Sonos is the answer

Sonos Remote

The first time I picked up a Sonos remote control, I wanted one.  It’s comparable to an iPhone but heftier.  And it only does one thing.  It’s slick but kind of dorky.   Troy McClure would definitely have one in his place. 

But it’s expensive.  This thing goes for $350. You can get an iPhone for less.  It made me think that Sonos was out of my price range.   I was wrong.

After I broke everything down, all the options and the associated costs and then factored in quality and ease of use, Sonos wasn’t that expensive for what you get.

A ZonePlayer 120 (zp120) was a pretty good base to build from.  It has a 55w digital amplifier, wireless streaming, built in music services, analog input for the record player, speaker posts, a subwoofer out and a free app for controlling it all with an iPhone.

Sonos ZonePlayer 120

Sonos iPhone App

If I purchased an additional ZonePlayer S5 with it’s built-in speaker, I could pipe music in to anywhere in the house I plugged it in.

Sonos ZonePlayer S5

An added bonus was the way it instantly connected with all of the various computers in the house.  I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm certain I can get my TVs into it somehow.

What sealed the deal was the quality.  I stopped by a Best Buy to listen to one and it sounded surprisingly good for something so compact.

First purchases:

• Sonos ZonePlayer 120 for the main unit: $450
• S5 to listen in another room: $400
• iPhone Remote Control App: Free (cha-ching)

Total: $850

Hello, my name is Zenith9000

At some point during this project, we started calling it the Zenith9000.  Zenith after the original manufacturer.   The 9000 is from Hal9000, the murderous computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey.   Hopefully this works out a bit better than its namesake.

Here's a photo of the stereo when it was brand new in 1966 with its original owner, Ken VanderPloeg - my father-in-law and purveyor of fine stereo equipment (thanks Sue!). 

The Big Decision

Hamlet was decisive compared to me

Once I had the money to move forward, I immediately became mired in indecision.  Actually, I was stuck in unending questions long before the budget was set.   To get this to work within my budget,  I had to choose a single backbone to build from. Just sticking in a bunch of equipment wasn’t going to work.  

Although it looked huge to me, the compartment was actually pretty tight.   15" deep and 16" wide.   The height varied due to a couple inner platforms. 

It could be altered, but I wanted to preserve as much of the original cabinet design as possible. 

Mac Mini

I could build this around a Mac mini.  They’re small, powerful, work seamlessly with iTunes and it has the flexibility I’d need.  The TVs in my house could be networked with AppleTVs and wireless speakers.  And then I started adding up cost.   I was buying a lot of computing power I didn’t need.  I’d need at least double the budget to do this right.  Plus, I’m not a huge Mac fan.  They’re slick, but I’m not taken in by them.

TiVo Premiere

The Tivo Premier system might work too.  I’m a huge Tivo fan, so this was really enticing to me.  Although it is built to record TV, it still has decent  music through Sirius, Live365 and other similar services.  I’d have to get used to using my TVs as stereos, but we’ve been doing that for awhile on a here and there.   Limited internet content is also available and the boxes are all networked.  Needless to say it would kill on the whole DVR thing.   In the end,  I felt this would be too much of a closed loop.  Getting it to work with the various computers in my house would be a hassle and ultimately, it just wasn’t designed to do what I wanted it to.  

If I didn’t need it to do video, the possibilities were endless.  There are some really impressive audio options out there for streaming audio from just about any source to multiple rooms.  Sonos, Squeezebox, Naim and others were all good solutions.  I could even use traditional stereo components and hook them up with wireless speakers.  But no video.

I went back and forth through the options for months. Hamlet looked positively impulsive compared to me.  I poured through specs.  I created spreadsheets, drew up specs and compared price sheets.

In the end, I let go of the video requirement.   Once that was out of the way, everything became easy.  Sonos was the clear winner. 

Sonos

The Budget: $2500 (or under)

If there were no money restrictions, I think this project would be much easier, but I suppose that's true of many things.   I could buy a system designed to power an integrated house and just cram it in there somehow.   Or buy some nano thing from Japan.  Or just pay someone to figure it out for me.  But that’s not the situation. 

 

My budget was set by selling my 1980 BMW R100 motorcycle which I acquired by trading for my  1981 Vespa P200x (that was a sweet trade).   

