Whenever I travel on the London Underground, it never fails to amaze me how many people are sitting with white earphones which, in most cases, means they’re listening to an iPod. The iPod has taken over the portable audio world to such an extent it is almost the minority of commuters who don’t own one. However, when these iPod owners return home and want to listen to music, more than likely they pick up a CD, put it in a player and press play.
These same people wouldn’t consider buying a Discman to listen to music on the commute, so why are they still listening to CDs at home? Sonos is one company that intends to change this and this author’s wallet is quivering at the thought of an upcoming purchase.
Before I go any further, you’re probably thinking ‘Sonos?’ Well, let me enlighten you. Sonos is a home audio system comprising a central hard-drive (your home PC for example), ZonePlayers in every room and a portable iPod-sized controller. The ZonePlayers receive the input from the controller, locate the song on the hard-drive and then send the signal to the speakers, all instantaneously and wirelessly. They can be controlled independently or as one. So, your kids could be listening to their favourite pop songs upstairs and you could be relaxing elsewhere to some classical must and yet the same system becomes perfect for parties, where you want the same music in the kitchen, lounge and garden. Sonos makes this possible, without wires and without a huge multi-disc changer.
Sonos uses a wireless system and installation takes a few minutes without having to destroy walls. I know many people who have gutted their house to install a stereo system at great expense and annoyance. The Sonos system can be installed over lunch.
Sonos supports up to 32 ZonePlayers, allowing small hotels to supply music to all their rooms and provide each room with its own controller. The ability to have up to 65,000 songs stored on one hard-drive means you don’t even have to leave the sofa when you fancy changing from Van Halen to Britney.
The Sonos ZonePlayer has both speaker outputs and a lineout port. This allows you to connect it to your existing home audio system as you would connect a new CD player. In the bedroom, you could add a couple of small speakers and install a pair of waterproof speakers for the outdoors. The beauty of the Sonos system is that you can use any speakers you wish, or add your own external amp. True audiophiles might moan that digital quality isn’t good enough, but how many iPod users complain when they’ve got 10,000 songs in their pocket? For the tiniest loss in quality, the home now has access to 65,000 songs.
In the pre-iPod era, mobile listeners had to carry around boxes of CDs if they wanted a real choice of music; the same revolution in music storage brought by the arrival of the iPod has been taken by Sonos and transferred to the home audio market. You don’t even need to keep your PC on; Sonos can work with an external disc drive which can be hidden away in any room containing a Sonos ZonePlayer.
In use, the Sonos system is a breeze to work. If you can use an iPod you can use the Sonos controller. A small cradle-like charger will soon be available, but the batteries last for two days anyway, so there’s no real rush. You can create playlists on the handset, and the supplied software shares every music file on your computer. If you use iTunes (as do all iPod users) you’ll be up and running within minutes of plugging it all in.
The most common question posed to Sonos is simply ‘why hasn’t this been done before?’ I’m sure the same was said about the iPod and they’re everywhere now. The Sonos system works and there is little reason why it shouldn’t be as successful as the iPod. For the small price of £899.99 you could have two rooms running Sonos. It’s a modular system with further ZonePlayers and controllers available for £369.99 and £299.99 respectively, so it doesn’t break the bank. UK sales started in June.
