Unregistered said:
I see that the iMerge allows simultaneous playback of Mp3s in different zones, but other than this what is the advantage of that over simply streaming from the computer or playback from the iPod, both of which I’ve already invested in?
There is no advantage really. The iMerge is a dedicated music server though. It is on all the time and has very intuitive tools and on screen menus for controlling it. This is nice for the less 'techie' in my home who want their music.
Well, and I have (when my house is finished) Crestron controlling everything and will be able to recall playlists and skip through music from any room in the house by touching a button. It has a certain appeal to me for that.
The bottom line with digital music servers is that they are like 400 disc changers that can play any song from any disc in one, two, or more rooms (different songs at the same time!) at any time. It is part of your audio system, so it's always there and ready. No separate PC to deal with, no iPod to try to track down when one of the kids, or wife has it. It's in the rack, ready to go.
Just another piece of gear though.
For speakers... Geez, I got really cheap surround, as I said before and was happy for 3 years until I got my good stuff. If you can't get great speakers, and you want them, then you may want to consider how much stereo stuff you watch vs. surround. You DEFINITELY want a powered subwoofer at some point early on as it provides a lot of atmosphere to your viewing. But, if you have nothing now, then maybe a $300.00 set of speakers will do you for a while and then you can reuse those speakers in other rooms when you start getting newer, better speakers. Or maybe you get a decent pair of fronts/center then cheap surrounds.
It's kind of a weird question... I guess 'how much money you got to blow?' is what is needed here. What speakers do you really want? What timeframe do you want them in? How important is surround?