Whatever the bike would fetch would be the working budget for the stereo project.   Michele was hoping the whole thing would be less than the bike since I had promised her whatever was left over.

After a few weeks on consignment with the good people at Ace Motorcycle in Chicago, I got $2500 for it.  They were pretty disappointed, but I think I only paid $1750 for the Vespa way back in the day, so I was happy.

1979 Vespa

Full Disclosure

Before we get too far into this, it should be known that I'm not a audiophile.   I like music and have a warm spot in my heart for LPs.   Signal quality is not something I'm overly concerned with.

How I'm approaching this project.

A friend of mine once gave me his old HD TV.  I didn’t have one and he was moving overseas where it wouldn’t work so I happily took it in.  When I found out how much HDMI cables cost – it took me another two years to finally buy the cable to get the HD signal to enjoy the TV in its full glory.  

It’s not that I was being lazy – but the $50 cable didn’t seem worth it for a better picture at the time.  The content is what’s important to me, not the quality level.   Now non-HDTV looks terrible to me, but I’m illustrating a point.

When it comes to making sacrifices for budget on this project, the decisions I make are going to drive some purists nuts.  After music/video/whatever hits a certain quality level, I can’t tell the difference.   I just want to enjoy entertainment as easily and conveniently as possible.

The Vision

I’d like to replace as much of the original equipment with new gear as possible, save for the record player.

I’m not a huge  fan of the how most modern turntables look, even the really expensive ones are pretty ugly.    

Ideally, I’ll maintain the mid-century modern look of the piece on the outside.  If I can do this, my wife won’t care where I put it in the house.   If it looks like it would fit on the set of Mad Men, I'm in like Flynn.

Once the lid opens, I wouldn’t mind if there were a few blinking lights and a nice looking digital interface of some  sort.

Must-haves:

Multi-room audio streaming.   It’s a simple vision - sitting on my deck, sipping lemonade in my hammock, while I listen to a Talking Heads LP.

Internet radio.  So many choices.  I want.

AM/FM radio.  Coast to Coast (the best in weird radio), local traffic & weather, emergency news – sure its old, but I still listen.

Turntable.  Over the past 15 years, I have lugged a box of records to 3 countries, 7 cities and countless apartments.  I  haven’t had a working turntable since 1997.  And everyone knows records sound better

Able to interface with both Macs and PCs.  My house is bi-lingual.

Plays nice with iTunes.  For better or worse, I have a huge iTunes library.

iPod doc.  Most of my music, and my friends music is on an iPod or iPhone.  If this can’t play directly from one of those devices I may as well not do this.

Self contained to the original cabinet.  Ideally, I’ll be able to move this to any room in my house without making special considerations beyond an electrical outlet.


Nice-to-haves:

Multi-room video streaming.  It would be really cool if this became not just an audio hub, but a streaming video hub for the whole house.  Really cool, but probably really expensive.

A touch-screen interface.  Right?  It could drop down from the panel that opens up.

Blu Ray Player.  I don't own any blu ray disks, but that shouldn't stop me.

Snazzy 2.0 remote of some sort.  Maybe this should be in the must-haves.

Behold the Zenith Integrated Stereo (circa 1968)

When I first saw this at my in-laws house(the VP's) - I thought it was the coolest. They had bought it when they lived in Ohio in the late sixties.


It's a full stereo including record player, AM/FM receiver, amplifier and stereo speakers all in an attractive wood housing. The speakers have these little louvres doors that open and close.

Even better, it vaguely goes with my wife Michele's mid-century modern design scheme for the house. This has kept it safe from the periodic purges of stuff we don't use anymore (see her blog Things I'm Getting Rid Of).

A couple of years ago, the VPs asked us if we would like to have it. They were moving houses and no longer used it. Of course we did. I had visions of listening to Pavement records in front of the fireplace on a chilly winter evening.

Despite some scratches here and there, it was in great condition. The original manuals were even inside.


I couldn't wait to play some records. I plugged it in. Turned it on.... and a terrible buzzing sound is all that came out. It must have been damaged in the move.

Bummer.

So now I had a choice - fix it and restore it to its original glory. Or turn it into the coolest mix of retro and cutting edge digital shit I could combine into the space inside cabinet.

I chose the latter.