Short version: Anyone have experience with the Yamaha WXA-50, or other AirPlay compatible WiFi receiver/amplifiers? Shortcomings, gripes, things you wished you'd done differently?
Long version: We have a somewhat dated whole-house audio system consisting of an enormous 15 or 20 year old Onkyo stereo receiver (TX-8211), with obligatory (for the time) CD carousel and other inputs, and to which I added an iPod and a Bluetooth receiver about 10 years ago. This feeds a transformer set mounted in the basement below, which fans out to speaker pairs mounted all around the house and property. Each speaker pair (aka "room") has its own volume control, usually mounted near the doorway of that room. A truly whole-house wired system, of the latest and greatest tech available ca.2000.
It all works just fine, but leaves a few things to be desired. Namely:
1. System components are a bit large for the closet in which they're mounted, taking up useful closet space and making it extremely difficult to get at wiring on rear of receiver.
2. We live in an old stone house whose thick stone walls are the death of all radio signals. So, while I have a Bluetooth receiver on the system, I need to pretty much keep the device playing to it in the same room as the closet containing the equipment.
3. Cannot be controlled from patio, dining room, etc. You have to go to the closet to fiddle with the iPod, or with the phone/tablet playing Bluetooth from the same room as the receiver.
But I recently stayed in a house that had the Sonos system, which allowed me to stream from several different apps on my iPhone, using Apple AirPlay. It all works over WiFi. Brilliant, although I found the Sonos implementation way over-priced for what it was, and at least that owner's install was just way too buggy for my interest. Moreover, Sonos's big selling point is multiple wireless speakers, whereas I already have hard wiring to dozens of speakers around the house and property.
What I think could work well for me is:
1. An AirPlay-compatible WiFi adaptor on my old Onkyo receiver. Solves problems 2 and most of 3 above (aside from remote power up/down), since we have a nice system of WiFi adaptors meshing the entire property, but does not solve problem 1.
2. A more modern WiFi receiver/amplifier, which will allow me to ditch the old components, and also gives me remote power up/down, with full remote control.
Since the old receiver was plenty adequate at (perhaps conservatively-rated) 2x 55 watts into 8 ohms, I'm looking at the Yamaha WXA-50, and other desktop amps under 2x 100 watts with a much smaller footprint than the old Onkyo. Will likely only need one Aux input for an iPod, primary use will be AirPlay via WiFi.
Long version: We have a somewhat dated whole-house audio system consisting of an enormous 15 or 20 year old Onkyo stereo receiver (TX-8211), with obligatory (for the time) CD carousel and other inputs, and to which I added an iPod and a Bluetooth receiver about 10 years ago. This feeds a transformer set mounted in the basement below, which fans out to speaker pairs mounted all around the house and property. Each speaker pair (aka "room") has its own volume control, usually mounted near the doorway of that room. A truly whole-house wired system, of the latest and greatest tech available ca.2000.
It all works just fine, but leaves a few things to be desired. Namely:
1. System components are a bit large for the closet in which they're mounted, taking up useful closet space and making it extremely difficult to get at wiring on rear of receiver.
2. We live in an old stone house whose thick stone walls are the death of all radio signals. So, while I have a Bluetooth receiver on the system, I need to pretty much keep the device playing to it in the same room as the closet containing the equipment.
3. Cannot be controlled from patio, dining room, etc. You have to go to the closet to fiddle with the iPod, or with the phone/tablet playing Bluetooth from the same room as the receiver.
But I recently stayed in a house that had the Sonos system, which allowed me to stream from several different apps on my iPhone, using Apple AirPlay. It all works over WiFi. Brilliant, although I found the Sonos implementation way over-priced for what it was, and at least that owner's install was just way too buggy for my interest. Moreover, Sonos's big selling point is multiple wireless speakers, whereas I already have hard wiring to dozens of speakers around the house and property.
What I think could work well for me is:
1. An AirPlay-compatible WiFi adaptor on my old Onkyo receiver. Solves problems 2 and most of 3 above (aside from remote power up/down), since we have a nice system of WiFi adaptors meshing the entire property, but does not solve problem 1.
2. A more modern WiFi receiver/amplifier, which will allow me to ditch the old components, and also gives me remote power up/down, with full remote control.
Since the old receiver was plenty adequate at (perhaps conservatively-rated) 2x 55 watts into 8 ohms, I'm looking at the Yamaha WXA-50, and other desktop amps under 2x 100 watts with a much smaller footprint than the old Onkyo. Will likely only need one Aux input for an iPod, primary use will be AirPlay via WiFi.
