having used both systems, I prefer Slim Devices – plus the software is Open Source! To bad the $5/month offer doesn’t support portable devices – just streaming to a device with internet connection – so I’ll just stick with Rhapsody To Go for now…

By: boynas

boynas — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:14:54 +0000

It definitely does Ward! I think that the real value of this setup is the cleanness of the system.

By: Blake

Blake — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:25:12 +0000

What is great about the Sonos system is the party mode and linking of zones. I use it all the time linking my garage + backyard. When we have guests over every room in the house has the same music all in sync. I bought my systems while working for Best Buy as they get a great discount, but I would pay full price easily for this system. Well worth it!

By: boynas

boynas — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:50:33 +0000

Isn’t sonos a bit expensive… for $500.00 per unit I rather buy a netbook and a nice little boombox with line in for every room… Or a boxee set, or an xbmc in a $25.00 classic xbox and a 23 inch $200.00 tv.

[WM: Take a look at the revised article, and I think you will better appreciate the differences in your approach and the Sonos route.]