Sondigo's Sirocco Wireless Audio Bridge
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 7th 2006 5:21PM
posted June 7th 2006 5:21PM
If a Sonos is too pricey for your tastes but you still want to get a little wireless audio rocking your place, you may be interested in the Sirocco Wireless Audio Bridge, which'll let you stream music straight off your PC to your existing home audio system over a 802.11b/g network. The Sirocco is actually the first product from the newly created Sondigo brand, launched by Canadian company Layton Electronics and Networking Limited. According to Sondigo, the Sirocco is basically a wireless sound card for your PC, meaning it can play any format your PC can play, regardless of copy protection. The Sirocco unit itself can be connected to just about any device via an optical digital or analog connection, delivering full Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Price is $140 US per unit, and you can install multiple Sirocco bridges on the same network, although it only supports Windows PCs at the moment.[Via Red Ferret]
So it's like an airport express only more expensive and uglier. Sign me up.
I ordered my Sondigo Sirocco for my PC, and it works flawlessly. I use it for stereo music on my home theater most of the time, but having real-time Dolby Digital 5.1 support (games too) is really neat. This is a super solid product!
Next, let's get a Mac version and we're cooking :)
Hey #1, the problem with the airport is that it locks itself to iTunes. You can't use it with anything else. The Sirocco works with anything, 5.1 games, movies, music, etc...
Yeah I know you can hack Airtunes to do some of this stuff - thanks but no thanks. I'll be keeping my Sirocco.
Didn't linksys make one of these cheaper?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5E6KG/sr=1-2/qid=1149716897/ref=sr_1_2/102-4014810-1238557?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=electronics
Personally, I prefer the Roku - just wish it did real audio...
I want a Sonos like controller on a system that can control multiple zones from a single location (all my in house wiring goes to a single home run spot in the basement with individual volume controls in each room). I'm leaning heavily in the Sonos direction right now, but I'm going to end up with 4 sonos zoneplayers on a shelf in teh basement. Why can't there be a better solution for that?
Re Travis' comment. I'd love that too. What I'm leaning towards at the moment is buying a bunch of Airports, using iTunes and controlling it remotely using Salling Clicker and a few old Sony Ericsson T610 phones. It's functional, but not ideal.
Well, there is a way to use the Airport Express outside of iTunes, it's called Airfoil. www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/
Just a thought
Isn't Sirocco the First Product with Dolby Digital 5.1? That's a very big differentiator for those who love sound!!!
My kids would love this!
The Sondigo Sirocco hates my Vista beat 2 PC. I'm tempted to sell it on ebay if I can't get it to work.
Airport Express has got a delay of 2-10 seconds which makes it inappropriate for playback of the sound in movies for example.
Yep, LinkSys made a cheaper one, but I like the Sirocco better for three reasons: 1. It works. 2. It has the Dolby 5.1. 3. No, really, it works! I spent a week fiddling with the LinkSys product, taking their customer support centre's advice, and never got satisfactory results. The Sondigo product just worked perfectly, right out of the box. My only gripe is that it only comes with Windows drivers; while I can hope somebody writes some Linux drivers soon, I think the onus is on Sondigo to ensure my Mac-owning housemates can hook up to it.