Perhaps this makes me a bit of a Luddite, but I have never bought into the idea of MP3 music servers. Friends and colleagues rave about the convenience of having all their music on a hard drive for easy access. Uh-uh, I said—too much fuss. You can have your complicated setup and your convoluted on-screen control systems. If I want to play an MP3 in my den, I can do it on my TiVo, thank you very much. It took the Sonos Digital Music System to change my mind.

The Sonos Controller lets you browse your music collection through a beautiful color screen. Another screen (right) on the Controller makes it easy to control sound in different rooms of your home. (Click images to enlarge)

What exactly does Sonos do that other music distribution systems cannot? Other than alleviating a lot of clutter, not much. It takes music from Point A—any networked computers or network-attached storage (NAS) hard drives in your home—and moves it to Point B, which is anywhere in your home you want. The concept sounds so simple, but rarely ever is.

With Sonos, distributing digital music around the home could not be simpler. The first clue to the system’s ease of use is its setup instructions: one glossy sheet of paper with three diagrammed steps. I take one of the two ZonePlayers included in the package to my office, connect it to my home Ethernet network and run the guided setup CD on my computer. I then connect the second ZonePlayer to the audio/video receiver in my media room, and less than 10 minutes after I open the box, the Sonos has found all of the MP3 files on my computers and I am wirelessly streaming the soothing sounds of Lyle Lovett from my office to the other end of the house.Operating the system is as easy as the installation, thanks to the Sonos Controller, which is quite a conversation piece. Even my most technophobic friends have no trouble using the Controller’s iPod-like touch-sensitive scroll wheel and full-color LCD screen. They find it easy to browse my music collection, by album or song title, artist or genre. Through the Controller, they can also access an ample selection of Internet radio stations. And since the Controller works on the wireless signal generated by the ZonePlayers, I can operate any player from any room, switching between zones with ease thanks to the intuitive interface. Linking every zone in the house together in party mode is a matter of three button presses. Unlinking them again requires only two.

In truth, the audio/video receiver is extraneous, because each ZonePlayer contains its own 50-watt amplifier and speaker connections. While 50 watts might sound a bit underwhelming, the ZonePlayer drives my large tower speakers with little effort, although that is probably not quite what its designers had in mind. The ZonePlayer works beautifully when used with bookshelf or executive desktop speakers, delivering clean, powerful audio with ample bass and enough fidelity that I can easily hear the difference between AAC and MP3 versions of the same song.

You read that correctly—in addition to MP3, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and WAV files, the Sonos system works with the AAC format used in Apple’s iPod. No other digital music server we have tried supports AAC. Many iPod users prefer AAC to the sonically inferior, outdated MP3 technology; if they want to use other music servers, they must rip all of their CDs twice: once in MP3, once in AAC. Not so with the Sonos.There is one caveat, however. The system is not yet capable of playing files protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption. This means that if you purchase your music files from Internet services such as iTunes, the ZonePlayer will not recognize them. This minor setback does, however, point out another of the system’s many strengths: Sonos is constantly refining its software, adding new features that can be downloaded from the Internet at the touch of a button. Sonos will be adding support for Microsoft’s DRM system soon, whereas Apple is refusing at least for now to allow Sonos to support iTunes’ proprietary FairPlay protection system.

Of course, if you have more than one music lover in your household, you might wish to purchase an additional Controller or two. That way you can leave a Controller in the room with a ZonePlayer, or each family member can carry his or her own Controller from room to room—reassigning a Controller to a different zone is so easy that describing it takes longer than actually doing it. Additional ZonePlayers and Controllers (up to 32) can be integrated into the system with all the effortlessness of plugging in a toaster, and each ZonePlayer can accommodate one line-in device such as a CD changer or an AM/FM radio tuner. But honestly, adding such “legacy” devices to the Sonos Digital Music System defeats its beautiful simplicity.

It could be argued that other music server systems on the market deliver exactly the same results; some may even do more. But none of them do so with nearly the grace or user-friendliness of the Sonos. That, my friends, is what converted this former Luddite.DESCRIPTION
Digital music distribution system. Accesses MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV files stored on any computer or NAS in your home network, and distributes them to any other ZonePlayer in the house via a proprietary wireless connection. Includes Internet radio capability. Provides 50 watts of power when connected directly to stereo speakers

CONNECTIONS
One stereo analog audio line input (RCA type), one stereo analog line output, one subwoofer analog line output, four RJ-45 Ethernet ports, two pairs of spring-loaded speaker connector posts

DIMENSIONS
Zone Player: 4.4 x 10.2 x 7.2 inches (hwd)
Controller: 1 x 6.5 x 3.8 inches (hwd)

PRICE/CONTACT
PRICE: $499 for each ZonePlayer, $399 for each Controller, or $1,199 for a bundle containing two ZonePlayers and one Controller.
CONTACT: 800.680.2345, www.sonos.com