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The Sonos experience

August 15, 2007 on 9:15 pm | In Gadgetry |

I’ve been lusting after a Sonos system for around a year-and-a-half now, ever since reading a review of the kit in PC Pro magazine.

For the uninitiated, Sonos (or the Sonos Digital Music System, to give it its full title) is a set of components that let you stream digital audio around your home. There are basically two bits of hardware: ZonePlayers, that actually play the music through an attached amplifier or pair of speakers; and Controllers, paperback-sized bricks with a scroll wheel and colour LCD screen that are used to choose what the ZonePlayers should be playing. The Controllers are supposedly optional, in that each ZonePlayer comes with software you can install on a PC or Mac that will replicate the functionality of the Controller, thus allowing you to control the ZonePlayers via your computer. In reality, one of the main attractions of the system is in using the hardware Controller to browse through and play your music collection. I doubt many people end-up buying a system without a Controller.

Up to 32 ZonePlayers can be ‘connected’ to each other via wired or wireless ethernet, and then controlled via a single Controller. Each ZonePlayer (referred to as a ‘zone’) can play a different track, or individual zones can be linked such that they play the same track. So you could have two ZonePlayers, one in the lounge and the other in the bedroom for example, both playing the same song, in perfect sync with each other.

Sonos recently started selling a ‘BU130 bundle’ containing two different ZonePlayers and a Controller, and also reduced their prices, so I figured that now was the time to take the plunge. One of the ZonePlayers in the bundle is the amp-less model, so I also ordered a pair of bookshelf speakers (Q Acoustic 1010s) to go with it.

A couple of days later, a fairly hefty box arrived. This contained both of the ZonePlayers (a ZP80 and its larger ZP100 sibling) and the Controller, together with the Desktop Controller software on CD and a number of connecting cables. Unpacking the devices, I was surprised how heavy the ZP100 was, probably due to the built-in amplifier. I should also state that both units have enclosed PSUs, so there are no power bricks to worry about. Added to that they’re passively cooled, so are almost silent in operation (I’ve noticed that the ZP100 makes a slight hum constantly, but this is barely audible most of the time).

First to be hooked-up was the smaller ZP80. We already had a Denon mini system in the lounge, so the ZP80 was connected to it via the RCA jacks (the ZP80 does have digital outputs, but the Denon doesn’t so I couldn’t make use of them). Although Sonos can operate wirelessly, our house is already wired with Cat5 cable, so I hooked the ZP80 directly to a nearby network socket.

The Controller has an enclosed rechargeable battery that first needed charging via the supplied power brick (a charging cradle is also available, but the price is a bit steep in my opinion). Once charged, the Controller software walks you through the setup process, part of which involves associating the Controller with the ZonePlayer by pressing a couple of buttons on the fascia of the player.

After the Controller/ZonePlayer association has been established, you need to tell the system where your music files are located. In our case, we recently bought an Infrant ReadyNAS box which we basically treat as a huge fileserver, and all of our music files are stored on it. I used the Controller to select the appropriate file share, then the system built an index from the metadata (tags) in the music files. Once the index has been built, the Controller can display the music files in your collection, grouped by artist, album, genre or whatever, allowing you to choose the tracks that you want to play.

The Controller interface is pretty slick. Most screens present a simple list of items to choose from; you use the scroll wheel to move through them, and the centre button to select. There are also three ‘context-sensitive’ buttons located below the screen, the functions of which change depending on where you are in the UI, plus dedicated buttons for selecting zones and accessing the music ‘library’. It’s all a breeze to use; anyone who’s ever owned an iPod will feel right at home.

A day later the dinky 1010s arrived, so I was able to hook-up the ZP100. I decided to put it in one of the bedrooms upstairs, so that we’d have a zone on each floor of the house. Again, it was simply a matter of connecting everything together, using the Controller to indicate that a new player was being added to the system, then pressing the two buttons on the fascia of the ZonePlayer. A couple of minutes later and - hey presto, we now had two zones! However, it was at this point that things went a bit pear-shaped.

The software on the ZonePlayers and the Controllers is stored in firmware, allowing it to be remotely upgraded over the internet whenever Sonos release a new version. When our hardware arrived it appeared to be a couple of revisions behind, and part-way through the setup process I was offered the option of upgrading to the latest firmware. This upgrade had worked fine the previous day on the Controller and the ZP80, however attempting the same on the ZP100 failed big-time. The ZP100 froze during the process, and wouldn’t respond to the Controller. In the end, the only way I could get the system back up-and-running was to power-down everything on the network (router, laptop, NAS, Sonos boxes), then bring everything back online one device at a time. This seemed to do the trick, and (fingers crossed) both ZonePlayers have performed flawlessly since.

Unfortunately, we also experienced a hardware glitch with the Controller. The unit has a built-in sensor that detects the level of ambient lighting and automatically backlights the buttons if it gets too dark. A nice feature, but on our particular Controller some of the buttons were always backlit, and flickered to boot (none of this stopped us from using the Controller however). After initially ringing the supplier (Simply Sonos), I was asked to ring Sonos technical support, who diagnosed a faulty unit and gave me a return code. I passed this information on to Simply Sonos, who immediately sent out a replacement Controller: we posted the broken one back to them. Everything was handled promptly and professionally.

After using the Sonos system for a couple of months, I can honestly say it’s a great piece of kit: rock solid (despite our initial niggles with the software upgrade and Controller hardware), well designed, and very easy to use. I was a little dubious about the multiple zone thing given that we only live in a small detached house, but it really is quite cool to be able to walk from one floor to another with the same song playing in the background. I was also impressed by the quality of the after-sales support, and there’s a really helpful user community in the Sonos website forums too.

All in all, heartily recommended. Now all that remains for me to do is to finish digitising our CD collection…!