Review: Pure Jongo S3 multiroom speakers

I’ll admit, I didn’t think I was going to have much to say about Pure’s Jongo S3 speakers, the latest addition to its growing wireless audio gear range. It connects to mobile devices, but what else is new? Well, there are a few nice touches to this boombox, the most significant being its integration with the online streaming …

[Bub]

Surely worth spending an extra £100 and getting a Sonos Play:3

The only thing missing with Sonos is Bluetooth - but it does support DLNA push

[greenawayr]

Alternatives

Here seems like as good a place as any to ask for an audio/technology opinion to be sought.

Looking for a media player that will allow me to stream my music straight from my NAS drive across the network. WiFi or wired not an issue as I have powerline adapters. I'm currently siding with the Sonos Play 5 but I've only been able to find a handful of options including the Philips Streamium which has mixed reviews, and the Denon Ceol. I don't have any separates at the moment, so the idea of the Sonos, although pricey, appeals as an all in one that delivers good sound, and the scalability of the system seems like it might be useful in future.

Thoughts? Are there any I've missed, bearing in mind I'm looking at the £400 mark tops as opposed to your high end Naim type stuff.

Ta

[CarlC]

Re: Alternatives

I am a recent Sonos convert and could not be happier. Great sound and very easy to setup. I also have it linked to my Nas and a media server. On the media server I download podcasts automatically and the Sonos system indexes them overnight so I have all my podcasts to hand too.

But I am bias as I am, as I said, a recent convert.

[Steve 13]

Re: Alternatives

I have a single Sony SANS410 and I'm pretty impressed. I haven't used any Sonos devices, but having just quickly googled it, what does it do that justifies it costing £200 more than the Sony?

Slightly OT but I'm currently looking at the Awox Striimlink, which appears to be the same as the Jongo A2, except that it supports DLNA and actually exists.

The jongo devices don't seem to support DLNA, which for me completely writes them off, an obvious easy win that they seem to have just ignored IMO.

[greenawayr]

Re: Alternatives

As I understand you can't stream content on the NAS drive using airplay unless there is a pc running iTunes turned on.

The Sonos system will stream straight from a NAS drive. That's the main feature I'm looking for, which it seems only a handful of systems support.

[Martin]

Re: Alternatives

It's now discontinued, but the old Logitech Squeezebox stuff is what I use, and it's just beautiful - and fairly cheap second hand. There may be a build for your NAS (depends on which one it is) or you can use a Raspberry Pi as the server - see http://squeezeplug.de for a downloadable image and full instructions. (Disclaimer - I just use squeezeplug software and I'm very happy with it - I don't have any association with this guy.)

I've got two Squeezebox 3's, and a Squeezebox Radio and my daughter uses a Raspberry Pi running the SqueezeLite software as a player into my old hi-fi - and impresses her friends no end when she controls her music from her phone.

[Tim Parker]

Re: Alternatives

I'll second the Logitech stuff. I'm currently using a Squeezebox Boom and Duet running off a Buffalo Linkstation - that NAS was initially a faff to get what I wanted as Buffalo lobotomized the server software, but it's working fine and I already have a Zyxel to replace it which Just Works out of the box. The sound from the Boom is surprisingly good to my ears and the Duet runs through an old NAD amp into some Gale Silver Monitors, which are fine for the room they're in and double up as TV speakers. The Duet handset is a nice piece of work, although probably irrelevant these days with the phone/tablet apps to control things with. The Boom and Duet handset look good (don't see the Duet hub) if that makes a difference, and the quality does seem to be rather good too.

I've not tried the Raspberry Pi idea for extended things - makes perfect sense in hindsight - but will try that out now (have a Pi that needs to be doing more active work) - thanks for the link Martin.

[Ceilidhman]

Or...

Spend your budget on decent HiFi gear instead and then use a Raspberry Pi as the streaming node. Only £35 including case and SD card and it works a treat.

[Frankee Llonnygog]

Re: Or...

Plus a few quid for a USB DAC as the Pi's is only 12-bit

[Frankee Llonnygog]

Re: Or...

Or - use Tomato and Shairport to hack an old wireless router. eBay will be your friend here

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or...

You could get a Creative 5.1 USB X-F box for £40 and a set of reasonable speakers for £40 (more/less depending on your hearing). With the USB Powered hub and Bluetooth\WiFi dongles your looking at a £100.

The solution would not be as portable, but has the advantage that you could stand up a DNLA, uPNP, SAMBA, pulseAudio setup linking it to a NAS/Media Server easily and I don't think it would be to hard to setup the Pi as a Blueooth headset so you could link and stream as well.

Although if you looked at something like an old iPod docking speaker set you could probably hide it all within a single unit. The hardest part would be linking the buttons of the speaker set to command the PI. This could all be controlled by a SSH/VNC server and for brownie points you could use XBMC/Home made web server.

Yes I am considering this as a project.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or...

Forgot to add for battery backup, you could use a Muvo Pebble or some other USB battery pack and have the old external plug charge that

[The New Turtle]

It may be portable, but £170 will be an insurmountable hurdle. From the description of the sound quality and issues with the app I was expecting £40-£50. Maybe that's unreasonable, but I can't imagine there being much take up at that price.

[Stacy]

Sound quality

I found the line 'sound quality is fine, if you lower your expectations' interesting. Is that a translation of 'sound quality sucks'?

I know 170 isn't a *high* price in the grand scheme of music systems, but neither is it throw away money for 'hey I want music in the garden / study / kitchen on the cheap'...

[Prof Denzil Dexter]

I bought a pure radio for the inlaws last year, and the "optional" battery back is a bit naff, its completely proprietary, you can't just stick some duracall in there. I always thought that was a bit of a con.

[Lloyd]

Sonos is the (expensive) way forward

Seeing as Logitech have now crippled their squeezebox devices by adding the UE tag, I can't comment if there's been any improvement in sound as I have no intention of buying one but when they dropped the old squeezebox radios to £80 I stocked up. They're bloody good sounding for the size and price, okay the NAS software is crap to say the least but I'm running all my media off of an HP microserver (£400 after appropriate hardware upgrades) and it does exactly what I want it to. Next step up is Sonos but frankly that's going to require a bit of a cash, which I'd rather spend elsewhere until the squeeze hardware fails.

[Steve 13]

Re: Sonos is the (expensive) way forward

Have a look at the Sony range of wireless speakers to bridge the gap.

[<spez>]

Re: Sonos is the (expensive) way forward

After yours and the previous post I went and had a look at the Sony kit, as i want to expand my room coverage from the single Sonos3 i have at the moment.

Just a couple of downsides looking at the website, single source of music (no spotify or napster for those inclined) but the biggy for me, no FLAC support.

[Jack Faust meets Mephistopheles]

Re: Sonos is the (expensive) way forward

I'm using a similar setup but I have no actual Squeezebox hardware, I use the software player on any convenient Windows boxes and I'm working on a Raspberry Pi squeezeslave setup. I've heard the DAC can be improved with a USB one so I'll probably move to that. I don't see any advantage in the spending the money on Sonos when Squeeze hardware is still available in good nick on eBay and software alternatives exist.

[Nifty]

Stereo?

Could a pair of Jongos be configured for proper stereo?

The first maker of a living room friendly designed battery powered wireless speakers at sub £200 the pair will enjoy a good market. Can't the Chinese govt subsidize a Chinese company to make some instead of solar panels?