Today, Ian casts his expert gaze on multi-room audio systems, and in particular the Sonos.
One of the best things I've ever tested is the Sonos multi-room audio system. The idea behind it is that you can purchase various components that allow you to add music playback to multiple rooms in your house. Apparently, according to the company, it's very popular with rock stars who love to fill their houses with these devices.
I have a Play:3 in my kitchen at the moment because I like to cook - yes, I know that cooking gadgets segment looked like I'm a fool in the kitchen, but I promise you I'm not! The Play:3 is ideal for the kitchen. It's powerful enough to fill a room with sound, but small enough not to annoy my wife, who doesn't like big gadget clutter.
The Play:3 is controlled by an app on your iOS device, there's even an iPad version which makes use of the extra space. And, more important to me, it works on Android too. You can buy a hardware remote control too, but they're quite expensive and don't really offer much more than the apps for phones.
If you want something more powerful, there are other pieces of Sonos hardware that can connect to your existing music system (ZonePlayer 90) or that can have speakers attached to them directly (ZonePlayer 120). It's quite flexible, which we really like.
You can listen to radio stations, via the Internet, or access online music services like Napster and Spotify too. If you have a large digital music catalogue, the Sonos can access it - if you install a bit of software on your PC. Obviously, the computer will need to be on to allow this, and there's no support for playing back music stored on network storage devices, which I think is a missed opportunity.
The biggest problem with Sonos is the price. To get started you need, obviously, the Play:3, but unless you can connect it to your network with an ethernet cable, you also need the Sonos Bridge, which gives you proper wireless. This is worth doing, and Sonos does often offer cheap deals on these two items together.
Add a few more zones though, and it does start to add up. You could spend £1000 filling up a few rooms with audio. But I'll say this: if you're a music lover who is sick of having a weird collection of CD players and Hi-Fi hardware in each room, this could be a very good solution. The Sonos is also epic if you have house parties, as each zone can play the same music, without delay. It's terribly impressive if you want lots of rooms full of people, all able to hear music.
Cost aside, I'd say that the Sonos has been one of the most consistently impressive systems I've used.
