Sooloos vs. Sonos

I, too, had been searching for a cost-effective way to catalogue my redbook collection and looked to Sooloos and Sonos. I have had the opportunity to play with the Sooloos and admit that it has a "high-end" fit and finish, which I would expect at that price range. The downside was that the 17" touch screen is a fixed solution and not portable. I did like the fact that Sooloos uses FLAC when ripping CD's, which retains bit-integrity of the CD's. As far as the Sonos goes, I think they have a great line up of "modular" components to create a solid whole-house music distribution. Regardless of which Sonos product you go with, in order to get audiophile grade audio, you'll still need a solid DAC, whether external or integrated into a higher end receiver or pre-pro. With that in mind, I built my whole-house music distribution system from scratch using the following. The end-result was a lot more cost-effective than either the Sooloos or Sonos solution.

1. Method of cataloguing CD’s:
iTunes using ALAC (similar to FLAC but Apple proprietary; maintains bit-integrity of the CD’s; roughly 300MB for each CD, compared to 700MB of actual CD)

2. Method of whole-house music distribution:
1st gen. Apple TV’s (with ATV Flash and 1TB external USB HDD in each room where a TV is present; files are “sync’ed” from iTunes in ALAC format; no need to keep HTPC/server on at all time once files are sync’ed)
Apple AirPort Express units (in rooms without TV, like kitchen and deck/patio)

3. Method of converting digital ALAC files to analog output: Integra pre-pro (DHC-80.2) powered by external amp (Arcam P1000); Apple TV’s and Airport Express units use toslink output to connect to pre-pro (Integra DHC-80.2 has built-in 32bit/192kHz DAC); you can substitute with any good external DAC

4. Method of controlling what to play where:
iPhone/iPad (running “Remote” app – free from Apple’s app store; enables you to stream different tracks from one Apple TV to another or Airport Express unit, or the same track from one source to all Apple TV’s and Airport Express units)

Additional benefits: With the latest version of “HD Remote” app included in ATV Flash, you can use 1st gen. Apple TV’s as “Airplay” outlet for both video and audio. If you want to stream what’s playing on your iPad to a TV, you select the appropriate Apple TV via the iPad’s “AirPlay” feature.

If you want the best value to drive an external DAC with, the SB Touch is it. The Sonos is not even close. Sooloos is expensive.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

The touch is easilly the best and way lowest cost. Add iPad as a remote and it is an amazing interface and server. Only limited by the dac you use.

Another alternative that fits your budget, existing wiring, and desire to use the computer for storage and control would be the Linn Akurate DS ... also a solution where the sound quality is minimally dependent on computer setup, DAC jitter rejection, etc. There are also many wireless handhelds (i.e. iPod touch, iPad) for control.

All you need is SB Touch (modded to Linear Power Supply), a good DAC, and DBPoweramp ($30) to create FLAC's from CD's.

I have beed using the SB Classic for about 5 years. The original software version was a little problematic but the SB's guys have been regularly updating the software and nowadays it is fairly reliable.

I am a software developer and the bugs I encountered in the past I was able to find solutions for. I think a non-techie may have found it more difficult than me. The most recent updates have been very good and I have had to do minimal diagnostics.

For the low cost of SB Touch I think it is a no-brainer (even in stock form).

BTW - MOG.com is coming to SB in September.