|
|
Review: The Sonos Digital Music System
Several years ago, I spent an entire week wiring my home with audio cables and Ethernet. The project included an automated switch to change the room where music was being played by simply touching a wall switch mounted near the speakers. In the end, I had a simple system that performed as well as the expensive commercial solutions that were on the market at the time. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: THE SONOS SYSTEM Today, Santa Barbara, California based Sonos Incorporated has developed a modular music network that makes anyone's current music setup look like an 8-track stereo. The Sonos Digital Music System is, to put it simply, a receiver that you can plug into any power outlet and a pair of speakers to play digital music from all the computers in your home network. If it sounds easy, you're right. The system is designed so that anyone can put it together without any technical knowledge of computers or home networking. Right out of the box, the Quick Setup poster includes a 3-step process that will actually take longer to read, than it will to accomplish. Granted, the poster includes information on installations with firewalls and for non-standard Operating Systems, but the process is so streamlined that it takes just minutes to get up and running. The very first ZonePlayer must be connected to your network using an Ethernet cable (included), and subsequent units will automatically connect to the first ZonePlayer via Sonosnet, the company's proprietary wireless networking system.
The Sonos Desktop Controller, a software application for your computer, lets you set up the music to be streamed to your players and create and manage playlists. You can also use the software to control the music being played through each ZonePlayer, but that's a feature best saved for the Sonos Remote Control unit. THE SIGHTS & SOUNDS OF MUSIC Once the ZonePlayers and music shares are set up, the real fun begins. The Sonos Remote Control features a full-color screen that displays zones and music. Zones are a friendly name for the Sonos systems you set up in each room. For example, the "Bedroom" zone would be a ZonePlayer plugged in and attached to speakers in your master bedroom. When you access each zone, you can control the volume and the playlist for that specific location or link them with other zones to synchronize the music being played and manage whole-house volume with one touch. As the music plays, the remote displays the current song, along with the artist name, album art and title (see screenshot, below). An orange graphical progress bar provides a visual indication of the current song's progress and the remote makes the best use of the screen size by adding the upcoming song title and the number of songs in the queue to the display. Our only complaint with the wireless remote is the price. The stand-alone remote control retails for $399. This makes it more expensive than but all but the top-of-the-line universal remotes. As such, we expect it to manage all the devices in a room. This is especially important when you connect component stereo units to the ZonePlayer (see 2nd paragraph of AN AUDIOPHILE'S EYE, below) Or, as an alternate solution, Sonos should make a miniature "iPod Shuffle" style remote with only the necessary features for placement in each zone. This would allow you to manage the entire system with the color screen, and access the individual zones in the room you're currently in with a tiny panel. Instead, each Sonos ZonePlayer has volume up/down and a mute button, which is not enough functionality for our taste and would be absolutely useless if the unit is hidden away.
AN AUDIOPHILE'S EYE The system supports unlocked digital music, including compressed MP3, WMA, AAC (MPEG4), Ogg Vorbis, Flac (lossless), WAV and AIFF files. Music locked by DRM encryption (like Apple iTunes or Windows Media Audio Lossless) formats are not currently supported and -from what we can tell- never will be due to each company's strict copyright strategies. The Sonos Digital Music System can manage up to 30,000 songs from as many as 16 music shares (which may exist on separate computers or Network Attached Storage drives).In addition to user-ripped music, the Sonos Digital Music System also supports Internet radio (via streaming MP3) and Rhapsody 3.0. A TECHNOPHILE'S EYE The Sonos Music System also has some unexpected features for true home automation buffs. On the back of every ZonePlayer is a subwoofer output port, four spring binding posts for speaker connections, and four RCA jacks for input/output to a stereo, home theatre or even an iPod. Any device connected via the RCA input can automatically be streamed anywhere else in the house. Last but not least, four Ethernet ports on the back of the system also allow you to plug in a laptop in any room and connect to the network (albeit at a speed slower than WiFi). Although the Sonos Digital Music System does what it promises flawlessly, a few high end features would have been greatly appreciated by our review team. The desktop software should have an "audio preview" feature to listen to the music through the PC speakers while you're creating playlists, since it is entirely possible to create a playlist in a room without a Sonos ZonePlayer. In addition, the desktop software will skip a song if you move it from the MP3 folder where it was residing when you created your playlist. A "find" feature should be added to relocate the music. Although the unit's usability is absolutely unmatched, an indicator or test system to display when the speakers are out of phase (when the red wire and black wire are incorrectly reversed) would have been helpful, especially when you are creating a "server room" of Sonos ZonePlayers that tether to whole house audio wiring. Finally, with all of the gee-whiz features already built-in to the Sonos Digital Music System, a "follow me" feature that automatically played music when you walked near a ZonePlayer with the remote would have made this the ultimate accessory for the digerati elite. Speaking of the remote, when plugged in to a power outlet, it should have a screen saver showing atomic-clock synchronized time. A clock feature would also permit a timed "sleep" function that will allow music to turn off after a preset delay and an alarm to wake up to music. These are no-brainer additions that should be a component of any home automation music system. One critical feature that was added during our review process was music volume averaging. As accomplished music scavengers will attest, every now and then one song may play at a significantly higher volume than the rest of your collection. This is especially the case when you have music recorded from different sources, made "home hits" where you have created MP3s of your own band, or a live recording from a concert. In these instances, a music volume averaging feature that keeps the sound of the music at the same level is critical. And, much to the delight of our review team, the feature was added during an auto-update (v1.2) in mid-July.
SUMMARY Users that have already digitized their entire collection will find this product is their dream come true. The Sonos Digital Music System will quickly and easily allow you to "mobilize" your audio collection throughout your entire home and, with the impressive product design, if you need to read the manual to use this system, you're an idiot. So beginners looking to quickly employ an advanced audio system will find equal pleasure in the ease of installation and use. Although our editors wanted more high-end features, these are probably just our personal pet peeves, and as long as you can afford the initial expenditure to acquire the system, you will be delighted with the performance and features. Best of all, users can grow the system as their needs increase, and move the units around (or even transport it to a new home), making this system superior to "installed" high-end home audio solutions. Sonos is currently available in North America and Europe, with a German language version currently nearing release. The company is currently working on a table-top/wall mountable charging cradle for the remote which should be available before Christmas. Sonos plans to expand to a larger market in 2006. The company also plans to "fill out the product line" with additional products they will be announcing at CES in January 2006. PURCHASE:
© Copyright 2000-2005, SemperAptus . All rights reserved. Please refer all comments to webmaster@semperaptus.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
