certainly better than a Google Home Mini, we used a few months in the kitchen
Got it for free in a promotion as Google Drive user
This little thing did not always react properly
and the sound…
At office we have everywhere these Sonos Play 3 hanging around- with similar problems
User groups react false and signal is lost a few times per day
sometimes somebody turns on a online radio and is in a meeting, while nobody can change anything or turn down volume
Spotify playlists repeat one song, etc…
so not the best performance from both systems
did not use Alexa yet
What’s wrong with your Play 3s? I like mine in my small office - have 2 plus the sub. Bigger rooms need the Play 5 plus a sub, and Play 1’s are OK for kitchen and other places to substitute for a radio. And of course music throughout the house.
that is the point - we have 6 of those in a room with 680m2 = 7320 square feet for 9 people on our floor
plus 1 in each of the toilets and 2 meeting rooms
all without a sub
in the toilets the sound is way too loud to watch a youtube video on the phone while …
upstairs they have smaller rooms and in the main room a play 5 without sub
it´s ok for background music, if it would only be reliable
I have definitely fallen into the rabbit hole of speakers. I started off with a pair of LS50s after I purchased the Schiit Ragnarok as a headphone amp. It seemed like a logical jump to me. I had never heard the LS50s before purchasing, but read enough online reviews that they seemed like a good first jump into the speaker world. I lived with them for a few years until I moved into a place that was big enough for better speakers. I was fortunate enough to do some traveling and visit some high-end dealers across the country. I listened to my first pair of Wilson Audio speakers in Seattle a bit over a year ago and liked them very much. Only a few months later I was able to pick up a pair of Sabrinas second-hand from an acquaintance on one of the audio forums. That was pretty much the point at which my Focal Utopias started receiving less and less head time. At this point, my room is definitely the weak link, but the Sabrinas will follow me until I can move into a place with more space and better acoustics. The whole 2-channel world really opens your eyes to how insanely expensive audio gear can run…
Yes, I really like the Wilson Audio sound. My wife even likes the look of the Sabrinas. I’m concerned that my living room might be a bit large for Sabrinas, so I would need some serious $$ to move up to Sasha/DAW range. So I’m just biding time, considering what’s out there. Maggie 3.7i sounds very nice. I have a cat - my current Rectilinear III highboys are cat-proofed, and Wilsons look well designed from a kitty perspective also.
I love speakers and home theater. That has been a passion of mine since around 2000. I have Def Tec Mythos towers, center channel, and sub with in ceiling speaker craft for my rear speakers older 5.1 set up but still sounds incredible with my Denon receiver. I also have another room that runs in ceiling speaker craft speakers so it creates a pretty cool entertainment zone 1 and 2 for entertaining or just multiple room music. For me headphones became a requirement when our daughter was born last year. Especially when she moved out of our bedroom and into the room next door to my home office. My desktop set up does have powered Klipsch Reference speakers 44pm I believe, that I love to listen to, but they don’t get as much use as my headphones with the baby next door. However if I can choose I generally always go to speakers first then to headphones. This is actually changing now more than ever with the ownership of quality headphones and properly powered desktop amp and balanced DAC. There is really something quite special about listening through headphones.
I saw these too, they look pretty cool but not at the current price point. For me anyways. I definitely dig the Echo devices and are great for background music for the baby, but not my first choice for listening. I love that Amazon is so vested to the audio space though. This product made me happy to see when it was released.
RECTILINEAR III-es! Wow. My first exposure to quality sound, in a music appreciation course in college. Can remember their sound to this day (though doubtful the memory is accurate after 40+ years!).
One of the main reasons I dived head first down the headphones rabbit hole…my daughter is 3now…but, I still maintain my relaxing headphones use… usually combined with my whiskey and rum collection…maybe a videogame or two as well
Your music appreciation class had good taste in speakers. Mine are modified with one tweeter leg replaced by Phillips-Norelco soft dome tweeters. They were modified by me and the acoustic engineering grad student that had them before me. They tested very well, and they sound considerably better than stock. It makes it a very dicey proposition to replace them. Always in a quandry - there is nothing under about $5K per pair that sounds better to me, but they are getting older every day.
I live in Japan and have a sat/sub set of paradigms that were really difficult to get here - had to get through Hong Kong, and then had to find a transformer for the sub power. Back in Chicago at the house my brother and I own, my room has a pair of Larger Advent speakers that I did a woofer repair on about 10 years ago. Still like 'em, though I know there are better speakers available. In the small Japanese condo, headphones get the most use: Grado GH-1, Beyer Dynamic DT 1990 Pro, and for recording monitoring, the Sony 7506. Commuting and traveling: Shure 846 SE, Tin T4, CCA16, and a handful of KZ-es that I switch around. Almost forgot the Ety ER4-ex that NEEDS the equalization provided nicely by a Radsone ES100.
I saw them in an Amazon’s books store and is pretty big and heavy. I have not use for this class of speakers at this moment, but for the people into smart speakers, these have a very aceptable sound.
That’s awesome man, I feel like we have a bunch of life similarities! I used to game a little too, since our daughter was born I haven’t had much time to game. Are you mostly PC gaming?
I mostly play on PC these days…but I have an Xbox1X and switch as well. There are a bunch of us gamers on the forum…it is the other reason I started diving down the headphones rabbit hole.
I just received these new-to-me speakers this morning: a pair of Legacy Audio Studio HDs. I heard a system built around a pair of their big brother, the Legacy Calibre, early this year and was really impressed with their sound. I don’t have the money or the space for the Calibres so I took a step down to the Studio HDs. I was able to sell my previous pair of bookshelves and find a good deal on a used pair of these. Just warming them up after a cold and snowy trip to the mountains.
last week I stuck a pair of Focal Solo6 Be’s on my desk. I’m running them through a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge with Tidal / Roon. They sound unbelievably good. I haven’t spent much time with good near-field speakers, but they are a completely different experience from typical in-room 2.1 systems.
A good near field setup is something special indeed. I run the venerable JBL LSR305s on my desk along with a Rockville subwoofer, and with room correction applied to fix low frequency room modes, it sounds pretty great. Headphones still beat them on resolution, but the tonal balance and stereo image is unmatched. I’ve actually gotten a pair of in ear microphones for measuring and intend use my nearfield setup as a reference for equalizing my headphones. If that goes well I might do a whole series on it.
