Bach in the bathroom.
Beethoven in the basement.
The Beatles in the bedroom.
Imagine being able to stream music to all of these rooms, from different sources, at the same time.
Legrand's Nuvo Player Portfolio wireless audio system from Legrand (price varies depending on setup) does all of this and more, provided you have the wireless network and cash to make it happen.
We've been playing with their GW100 Gateway ($219), P200 Player ($659) and P300 Player Preamplifier ($349). The GW100 is the core of the system and you need to install either the P200 or P300 and a set of speakers in every room where you want to hear your favorite tunes. It also helps if you have a smartphone or tablet with the Nuvo Player app installed.
We used an Ethernet cable to attach the GW100 to our WIFI router, which gave it access to all of the music installed on every computer in our home network and music streaming services - - - Pandora, iHeart Radio, SirriusXM, etc, - - - on the Internet. We were a bit disappointed that it didn't give us access to other cloud services, such as Amazon Music, where most of our tunes are stored. To be fair, we've had the same complaint with other devices that deliver music via the Internet.
Once the gateway was installed we were able to set up the P200 and P300 players, attaching them to speakers and (in the case of the P300) amplifiers in various rooms throughout the house. Setup was pretty straight forward. The mobile app was able to identify each player as they were integrated into the system. powered on and "seen" by the gateway.
We were then able to choose what we wanted to hear through each player using the app. This enabled us to stream different tunes to each room simultaneously. Hence, Bach in the bathroom, Beethoven in the basement and The Beatles in the bedroom..
It should be noted that there are a few basic differences between the P200 and P300 players. The P200 has a built-in 120 watt amplifier (60 watts per speaker in a two-speaker setup) and works independently of an surround sound or stereo system in the house. The P300 is a preamplifier that enables you to connect to the gateway using a home theater or stereo system's amplifier.
Both wirelessly connect to the gateway using Bluetooth or WIFI or can be hard-wired using an Ethernet cable. They also have USB ports enabling you to connect other devices such as a Blu-Ray player.
The P200 also has four speaker terminals, line-in/line-out ports for portable devices, computers and headsets and a microphone port.
The P300, which is dependent on amplifiers to do all of the heavy lifting, has two TOSLINK line-in/line out ports which can also be used for mini-jacks from other devices.
We experienced a bit of signal loss when we set up the P300 to our home network in the basement, but that could have been caused by the distance between the P300 and the gateway and the number of walls and floors separating the two. The system did see the player, but we experienced a few so-called "dropouts." Of course, the closer we were to the gateway, the better the reception.
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