PanasonicALL8 Wireless Speaker System (Black)

Update 2016. I sadly can't recommend these, there is an inherent design or manufacturing issue with SC-ALL3 and SC-ALL8 units. I have now had 5 replacements, all fail after a few months with crackling and distorted output. Panasonic deny there is any problem, and keep sending replacements, and the CV replacements fail in similar ways. Avoid 1st generation Panasonic Allplay is my advice, stick to the 2nd generation units (the ones that do Bluetooth restreaming eg: sc-all2, sc-all05, sc-all9 ), or buy sonos instead. Panasonic, of you read this, do right by your customers, acknowledge the problem rather than trying to bury it.===SETUP===Setup was mostly painless, connect to it's Wifi, open up the web based configuration page, set the device name and configure the connection to your router. Job done.===HARDWARE===The hardware itself is quite good, it has a solid feel, and a LAN connection if you want to connected it wired. There is also a 3.5mm Audio AUX in.===SOUND QUALITY===I sent a high quality FLAC file to the unit and it sounded VERY good indeed. This is where allplay clearly comes into it's own. Because it's Wifi based, it can handle far bigger, less compressed files than the regular common or garden Bluetooth streaming solutions. High Resolution audio is where this product really comes into it's own. AllPlay is currently the ONLY streaming solution that supports it. This is currently it's USP. If you want the best possible music quality, AllPlay should be seriously considered over more well known systems (not mentioning any names...).I streamed a High Resolution audio (96 khZ/24-bit) FLAC version of Led Zeppelin II and sounded amazing, and I then tried to compare it whilst connected locally to my Xperia Z3 Tablet (which also plays High Resolution Audio natively without down-sampling) and I couldn't notice any perceivable difference in sound quality. So from an audio standpoint, I am very pleased with the AllPlay hardware.===SUPPORTING SOFTWARE===The Panasonic All Play Android app, is where this package is badly let down. Firstly the moment you run it, it looks truly horrific, using Android 2.x look and feel, it works in a very clunky, unintuitive way, lots examples of poor UI design (like popup "help" that doesn't really help, that default to show all the time and even re-appear after a screen-off), worst of all, I never actually managed to get any music to play from it. It simply refused to play music from my DLNA server (despite this being a supposed supported feature), displayed the album art, and then a unhelpful message telling it that it "can't play music". It did offer me to do a device firmware update, which I did, and this did not improve anything.Thankfully, you don't aren't forced to use Panasonic's dire AllPlay app, Qualcomm (the company supporting AllPlay system) have a couple of Android apps, and these are vastly superior "Qualcomm AllPlay Streaming" and "Qualcomm AllPlay Jukebox". These should really be your first port of call, and not the Panasonic app (at least not currently).===MUSIC SOURCES & SERVICES===Both the Qualcomm and Panasonic apps support the same set of services, which are:Local Playback of music on the device (FLAC, ALAC, AAC, MP3, WAV, including High Resolution Audio)Network Playback from a DNLA media server (e.g, a NAS or smart router)Online Music Services (Spotify, Napster, AppPlay Radio (TuneInRadio) and a few others that don't work in the UK or aren't worth mentioning).Sadly my music service of choice wasn't listed, Google Play Unlimited. This is quite an omission, as it's one of the biggest and best services on the market. iTunes is obviously also not supported (as this isn't an Apple product).===MULTI-ZONE SUPPORT===I bought the ALL8 after getting an ALL1 for the main Hi-Fi. Multi-zone is implemented very well. No sync issues, independent music and party modes, independent or overall adjustment of volume control, good attention to detail, like if you adjust the volume locally on the All8, the volume control change is reflected in the app slider on your phone.

The good:Sound quality for the size of box is very good.All seems well made and sturdy.Streams flac files from my nas drive seamlessly.Internet radio streams with no problems.Panasonic app works fine with both ios and android.Links and syncs with my All2.If you don't like the Panasonic app you can try others - being part of the Qualcomm allplay system the apps by the other manufacturers also work with this (I was using the Musaic app but the latest Panasonic app update have sorted out the niggles I had so I use that now).Where it could be improved:When I have the players linked together there is a pause a few seconds into the track on the second player, it doesn't go out of sync or anything, just seems to buffer for a bit and then is fine for the rest of the track, switching the players around so that a different one is the primary the pause moves to the other! I'm sure there will be a solution to this somewhere and will post when I find out how to fix it.I would prefer to see the internet radio more integrated into the panasonic app - works fine at the moment and using the pre-sets on the All2 is fine but switching between apps to select non-pre-set stations is a bit messy.

I have to put a very low score on this item. The concept is very good (hence 2 stars) - to control speakers remotely (with an app) independently and in groups and to stream music on the network, internet radio or a music service (Spotify). But, and it's a big but, the speakers seem flawed. I bought three ALL8 speakers, two from Amazon and one from John Lewis. One of them became useless. I took it back to John Lewis and changed it for a different type of speaker. The fault is that they suddenly start to play a very loud rumbling noise when connected to a music source, either through the app or by an auxiliary lead. This rumbling noise, very low pitched, is far louder than the music being played (which can be heard in the background) - hence the speaker is then unusable. This happened in the same way, but at different times, to the three speakers of mine as I also had an two ALL3s suffer the same fate - meaning 50% or 3 out of 6 of my ALL3/8 speakers went the same way. Prior to this happening they seemed to be quite good speakers. Therefore I advise potential purchasers not to buy these speakers.

I admit that I'm a technophobe and always struggle with gadgets but this speaker system was so difficult for me to set up. I persevered for a couple of hours but finally admitted defeat. Luckily, my daughter came for a visit and she managed to get the system working in about 30 minutes. To sum up the sound reproduction is fairly good, the speaker could be a little more pleasing to look at and the set up is quite tricky.

You can actually run the ALL8 or the ALL3 direct from your iPhone, but it's a massive faff to set up, and you need two computers (or similar devices). First factory reset the ALL3/ALL8 (hold power until it blinks amber then press the wps button). While that's resetting switch on your iPhone's personal hotspot and connect a computer to it (over wifi, not usb), so that the hotspot connection stays open. Switch the ALL3/ALL8 back on and wait until the alternating red/blue flashing light flashes just blue. That means it has found networks. Now, using computer number 2, search for wifi networks. One will be called ALL something, connect to it and it will give you the option to connect the ALL3/ALL8 to your hotspot. Once you've connected you can switch off both computers. Easy!

Don't waste your money, constantly fails to work and after spending ages updating and connecting it works for an hour or two before failing again. You then start the whole process again and it fails again. I am now in a personal war with it to get it to keep working. So far I have spent 15 hours trying to get it to work and managed about 4 hours of play time!!!!