Sonos gets Apple Airplay support

But have you read how Sonos have achieved this?  You need to string an Apple Airport Express to each Sonos receiver!

I would much rather that Naim take their time and do it properly!

Thanks for the heads up Jon 

Sound excellent to me - I must pick up an Airport Express from my local Apple store. This will effectively add Airplay to my Naim system and will certainly be good enough for me until Naim releases its own Airplay ready streamer. 

All the best, Guy

You only have to connect the AE to one zoneplayer, then the stream from your iXXX can be shared to all zones, and surely that's better than having to buy a whole new zone-player?!

I think it is brilliant from Sonos - they do not make money from the sale of an AE, they are just offering a great service to their users. The alternative is to put a chip from Apple in the device, which would be more expensive; this provides an easy way for a Sonus user to enjoy Airplay and in my case as my Sonus plays through a Naim DAC means I can play tunes through my Naim system from an iPod, iPad or iPhone without the need for a physical connection.  

If Naim added similar functionality to one of its streaming devices then ....... 

I would also be on the Airplay side. Why does the rest of the world need to write Control Point Software if there already is a perfect control point such as the Apple Airplay Apps? This piece of software is built by hundreds of Software Engineers and comes for free to millions of users. I guess partnering with Apple rather than concurring them with own Apps would be a smart move. It would be a big plus to the Naim sales and success story and let them focus on their core competencies. It would possibly put them on a totally new level and be a USP for Naim against their competitors. But this is surely a point of discussion in Salisbury...hope so. 

Heh, Naim should announce "AirPlay support" for every preamp ever made.

"Just buy an Airport Express and use it's analog out..." - Oh please, this is too late in April.

However, I do agree that proper AirPlay support should be implemented for networked Naim players.

Naim have already said to expect an Airplay announcement by the end of the year.

What it will be, I've no idea.

But it's hardly likely to say it's not going to be supported, is it?

I know, the joke was on Sonos' announcement.

But I think Naim should hurry up with the AirPlay support as people are picking their streamers/transporters right now...

Erm...why can't you use the AE's optical digital output to the Sonos ZonePlayer? That would avoid en/de/coding.

Seems like a marketing gimmick to me. Sonos are claiming AirPlay compatibility because they can route a source to all the zones. It could be a tuner and you'd get the same effect but now have Radio 2 in every zone. It's not true AirPlay integration, per se. I suspect you can use the optical output instead of the analogue output; it's just that Apple don't talk about it on their site, which indicates yet more marketing hype...

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

The AE pops out the audio in both flavours. The zone players dont have digital inputs.

James

Since all my songs in Itunes are aac of varying bit rates, I'm not that bothered that I can't link them to my unitiqute. I'm more than happy to stream flacs using N Stream.

Now i Itunes added support for Flac and Hi Res audio, that would be a different matter.

Does AirPlay stream 24-96?  Curious.

Yes, its a hack by Sonos, and not a very nice one at that.

However, the title is what Sonos themselves are claiming. And thats my point -- they believe Airplay to be *sufficiently important* to do almost anything to get something working so they can claim its supported. (I suspect apple will disagree, but thats for the lawyers).

Thats the wake-up call.

Actually, the ZP90 does...

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Well in that case Naim Audio can already claim to be AirPlay compatible. Simply buy an AE and attach it via its toslink connection.

If you read the Sonos blurb carefully what they're really claiming is that you can get AirPlay throughput in all zones and the reason for this is that it's an inherent function of the Sonos system anyway, because ANY input can be streamed to any and all zones.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

To be pedantic, its been announced that there will be an announcement. Not that there will be an announcement of support...

Really ?

surely the label "digital audio out" is a clue? :-)

For the price of an AirPort Express you can get an AppleTV 2. Connect its Toslink out to a Uniti. Ta da...AirPlay support from iTunes or an iOS device. I've already used this on my Qute with my iPad.

Or am I missing something in the conversation?

An announcement regarding lack of support would be more at home on other forums.