Hi

There are a lot of streamer-link-network_player or whatever_the_name on the market, from the cheapest (Chromecast Audio) to the more expensive (several k$)

You have to study their possibilities and decide if you need them or not... You'll have to check their connexions to see if it's ok with what you expect to achieve (now and in the future). Think about the app that will be used, and also about the Multiroom ability.

Some players carry out a CD player, a NAS, speakers...

Some names:

• Google Chromecast Audio
• Samsung WAM-270 LinkMate
• Sonos Connect
• Ayre QX-5 Twenty
• Klipsch Gate
• Yamaha WXC-50
• Nuprime WR100
• BeoSound Moment ?

This is an old thread (2013 / relatively to the subject) but worth a look

http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/4470.aspx

AURALIC Aries G2 Streaming Transporter

The beosound core with a dedicated/fixed iPad/iPad mini??

+1

Could have been my answer too.

MM

The Core is far from reliable in my experience. I’m in the process of getting a refund and looking at other options. 

The Core is far from reliable in my experience. I’m in the process of getting a refund and looking at other options. 

- Pioneer N-70AE:
link

- Pioneer N-50AE:
link

- Cambridge Audio Azur 851N:
link

- Cambridge Audio CXN:

I guess this is as good a place as any to share my experiences with trying to fit a Sonos and an Auralic into my B&O Setup. The good and bad, and the reasons why I’m back to B&O, in the sense that I’m more seriously than ever contemplating purchasing a Moment.

At a time when the Moment was still “immature,” software buggy, (more than it even is now), and the device slow, among other issues, I made the decision to go with the BS Essence MkII instead. For a while it served my purposes, but I quickly found that the interface (BeoMusic), wasn’t up to snuff. I listened to most of my music from a DLNA library getting larger by the week. I wanted search features, I wanted less scrolling, yadda yadda.

Well, in the last several weeks I had the opportunity to try a couple of potential Essence replacements: A Sonos Connect, and an Auralic Aries Mini. Here’s a quick rundown of my findings of both devices connected to a pair of Beolab 20 speakers, in different setups.

I’ve tried the following setups both with NAS (QNAP) management, as well as a Mac Mini Server running iTunes and Twonky, with the devices connected to a pair of Beolab 20.

• SONOS Connect via RCA

• SONOS Connect via Toslink

• Auralic Aries Mini via RCA

• Auralic Aries Mini via Toslink

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: The software for both devices is amazing. It is head and shoulders better than any B&O controller software, and makes B&O’s application look amateurish by comparison. Both Sonos and Lightning DS software is fast, user friendly, and integrates well with both iTunes as well as NAS proprietary music management servers, and gives the user access to streaming services, and fast full text search. My library took about 15 min to index for both applications.

The Aries Mini was easy to set up, and I tried It connected to my NAS / Mac Server, as well as an internal HDD. The most elegant solution for the Auralic for me was with an internal HDD, I could mount it on my computer as a network share and point iTunes to it to use as my Library location. This would mean that I didn’t need a “NAS” and only needed to turn my Mac on to manage music on the HDD.

Sonos also easily saw my NAS and Server and indexed music easily. 

There’s not much more to say regarding the device setup other than easy and effective, and actually using them was everything I was looking for.

Now the reason why I am now considering a B&O solution (a la the Moment)… To put it simply, using them with B&O speakers leaves a lot to be desired. When both devices were connected to the BL20 via RCA cables (good ones I borrowed from a friend to try the devices), it seemed as though I had to raise the volume of the audio output to a relatively a level higher than I was comfortable with for the line sense to trigger the speakers to turn on and play. Furthermore, With the Sonos Connect, there were times when the BL20 speakers gave me the “armageddon” sound a few times. I couldn’t figure out why it would do that. The Auralic was even worse, in that I had to raise the level even higher than the Sonos.

I was told that the BL20s could be programmed to lower their line sense level to be more sensitive to RCA signals, but to me that wasn’t a “clean” solution, even with the availability, of adapters to “trigger” the speakers on and off.

When connecting both devices via Toslink, I found that the devices toslink output was always on, which meant that the speakers were always on, regardless of whether the devices were outputting sound or not. Again, not a “clean” solution for me.

So here I am, seriously considering the Moment, which will give me a B&O device, interface, and full text search.

I apologize if the above wasn’t a true review, it was one person’s experience trying to potentially seek out non-B&O solutions to what I find lacking in my current setup. Yes, the Moment is an expensive solution for some small semblance of software competence which is lacking in the X App, but the other side, for me is that the Moment offers a “clean” connection to B&O speakers; when it turns on, the speakers turn on, vice versa, cleanly, and can even offer WISA capability, multi-room, etc. in one package. Do I want to be in this position? I don’t know, non-B&O solutions are way less expensive, and more advanced and useable from the software perspective, but they don’t seem to “work” elegantly, cleanly, or the way I want with B&O speakers.

One more thing, I also purchased a pair of Play:1 speakers and a Sonos Sub, just for the heck of it. Not that I thought that they'd compare, but the degree to which their sound was abysmal and just pure garbage left my wife and I slack jawed. The bar has been set so high for us, we have been spoiled.

Thanks for reading.

@sal : the X app is now abandoned and the development team is doing a great work developing the new Bang & Olufsen app. This new app is really quicker to browse a large DLNA collection, and they are speaking of adding full text search. The only question is when...

there are still some bugs but it’s very usable. If you still have your essence MKII, you should give a try before putting too much of your hard earned money on the Moment.