Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

I need to dig them out but will be something similar to Wharfdale Diamonds

Thinking of getting some servicing on my Tannoys and Quad 33/303. Anyone got a recommendation for Quad maintainence/upgrade work?

the quad factory can still upgrade those 33 / 303's i believe

i think you have to be careful with the tannoys

Will do Big Red. Lockwood Audio are my main men/women.

Principal Tannoy UK spares and service provider in UK and sole supplier of obsolete and Vintage Tannoy product. Spares agent for Epos, Mordaunt-Short and TDL product from 20th Century.

Seems pretty damned kosher to me.

yep - they are the peeps

they make new cabinets/crossovers/etc too.

I'm all about the Obsolete.

I bought a screw-on 126 bolt axle Phil Wood recently, FFS. Another one.

we should catch up for a turkish cigar and an armagnac, btw

Novice:

Just moved and want to get a good multi room system set up.

I'd like it to be able to control what I listen to using my iPhone as a remote control so I presume that limits me to AirPlay? Or a wired solution (which sounds a bit more like a pain in the arse).

I would like speaker/speakers in at least two or maybe four rooms.

If it needs a control unit then I'd like just one downstairs on shelving with other AV equipment.

I'd like it to vaguely match in appearance. I got rid of all such equipment when we moved so it's a blank canvas in terms of brands and matching.

On that note we watch a lot of films so would like some kind of 5.1/7.1 set up downstairs for the projector. Presumably if the film speakers are connected via wires to the AirPlay control unit they can stream our music as well?

What should I be searching for? I know absolutely fucking nothing about mixers and AV stuff.

I type in AirPlay speakers and they all look shit or need ugly little attachments. Is there anything good looking (my taste = black and boxy rather than oddly shaped bits of white plastic that I've been looking at on richer sounds).

Is there a way to get the music to follow me around the house (rather than playing in all four rooms at once)?

TL;DR

Speakers in 4 rooms.
Music controllable by iPhone - ideally playing in the room the iPhone is in rather than all 4 at once.
Speakers in main room should be some kind of film oriented (maybe 7.1) solution.
Blank canvas in terms of brands.
Have some money to spend.

Do the movies that you watch have lots of sounds that are meant to come from behind you? If it's not all about very special fx I wouldn't bother with any kind of surround sound - just get a tv with decent sound and a set of well placed speakers on either side.

or Sonos

Black and boxy - check. And well thought of for that sort of thing

Can connect existing speakers by way of a not cheap Sonos Connect

Or set up two/more Sonos 1's as a surround sound type setup

Not sure if the music can follow you around automatically, but you can switch on/off particular speakers/zones

Zones sounds good - is that controllable from an app or something on a phone?

@withered_preacher all sorts of films - we get through 2 or 3 a day. I know it's not an essential but I do like creaking floorboards behind me if they're on offer. If someone's taken the time to encode them and all that..

Search for multizone (or in this case 4-zone) receivers - a good one you should be able to run whatever speakers you like in each room and have multiple sources playing, all controlled wirelessly from your phone. Unless you want the speakers wireless, in which case you're pretty much stuck with the moulded plastic boxes.

Zones means you can turn them on/off individually, often from your phone and often with different things playing in each one if that's what you want.

Most AV receivers will have a main zone which is in 5.1 or 7.1.

Sonos should tick all those boxes I think?

edit: slow / new page. soz.

@CYOA

Sonos for around the house. Their systems can be controlled via an app and you won't have to wire up the house back to a main amp/rack.
PLUS:
Dedicated home theatre setup for main room. Most modern AV amps have some kind of airplay or connectedness built in. Something like DENON AVRX2200W paired with Tannoy HTS-101 XP would give you good cinema performance and be all black and boxy too.

Alternatively use the amps zoning to drive another pair of bookshelves elsewhere in the house.

Yamaha has some new Multi cast products too. There's almost too much choice out there.

Fuck me - that's lovely looking.

Much connectivity. Very wire.

Thanks all, some good food for thought.

The cheaper version of sonos is to get a Mac mini running iTunes connected to your main theatre system and get airport express for each of your other rooms.
IMO its better flagging 5.1 and get better 2 channel in your main room. You'll need an existing wireless network, and I recommend plugging the Mac mini into your network via LAN cable.
This way you have iPhone remote (apps available for android and windows too)and its easy to select rooms. You can use a pc instead of a Mac.

Unlike the majority of posters on this thread I like surround sound, a helicopter whirring overhead or something rustling behind you adds to the film. Also fun for computer games.

If you have money. Go sonos. Grab the cheap play 1's for each room that you don't care about steteo in, then spend some moulah on a playbar and two play 1s for the full surround sound in your cinema room. You can even add a sub if you want deep and dirty bass rumbles.

Then, there is a nice upgrade path too, as you can buy more play 1s to make stereo pairs in your other rooms, or replace one of them with a play 3 or 5 if you want.

Just one caveat. If your wifi is not brilliant, you may want to upgrade to a ubiquiti unifi wireless access point as well. Sorted out some intermittent issues on my sonos network and also gave me rock steady and fast wifi throughout the house. About eighty quid.

2nding unifi WAPs, they're brilliant and dirt cheap.

Yarp. I kinda wish I had a bigger house just so I could play with a couple of them together.