Multi-room sound. It used to be restricted to the very rich, or at least the comfortably well off. To do it properly (rather than just running some very long cables around the house), you needed an easily accessible source, controllers in every room, hidden wiring… it would soon mount up to a pretty penny. So most of us who cared about music had a decent set-up in one room and a small army of cheap portable CD players and radios installed in key points around the old homestead.
There have been a few low-cost, wireless options that have emerged recently, but none look so good or show as much promise as the Sonos digital music system. There have been comparisons with Apple products, and it's no surprise. It's not that it emulates the style of the iPod et al, but there is something of their simplicity of line and economy of form about it that somehow just seems right. It won't look out of place in most homes and even if it does, it's modest size and box-like structure means it can easily be tucked out of sight.
Because the real beauty of the Sonos system is that you don't have to see it. It consists of one or more boxes, or 'ZonePlayers' containing contains a 50-watt amp (plenty of power for average rooms) which can link wirelessly to each other using Sonos's proprietary 'Sonosnet' wireless web (similar to Wi-Fi, but it's their own, so it's different, and they're not saying much more than that about it). Each ZonePlayer also has four Ethernet plugs, a set of stereo speaker posts, and analogue audio in/out connections. Along with volume up/down and mute buttons at the front, that's pretty much it - so far, so uncomplicated.
The techy computer bit is based on a Linux operating system and supports MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, AIFF and Flac (lossless) files. As far as lossless formats go, it unfortunately won't play Apple Lossless (Apple being cagey, probably) but it will play WAV, AIFF and Flac - not as popular, but at least the option's there.
It also supports streaming MP3 and WMA, which opens the way for internet radio - it comes preloaded with over 100 around the world, divided into genres (talk, rock, world etc) and it's easy to add more by simply inserting the web address.
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| Round the back
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Any speakers can be used with the system, although Sonos does produce a two-way bookshelf speaker to go with it. The most attractive bit of the whole set-up however is the handheld remote control which can be used to manage up to 32 different zones, each zone containing one ZonePlayer. The wireless controller claims a battery life of five days, and the onscreen display makes it easy to see when you need to recharge.
The Sonos system is also optimised for digital radio, and has over 100 stations listed. It's not exactly the highest of fi, but it's certainly a useful prompt to listen to more radio, from all around the world. You can also add your own favourites and recommend them to Sonos to include in their standard list.
Performance
The first problem we hit with the Sonos was the set-up. Now we know other people who've simply plugged it in and played it - that's the ideal scenario. But thanks to our PC's rather convoluted firewall system, we ended up chatting for about two hours (via the free customer services line) to some very nice American chaps who eventually got to the bottom of the problem. Of course, we could have just turned the firewall off, but that would have been cheating…
With one ZonePlayer connected to the PC via the supplied Ethernet cable (at least one requires a wired connection), everything slotted into place very easily. The device can be controlled either direct from the desktop, or, much more suavely, via the remote control, which resembles a large PDA. It has a large colour display with a layout not dissimilar to the iPod's with a click wheel for navigating through your music, which the device automatically locates on your PC (most usually in the My Music folder). Incidentally, there's room in the on-screen library for 40,000 tracks.
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| Some screen shots
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Most, but not all, of the music we played was in AAC format (yes, we're iPod users here (among other things) and are very comfortable with iTunes) and all of it appeared to play without any delay, which can be one of the problems with wireless systems, especially if you're playing the same music through multiple speakers.
We were initially quite disappointed with the Sonos's dedicated speakers. They tended to sound a bit muffled and shut in, and various placement options didn't really seem to help. However, once we switched to some of our own speakers, we found the sound improved tremendously.
We're only talking about MP3/AAC-quality music here for the most part, so it's wrong to expect miracles, but if you haven't tried it, playing compressed digital music through some proper hi-fi speakers, rather than those freebies you got with your PC, or indeed the in-ear headphones you got with your MP3 player - it makes all the difference.
After the initial problems with the firewall during set-up, syncing up an additional ZonePlayer for another room proved to be simplicity itself. We plugged it in, the network found it, we gave it a name and all of a sudden we could either choose to play music simultaneously in both, or completely separate music in each, with full control over tracks, volume and basic EQ for each - very impressive.
A word about distance though. The range of each ZonePlayer is quoted as being up to 100ft. In practice however, factors such as overlapping wireless networks (including cordless DECT phones) and physical obstacles such as walls can impede the range - we found that 30ft was closer to reality.
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The Sonos is a wonderful idea, and a lot of thought has clearly gone into making it work in an easy and intuitive way. There are clearly still a few teething problems to be ironed out, particularly in relation to the set-up routine, but once it's working, it's a good-looking and relatively cheap way to release all that digital music that's been gathering on your PC.
Of course it's compressed music we're talking about here, and if push comes to shove, it doesn't quite measure up sonically to playing your CDs directly through a decent hi-fi system. But it is a very accessible way of getting digital music off your computer and around the house, and it does it exceptionally well.
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