I apologize in advance for this thread. My 80 year old mother just moved into a smaller house and has downsized a bit. She enjoys having music on in the background -- both local classical and country stations as well as CDs. But in the new place, there is no room in the family room for her 30+ year old Bose 301s.
She wants to continue listening to radio stations and playing CDs. She has a Sony receiver that's only a couple years old, and it has Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities. But she is in need of a pair of wireless speakers that are about half the size of the 301s (think 12"H x 6"W x 6" deep (300 x 150 x 150 for those on SI)). Wireless because she needs to be able to move them around to try multiple locations and realistically cannot route speaker wires all around the room. There will likely be nothing like stereo sound -- I'm 99% certain the speakers will be placed on opposite corners of the room. Think Muzak in the dentist's office... Electrical outlets should not be a problem -- routing AC cords will be much easier then running speaker cables multiple times.
The one complication is she cannot/ will not use a phone, laptop, etc. to operate. Ideally the speakers would be paired (or linked via wi-fi) during setup. And maybe they would need to be relinked after power outages. The receiver can be connected to the TV via HDMI (she has a small TV she watches once in a blue moon) if that helps with redoing the wifi connection or BT pairing.
Budget is pretty low. A few hundred $ USD. I'll probably buy them for her, so ultimately I do not need to stick with that budget.
One thing do not know about with respect to wireless speakers is volume control. If using BT or wifi connections can the receiver be used as, essentially, a wireless volume control for the speakers? If she has to do anything more than load a CD into the player and turn the volume knob on the receiver she'll probably punt the whole thing and get a boombox that has a CD player. I'd hate for her to have to plumb those depths... Also, the speakers will likely go on the floor behind some chairs, so accessing a speaker-mounted volume control would be an issue.
She lives >90 minutes away, so I will not be able to just pop over and help her when she has a problem or issue. And talking her through anything tech related over the phone is rough on both of us.
Any recommendations or advice are appreciated. We're in the US. And she's closer to Crutchfield then to me.
Thanks in advance.
She wants to continue listening to radio stations and playing CDs. She has a Sony receiver that's only a couple years old, and it has Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities. But she is in need of a pair of wireless speakers that are about half the size of the 301s (think 12"H x 6"W x 6" deep (300 x 150 x 150 for those on SI)). Wireless because she needs to be able to move them around to try multiple locations and realistically cannot route speaker wires all around the room. There will likely be nothing like stereo sound -- I'm 99% certain the speakers will be placed on opposite corners of the room. Think Muzak in the dentist's office... Electrical outlets should not be a problem -- routing AC cords will be much easier then running speaker cables multiple times.
The one complication is she cannot/ will not use a phone, laptop, etc. to operate. Ideally the speakers would be paired (or linked via wi-fi) during setup. And maybe they would need to be relinked after power outages. The receiver can be connected to the TV via HDMI (she has a small TV she watches once in a blue moon) if that helps with redoing the wifi connection or BT pairing.
Budget is pretty low. A few hundred $ USD. I'll probably buy them for her, so ultimately I do not need to stick with that budget.
One thing do not know about with respect to wireless speakers is volume control. If using BT or wifi connections can the receiver be used as, essentially, a wireless volume control for the speakers? If she has to do anything more than load a CD into the player and turn the volume knob on the receiver she'll probably punt the whole thing and get a boombox that has a CD player. I'd hate for her to have to plumb those depths... Also, the speakers will likely go on the floor behind some chairs, so accessing a speaker-mounted volume control would be an issue.
She lives >90 minutes away, so I will not be able to just pop over and help her when she has a problem or issue. And talking her through anything tech related over the phone is rough on both of us.
Any recommendations or advice are appreciated. We're in the US. And she's closer to Crutchfield then to me.
Thanks in advance.
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