You can play music in every room with S5

Posted at 12:40 AM on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009

"Multiroom sound system? There's an app for that."

That's not Sonos' slogan for its new ZonePlayer S5 wireless speaker consoles, but it could be. Now, in addition to tracking your weight, calculating recipes and identifying bird calls, your iPhone or iPod Touch can serve as a touch-screen remote control for the music playing in different rooms of your home.

It's a pretty giddy feeling. You stroll magisterially through your dwelling, browsing your music collection on your phone. You can start playing some Broadway in the bedroom, Latin in the living room and rock in the rec room. All with a few taps on the screen of your iPod/iPhone.

You can adjust the volume all at once or room by room. If you like, you can sync everything up so that the same music is playing in every room.

In short, you can pretend to be a well-wired rich person -- without having had to pay $10,000 for somebody to install a "system."

This, of course, has always been the Sonos specialty: multiroom stereo system components that communicate wirelessly, operate effortlessly and require very little technical ability.

In the past, though, Sonos provided only electronic receiver boxes ($350 apiece); you had to supply your own powered speakers to plug into them. You still undercut the price of a professional sound system, but for a wireless system, you wound up with a lot of wires.

The S5 ($400) is different; it has both the wireless receiver and the speakers built into a single box.

There's no socket for the iPod. Instead, like the speakerless Sonos boxes before it, the S5 speaker is designed to play the music collection you keep on your Mac or PC.

But already, this system, famous for its simplicity, is starting to sound complicated. And it's true that there are a bunch of different pieces to it:

-- Some music to play: For most people, this means a collection of music files. It might be your iTunes collection on a Mac or PC, or even a bunch of MP3 files sitting in folders.

So what happens if the computer is turned off or, worse, gone (because it's a laptop and you took it with you -- hey, it could happen)? In that case, nobody else at home can play any music until you return. It's nice to be missed, of course, but not after you've just spent $400 on a music system.

-- A home wireless network, complete with a router: Presumably you already have this part.

-- An S5 speaker unit, or more than one: You're supposed to plug the first S5 directly into your router.

Additional S5's don't have to be connected to anything but a power outlet; that's the beauty of Sonos' "mesh network." Each S5 repeats the wireless signal from the first one, rebroadcasting the music up to 100 feet at a time.

Ah, but what if the router is someplace awkward -- like a utility closet, where you presumably don't listen to music very often?

In that case, you'll have to spend another $100 for something called a ZoneBridge. It's a little white box that connects to your router, wherever it is, and sends its signal to the S5's, wherever they are.

-- Playback software: The only buttons on the S5 speaker console itself are Volume and Mute. So you need a way to start and stop the music, choose which music you want (by song, band, genre, playlist or whatever) and so on.

For this, you have three options. First, you can download Sonos' free iPhone or iPod Touch app, which is beautifully designed and wicked fun to use.

Second, you can use the free Desktop Controller software on your Mac or Windows machine.

Third, you can buy Sonos' hand-held, touch-screen remote for $350. (Hint: If you buy an iPod Touch instead, you'll save $130 and have a lot more fun after hours.)

This all sounds great, and it is great. But you hecklers in back are no doubt thinking: "Well, duh! Why not just buy a $95 AirPort Express pocket Wi-Fi base station, connect speakers to it and then control playback using Apple's free Remote app on your iPhone/iPod Touch?"

This is true. That's a wireless music system for a lot less money. There is, however, a caveat or five: The price doesn't include speakers. That system doesn't work when the computer is off or iTunes isn't running. It doesn't let you control the volume of each room. It doesn't let you pipe different music to each room.

It's not nearly as easy to grab by the back-panel handle and carry out to the patio for a party. And the music sometimes drops out because it's using Wi-Fi instead of Sonos' much more reliable, stutter-free music signal.

So no, the Sonos S5 may not be just what the doctor ordered for everyone, especially in recessionary times. But $400 is a reasonable price for the S5s size, sound, portability, control, refinement and pure pleasure.

And yes, now there's an app for that.