B&G Simrad SonicHub reviews/advice

[Silver_Surfer]

looking for any feed back on the sonichub system. how did it work and what speakers you used. wondering if amp is enough(50amps) to power the 2 zones it advertises and they have a external amp for more speakers if needed. also a sub-woofer is available. haven't found any real world reviews so i hope someone on this forum can add some insight.
thanks
john




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[deluxe68]

Bump. I am also interested in this.

[SV Sedna]

I have the first generation Sonic Hub and love it. I appreciate good sound on the boat and at home. At home I have various configurations including NAD and McIntosh amps, Klipsch and B&W speakers and various other gear.

The Sonic Hub integrates nicely with my MFDs via N2K. Also able to fully control it using an android tablet and wifi. The unit sounds much better than the Sony marine car deck that I was using and got tired of replacing frequently.

In the cockpit I have a pair of Bose all weather speakers. They are driven by the Sonic Hub, I do plan to add an amp in this set of speakers they are a little under-powered. I have been know to play Motorhead as loud as possible to discourage the guy that wants to anchor right next to me. Works good as a repellent

In the cabin I have an Alpine 4 channel amp, bridged to a 3 channel config. I have a 8" bazooka tube sub hidden away and as primary speakers I have Polk Audio all weathers. Nice sound and easily mounted cabinets. Acoustics in a boat are not good by any means but his sounds just fine in my opinion.

The unit can be set up to have a substantial digital library via a USB thumb drive. It must by FAT32 formatted, there are utilities online to format a drive of this size. Windows will not do a native FAT32 so look for the utility online. Drawback here is it only reads MP3 files and not a lossless like FLAC. I have a 500GB drive and have converted my FLAC files to MP3 and 256kbps. There is room for about 70% of my library. Sound quality here is by far bettter than using the bluetooth option but BT is handy to have. BT is integrated int he unit now so no need to the extra hardware that I had to purchase.

The tuner seems to work well also for those radio moments.

I would easily purchase again. Best option I have found for music over the years.

[deluxe68]

Originally Posted by SV Sedna

I have the first generation Sonic Hub and love it. I appreciate good sound on the boat and at home. At home I have various configurations including NAD and McIntosh amps, Klipsch and B&W speakers and various other gear.

The Sonic Hub integrates nicely with my MFDs via N2K. Also able to fully control it using an android tablet and wifi. The unit sounds much better than the Sony marine car deck that I was using and got tired of replacing frequently.

In the cockpit I have a pair of Bose all weather speakers. They are driven by the Sonic Hub, I do plan to add an amp in this set of speakers they are a little under-powered. I have been know to play Motorhead as loud as possible to discourage the guy that wants to anchor right next to me. Works good as a repellent

In the cabin I have an Alpine 4 channel amp, bridged to a 3 channel config. I have a 8" bazooka tube sub hidden away and as primary speakers I have Polk Audio all weathers. Nice sound and easily mounted cabinets. Acoustics in a boat are not good by any means but his sounds just fine in my opinion.

The unit can be set up to have a substantial digital library via a USB thumb drive. It must by FAT32 formatted, there are utilities online to format a drive of this size. Windows will not do a native FAT32 so look for the utility online. Drawback here is it only reads MP3 files and not a lossless like FLAC. I have a 500GB drive and have converted my FLAC files to MP3 and 256kbps. There is room for about 70% of my library. Sound quality here is by far bettter than using the bluetooth option but BT is handy to have. BT is integrated int he unit now so no need to the extra hardware that I had to purchase.

The tuner seems to work well also for those radio moments.

I would easily purchase again. Best option I have found for music over the years.

Thanks for the review. Do you have Sirius or XM capabilities? I am in the process of updating old electronics and have installed the B&G Weather Module so I can get weather updates on my MFD. It sounds like, if I add the Sonic Hub I can also receive XM or Sirius audio channels via subscription. I was originally considering a new Fusion stereo but it looks like I would need an additional tuner to get XM/Sirius.