Wireless music

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Years ago I remember toiling away underneath my parents’ house, brushing aside cobwebs in the dirty, dimly-lit and claustrophobia-inducing crawlspace to string audio cable for the stereo system. They wanted to be able to play their music from a central location and have it heard throughout the house.

Years later, this system was expanded with some wireless speakers to target new areas of the house but without the hassle of running the wires. While the wired speakers worked admirably, the wireless speakers were somewhat of a letdown. Static was fairly rampant, range was not that great, and the quality of the music coming from them suffered.

Because of my experience with that wireless system, I’ve been somewhat skeptical of other wireless speaker systems based upon FM signals and technology. As technology expands, however, new players arise. The new kid on the block this round is created by a company named Sonos. Their system works over a wireless network, the same one upon which your computers and other wireless devices operate.

The setup is fairly simple, but the price can be steep depending on how many rooms you wish to have covered. This system allows multiple room coverage from multiple devices, allowing all rooms to play the same music, or different rooms to play different tunes.

The whole system is based upon what Sonos calls “ZonePlayers.” Several different types of ZonePlayers are available at different price points. The S5 is a ZonePlayer that includes a set of speakers, others include the ZonePlayer 90 and the ZonePlayer 120 which basically function as amplifiers, allowing you to plug in speakers you may already own. You plug your audio sources into these ZonePlayers, making the sources available across the network.

One of the downsides of this system is that it requires a ZonePlayer to plug directly into your router and it requires broadband Internet access. There is a ZoneBridge available if you do not wish to have one of the ZonePlayers located in the same room as your router, but of course this is an additional expense and hassle.

To control the whole system, there are apps available for the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as both PC and Mac computers. There is also a dedicated Sonos Controller 200 that allows you a bit more flexibility and options. If you choose to purchase the Controller 200, you can sync your music system with such services as Last.fm, Pandora, Napster, Rhapsody, and even Sirus Satellite radio, straight out of the box.

 

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