Multi-Room Musical Multitasking
One thing I truly love about Sonos is its ability to do so many things at once, and so well. You can be playing music from your Rhapsody account in one room, while in another you're listening to Internet radio, or streams from iTunes. This takes literally seconds to set up, and if you decide you want both rooms to use the same sound source, just switch to Party Mode, which also allows you to adjust the volume of each room individually or as a group. Like Apple, Sonos has figured out how to perform fairly involved tasks with very little on-screen clutter or wait time, and zero glitches.

Another great feature for iPod touch and iPhone owners is the Sonos remote control app. This is not included as part of the bundle, but it's free from the iTunes App Store, and it operates in a very similar manner to the CR200, just not as fast—That's the answer to the obligatory "Why can't I just use my iPhone to control the system?" What's so impressive about the app and the remote, however, is how quickly they respond to each other. Switch a song on your iPod touch, and the Now Playing screen on your CR200 will immediately reflect the change, and vice-versa, though there is an occasional slight lag on the iPod or iPhone.

As I mentioned earlier, the ZonePlayer 120 and the ZonePlayer 90 haven't changed since we reviewed the last Sonos starter bundle, but as a refresher: Each Player works with the Sonos wireless mesh network to stream music into a room in which you place it. The speaker connections on the back panel of the ZP120, which measures 3.5 by 7.28 by 8.15 inches, are binding post-style, intended for stereo bookshelf speakers, not PC speakers with single 3.5 mm connections. The ZP120, which sells individually for $499, is the bigger and more versatile of the two players—intended for your main listening room or rooms.

The ZP90 is smaller and sells for $349. The smaller ZP90, $349 on its own and measuring 2.91 by 5.35 by 5.51 inches, offers two Ethernet jacks, analog (RCA) speaker outputs, a Coaxial audio output, an Optical audio out, and the power cable connection. Both ZonePlayers have Volume and Mute buttons on their front panels, and the ZP120 features two Ethernet connections, analog (RCA) inputs—along with a special connection cable for use with iPods and CD players, a subwoofer output, 55 watt-per-channel, binding-post-style connections for stereo speakers, a power cable connection, and a voltage switch that you'll never need to change as long as you're in the U.S.

All the necessary cables for power and aux inputs are provided in the Bundle 250. You can add up to 32 zones, but the ZP90 or the ZP120 are your only options. In other words, filling a huge space with wireless Sonos audio is not an inexpensive endeavor.

The sound quality while streaming music over the wireless connection is excellent. Any artifacts you may hear are likely from the music file than a result of streaming. As for the signal, I never encountered any reception issues, but Sonos also offers $99 ZoneBridges to place between zones to eliminate weak spots by repeating the signal at a closer distance to each Zone.

One note: although the system is wireless, you still have to connect one of the ZonePlayers to your Wi-Fi router over Ethernet. Additional ZonePlayers and the remote need no physical connections. The only real drawback here is that one of your Zones needs to be within reasonable proximity to your router, but it doesn't have to be your main listening room.

The Sonos system supports streaming of content from Sirius, Pandora, Napster, Last.fm, and Internet radio, as well as MP3, iTunes Plus, WMA (including protected content), AAC (MPEG4), Ogg Vorbis, Audible (format 4), Apple Lossless, FLAC, WAV, and AIFF files from your music library. It won't stream video or photos—a bit of a surprise considering the sharp touch-screen and the fact that other wireless streaming systems, like AppleTV, handle video as well as audio. The main difference is that the Sonos system lacks a hard drive, which means it can't store video and begin a stream once a buffer threshold is cleared, like Apple TV does.

For the CR200 touch-screen remote, Sonos claims a battery life of five days for typical usage and two days for intense use. Either way, this is not a mobile device and the remote is likely to return to its cradle long before it ever runs out of juice.

Obviously, a $999 audio-streaming system is not for everyone. But if music is your passion and you want it in every room of your house, the expandable Sonos system is as good as it gets, and the Bundle 250 is the way to start. Kudos to Sonos on an excellent remote—next let's see some photo and video support, and a remote that doubles as a portable player. If Sonos is too rich for your blood, Logitech's Squeezebox Duet Network Music System offers strong built-in features and music library integration, but its remote doesn't compare. But starting at $400, the Duet is a solid alternative if you're on a tighter budget.

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