Be Excellent To Each Other

I appear to have managed to lose my Logitech Squeezebox while moving house, so I'm looking for recommendations. I want something to play tunes around the house, both streamed from my home server, internet radio, Spotify, and Play Music would be nice but I don't know if it has an open API for it.

I've been looking at the Sonos gear. It's not cheap, but a few Sonos Play 3 boxes around the place with a bridge looks like it would do the job - anyone had any experience of the Sonos stuff? Any counter-recommendations?

I take it you want a dedicated box, rather than, say, sending the audio from your phone to a bluetooth audio receiver on an amp?

Yeah, because I want them around the house, and I don't really want an amp in every room. Also, I don't see the point in having my phone in the mix when all the stuff is already sitting on my server or the internet. And bluetooth sucks balls.

I have a Sonos 3 and 5 and really can't fault them. Insanely easy to use and looking at your list of requirements, would indeed do the job.

Sound quality is very good (though I'm no audiophile). The 3 fills a decent sized kitchen easily, while a 5 has serviced parties in our lounge perfectly well.

Like you say, not cheap. Also, how flaky is your wifi? Our internet crapped out on NYE last year which made for a somewhat subdued post-midnight party.

Wifi is pretty solid. Internet connection not amazing, but there's enough music on the network to make that less of an issue.

but if your internet drops out, won't your wifi also?

The problem we had was needing Wifi in order to tell the Sonos to take a line-in, after the internet had died. which is on the manufacturer's part.

No, it's the other way round. A wireless device only needs your wifi up and running to access other machines on the same local network.

I clearly don't deserve sonos.