anyone tried simple audio player?

It'll do high res - Sonos limited to 16/44.1

I have heard a Simple Audio demo, but not really in a setting where I could compare the player with anything else.

I would expect the Simple Audio player (as a stand-alone streamer with internal DAC) to be much better than the Sonos. However, not sure whether there will be any significant difference running both into a DAC V1.

Check whether or not the Simple Audio player actually has a 'digital out' capability. I believe the designers are ex Linn, and Linn streamers by and large cannot be connected to external DACs.

Finally, as James stated, the Simple Audio player will do high res if that's of interest.

Just had a look at the specs for the Simple Audio Room player. It does appear to have both phono and optical digital outputs.

The dealer who demonstrated it to me reckoned that the room player with built in digital amp was almost on a par with the Linn Sneaky. I have heard the Linn Sneaky demonstrated alongside a Linn Majik and was pretty impressed by it (taking price differences into account).

Plus if you buy one in the next couple of days you get £200 off , which is nice !

I tried Simple Audio about a year ago. 

Sound quality was good - at least as good as Sonos and with the advantage of playing hi res files, which Sonos will not do.

The software, however, was not good - connection to my network and NAS was not straightforward (though eventually achieved) and the web interface was clunky.  I'm sure there will have been software improvements but if you are used to the slickness of Sonos you may be disappointed.

Also, Sonos will give you integrated access to Qobuz, Spotify and other music services and I'm not sure this is the case with Simple Audio.

You may want to consider Bluesound as an alternative.  I have not yet tried it.  It will play hi res files and I believe it gives access to Qobuz, Spotify etc.  It's produced by ex NAD people so I expect sound quality will be good.  Query whether the interface is as slick as Sonos.  

I had a quick look at the Roomplayer today and will be having a full demo tomorrow .

What endlessnessism says about the software has hopefully been fixed but the salesman did say that was their achilles heal last year . The interface I saw today looks good and hopefully I will get a good listen tomorrow .

One thing I did check with Simple Audio is the availability of Spotify and Qobuz etc . No news yet on Spotify but Qobuz will be available within the week .  

I recall another oddity from a year ago - Simple Audio were advocating multi-room connection via powerline ethernet adapters.  Are they still doing this?  My house has structured ethernet cabling so I didn't have to bother with the powerlines but it struck me as a very bad idea

If you are looking for multi-room playback of hi res files, you really need to plan for wired ethernet connections - not powerlines and not wireless which will leave you with buffering issues and dropouts. 

Probably because most people using this sort of kit will not be streaming hi-res. I used powerlines for a while with no buffering issues, but I started experiencing problems as soon as I started network streaming of hi-res files.

I thought that the powerline ethernet capability was built into the devices?

Powerline capability is indeed built-in, and I thought that was an odd technology for Simple Audio to be plugging (so to speak).  You can still use a normal wired ethernet connection, which is what I did.  Powerlines and wireless are not really up to the demands of hi res streaming, not to mention the sonic effect of mixing power and data, and I'd have expected Simple Audio to recognise this and make it clear that wired ethernet was the minimum requirement for hi res (and hi fi) streaming. 

endlessnessism

You say you have experienced buffering issues and dropouts playing hi-res files. It does beg the question what powerline adaptors were you using? I don't have many hi-res music files, the majority are ALAC, but I have never experienced any problems. I would recommend AV200 PLA's as a minimum. Network speeds average between 100-150Mbits/s according to the Devolo Cockpit software.

Dave

It's not difficult to get network throughput sorted when you exert design control over both the power supply as well as the streaming electronics, and I suspect that there is a fair bit of the DNA of Linn DS inside (which might also explain the deficiencies in control software which, frankly, took a few years for Linn to get right).

Most retailers won't touch a decent-sounding streaming device if the control app performs badly (or is a no-show).

Dave, reading the Simple Audio player support web site, their Powerline implementation is indeed the  AV200 format. If you are determined to use PLAs then this might be good for you, but according to their support web pages they do recommend against using mains 'adapters' and mains filters as the RF may be filtered and interfere with the operation.

However their player also supports Ethernet connections as well.

AS332, where did you see the Qobuz support within the week?

