Add streaming to your system or multi-room to your home for less than £50
Multi-room music tends to be a polarising subject: on one hand you have the buyers willing to splash the cash for the simplicity and performance of ready-made solutions, from the likes of Sonos all the way up to high-end network music players from Linn and Naim; on the other, there’s the “they all sound the same” brigade, looking for the cheapest way to do it. If only there was a way of combining both into one unit...
That’s exactly what the Gramofon aims to achieve. Available via Gramofon’s Spanish website for a little over £40 (€59 equates to around £43 and postage is free) it’s designed to turn any amplifier, system or pair of active/powered speakers into a network music setup, connecting to your home network to deliver Spotify Premium, internet radio and music stored either on a home computer or NAS device, or on a tablet or smartphone, through the system to which it’s connected.
Not surprisingly, much of the attention Gramofon has so far attracted concerns that Spotify functionality, as it’s just about the cheapest way to bring the streaming service to any non-networked system, and would be conspicuously good value even if that was all it did.
However, thanks to its integration of Qualcomm’s AllPlay system, Gramofon can offer so much more. AllPlay is the technology you’ll also find in Panasonic’s ALL series of multi-room wireless speakers and a similar range from Samsung, and in the Gramofon unit it opens up AllPlay Jukebox, able to play music from a DLNA/UPnP server, and AllPlay Radio, which accesses thousands of online radio stations from around the world. Gramofon has confirmed SoundCloud, iHeart Radio and – potentially the big one – Tidal will be available soon, much like Spotify is at the moment.
The other facility Gramofon offers as a result of the AllPlay platform is multi-room audio, allowing all the usual tricks of accessing different content on each Gramofon, so users in various rooms can each have their own choice of music from local or internet streaming sources, or multiple units can be synched together to give the same music in ‘zones’, or whole-house entertainment. Up to 10 players can be accommodated, with separate volume controls available for each zone, or a master volume set.
The company behind the device is the Madrid-based, crowd-sourced Fon, which provides wi-fi networks, built on users providing hotspots for others to access. It provides both private wi-fi networks for owners and public ones for subscribers, and has over 17m hotspots across the world.
The Gramofon project started as a spin-off of this service, with early prototypes built on a Raspberry Pi base, and initial shipments having the Fonera functionality, although the public wi-fi aspect of this has now been switched off after consumer concerns about security.
A multi-colour LED ring positioned on the top panel, surrounding a large push-button, is the only display and control, while to the rear are the connections: an input for the plug-top power supply provided, an Ethernet socket for those not wanting to use the built-in wireless networking and a 3.5mm stereo analogue output, for which a 3.5mm-stereo-to-RCA phono adapter cable is provided.
The enclosure itself is unashamedly light – with the mains transformer inside the wall wart adapter, there’s nothing of any weight inside – but well detailed, with a gloss finish to the lower half and matt to the upper.
Inside there’s Qualcomm’s AR9341 system on a chip (SoC) processor, as used in a number of routers, with audio handled by an integrated DAC giving 24/96 maximum file handling. There’s no digital output, which would appeal to the tweakers among us, as it allows experiments with an external DAC – but it is designed to be a simple device.
Set-up? Easy: connect the power adapter, and the ring on top lights red, then turns yellow, then blinks red. While it’s blinking, set your smartphone or tablet to connect to the ‘Gramofon configuration’ network the unit is now transmitting, then use the free Gramofon set-up app to connect to the Gramofon itself, give it a name – ‘living room’, ‘kitchen’ ‘under-footman’s pantry’, that sort of thing, then choose your usual wireless network name and enter the password. Press the ‘fi nish’ button, wait for the light to stop blinking, and it’s connected.
You can now use the Gramofon app to launch the various applications – or repeat for any other Gramofons you want to add to the network. (If you’re using cabled networking, by the way, just plug in and you’re done.)
The light on top of the unit changes colour to show what it’s doing: light blue to match the AllPlay Jukebox/Radio colour-scheme and green for Spotify, while a press on the top buttons shows a momentary purple fl ash and then dark blue as it goes into standby.
I’d suggest Gramofon users group the dedicated app, Spotify and the two AllPlay apps – Jukebox and Radio – together on the screen of their phone or tablet, just for convenience, but the Jukebox interface will let you access radio and network music from one screen once you get going. Spotifiers can use the device in the usual way, by selecting it using the little speaker icon and sending music over the home network.
Sound quality
I have to admit that – given the price and the rather limited connectivity – I’m not expecting too much, so I am pleasantly surprised just how good it is. Much of my listening is done with the little black box plugged into one of the analogue inputs of my desk system, which comprises an original NaimUniti driving a pair of Neat Iota speakers and, compared with the NaimUniti’s internal streaming, the Gramofon gives a pretty good account of itself and is more than listenable through my ‘close-up’ system.
Yes, the sound is a little bit dense especially when playing hi-res content, but having spent quite a while comparing Spotify between the Naim and Gramofon, the main gain when using the former is the greater sense of openness and punch to the sound (albeit by the usual slightly lacklustre Spotify standards). By comparison the Gramofon is more than respectable, but still retains a slightly compressed view of the dynamics of music – at least in absolute terms, if not by the standards you’d expect from a £40 device. However, even this can be mitigated to an extent, at least if you’re using it into an amp or whatever with a volume control, by ensuring the Gramofon’s volume slider is cranked to maximum: things get noticeably less interesting as you move the control to the left!
Given that even then, the Gramofon has no problem showing the difference between a Spotify stream and a decent CD FLAC rip, however, I’ll be very interested to see how things compare as and when Tidal becomes available via this little player: I have the feeling it might well sound really rather good on the end of a better-quality stream.
I also try it in my main listening room system, which is currently Naim Supernait 2/HiCap DR/NAP 250DR driving Bowers & Wilkins 803 D3 speakers, and here the limitations of the Gramofon are slightly more obvious, in the form of a rather lightweight bass and soft treble – but then in that system it is taking the place of my usual reference player, the price of which would buy you almost 350 Gramofons.
Conclusion
And that’s the sum up on this highly appealing little device. If you’d like a simple, affordable way to add Spotify (and eventually Tidal) to an existing system, or even if you have a network music setup and fancy adding the ability to listen while you cook, for example, Gramofon must be one of the audio bargains of the moment.
FEATURES
● Wi-fi and Ethernet connectivity
● Analogue audio output on 3.5mm socket
● Spotify, internet radio and DLNA/UPnP playback
● Multi-room capability via AllPlay
● Support for files up to 24-bit/96kHz
WEIGHT 162g
DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 80 x 43 x 80mm