What I love about the Sonos "Multi-Room Music System"

Earlier this year, I converted my existing CD collection into MP3s. The huge question in my mind is what do I do with it. It's great that all the music is readily accessible, but how do I get it from my computer(s) to the rest of the house?

I have been keeping an eye on the system that is available by Sonos. The key features Sonos offers are the following:

• Source music typically is a Network Attached Storage device. This means your computer doesn't need to be on in order for this system to work. You do need a wireless router (or network).
• There is virtually no size limitations when ripping music. Since your music is stored on a hard drive, the limits are based on how large the hard drive is and how many CDs you have. You could save your music in lossless formats and not lose quality with compression. There are minimal problems streaming uncompressed file formats. I'm sure there are limits at some point (IE, you probably can't stream 16 different lossless music files simultaneously).
• You can access all Internet Radio stations and also access Rhapsody (requires subscription).
• There are options for amplified and non-amplified Zoneplayers. You can have up to 32 of these in your house! Non-amplified Zoneplayers need to be connected to some sort of audio video device (like an AV receiver with their own speakers) in order to work. Amplified Zoneplayers will need only speakers.
  
• Option to have each Zoneplayer playing different music or all of them playing the same music simultaneously.
• Free iPhone app that can control all of the Zoneplayers. (You would obviously need an iPhone).

Now with the above comes a cost. The starter bundle is just around $1,000 and that includes a controller, an amplified Zoneplayer and an un-amplified Zoneplayer. Additonal amplified Zoneplayers are about $500 each and un-amplified Zoneplayers are about $350 each.

To me, this is a luxury. Sure, it would be cool to be able to "pipe" the same piece throughout the entire house or play one genre of music upstairs and another downstairs, but at what cost?It would also be nice to control the volume of each room's music. But, you could easily fork out about $3,000 to outfit a house with a Zoneplayer in nearly every room. This would get you 6 Zoneplayers (5 amplified and 1 that is not) in total and one controller.

Look for future posts on some possible cheaper options and their limitations as compared to the Sonos system.

If any of you do explore purchasing the Sonos system from BestBuy. Please shop through the following link and type in "Sonos" in the Best Buy "Search for" section:

Buy Online, Pickup in Your Local Best Buy® Store.