Simon

Simon

The Roomplayer certainly looks an attractive unit but unfortunately, again, no android or Spotify support.

Dave

Naim are missing a trick here. 

Forget the fact that Simple Audio is relatively inexpensive - that is not the issue for me.  The issue is that, if you want simultaneous multi-room streaming without compression, you can have it from Simple Audio, or Bluesound, or even Sonos (albeit the latter is limited to 16 bit), but you cannot at the moment have it for any amount of money from Naim.  (I am discounting NaimNet which has been abandoned and which was limited to 16 bit anyway). 

If the other companies can do it inexpensively, why can't Naim get their streamers to play along simultaneously without compression?  For me just now it's the difference between investing in Naim streamers (which I would like to do) and cobbling together systems based on other companies' products (Sonos or Simple Audio into DACs, etc).

Not to mention that everyone else gives access to Qobuz. 

There's also a new player called "beep" which offers multi-room synchronised streaming and casting from phones/tablets for $100. google "beep music" and all will be revealed. 

Funny you mention that - most retailers I know don't care (nor do their customers) about synchronized audio or video zones - it's not as much a selling point as is high-res playback in a single zone, with a decent app for input selection, volume control, and content browsing.

This IMHO is why Uniti & NDx products succeeded in the marketplace while NaimNet struggled (over here, anyway).

Customers do care, however, about the ability to address premium streaming services, and I have to admit that I have grown to love Pandora (over here) for what it is; to me, it sounds the best of the compressed streams out there, and I suspect that there is much to be said for the manner in which cloud-streamed audio is handled / buffered / tagged that makes the difference in performance and usability.

Right ,

Demo of Simple Audio Roomplayer against Sonos done and completely inconclusive as the dealer had no HiRes music !Anyway I bought the Roomplayer because Simple Audio offered a 30 money back deal .

The unit is plugged in and apart from one small issue was really easy to configure to my NAS drive .

I have removed the Sonos and Lavry DA10 and loads of dust . Having to use a phono to Din adapter until a new cable arrives tomorrow .  

Sounds pretty good so far with a 24/192 as well as standard but early days .

Surely there was value in comparing the units with standard-res music. Which was better?

Fraser

It was difficult because their network kept crashing but at home the roomplayer on it's own with out an external DAC produces a much better ( or pleasing ) sound on my system . I have to say , so far very impressed .

so how were you connecting it=directly to you're network/which dac?

thanks

AS332, thanks for the update. Slightly intrigued by your post, networks don't 'crash' as such. What was the issue here! Was it the NAS or the player that kept falling over? Or were you using network substitutes such as those mains Powerlines?

 BTW where did you hear/read about the Qobuz support you referenced earlier in the thread?

Simon

To be perfectly honest I have no idea what their technical issues were but they did say that they were recently having issues with their network , could have been a NAS but also they switched across to wired from Wifi as well half way through . All the issues seemed to be with the Sonos for some reason . 

Several years ago I had network cable run through the walls , so the Roomplayer and before that the Sonos were using a wired network to my Qnap NAS upstairs . Also up to now I have been using a Lavry DA10 from the Sonos but last night I decided to strip it out and just run the Roomplayer directly to my 252 . The only issue with running it with an Analogue connection is that the roomplayer reverts to variable volume with no way in the software to turn it off . So when I connected up I thought my cable was faulty because the volume automatically defaulted to very low on the Simple control panel . Once you slide it to max there is no further issue .

As far as Simple support Simon , I wanted to speak to them directly before buying because I wanted guarantees about their future plans . As I mentioned above , they are about to roll out Qobuz in the next few days and will continue to tweak the software ( which is not bad really ) but they admitted that Spotify were being quite difficult and would not be available anytime soon .

Also the fact that they offer a 30 day money back trial as well as getting £200 off to make it £399 was worth the punt .

No doubt I will tweak a bit more but I have to say stand alone it is very good with what feels like a wider sound stage and certainly a crisper sound than the Sonos .

Hope that helps ,

Ed  

I should add that Simple were very approachable throughout my calls and helpful with the problem I had with set up which came down to the fact that I had my NAS share mounted to my laptop ( for transferring some HiRes stuff to the drive ) which needed to be unmounted before the Simple setup would link the music on the drive to the player .