AllThingsD » Sonos Inc.

Easy Digital Listening: Sonos ZonePlayer S5

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:15:05 +0000

Installing a multiroom stereo system can involve drilling holes in walls, running wires throughout the house and spending a lot of money. And after all that, the stereo still won’t have access to as much music as your computer. This week, I tested an alternative to the traditional stereo system that lets you control digitally delivered music in multiple rooms without spending a lot of money.

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I tested Sonos Inc.’s $399 ZonePlayer S5 (Sonos.com/S5), an all-in-one system that plays music off of your Windows PC or Mac, including music files on the computer, content from Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, local radio stations, Sirius Internet radio, Napster and Rhapsody. The S5 plugs directly into your router and a wall outlet, and a simple software program installs on your computer, working as a desktop remote control. It can work in concert with other S5s or other Sonos products to create a multiroom system around your house. And a free iPhone or iPod Touch app facilitates full remote control of multiple systems.

Since 2005, Sonos has offered high-end audio systems that permit people to listen to their digital music in multiple rooms on stereo systems with straightforward setups and simple remote controls. But its past products were relatively costly and required users to provide an existing stereo setup, powered speakers or a device (like a Bose Wave Radio) that allowed adding components via an auxiliary line-in.

Streamlined Setup

The ZonePlayer S5 is Sonos’s first product that works right out of the box and doesn’t require additional pieces. It took me very little time to set up and, once set up, sounded great. Music fans will want to know that it has five speakers powered by five dedicated digital amplifiers, two tweeters, two midrange drivers and a subwoofer. Discreet buttons on the top of the S5 can be pressed to mute, raise or lower volume.

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 can be part of a multiroom digital sound system controlled by a free iPhone app.

Sonos’s $99 ZoneBridge accessory frees the ZonePlayer S5 from being wired to a router. Most people will need to buy one of these because they don’t have their routers set up in the same rooms where they want to keep their ZonePlayer S5s. The ZoneBridge is what it sounds like: It can bridge a connection between your home network and one or multiple ZonePlayer S5s—or other Sonos products. There’s no limit to the number of Sonos products that can work with one ZoneBridge.

Last year, Sonos created a free app for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch that, as of a recent release last month, works just like the standalone $349 Sonos Controller 200, a touch-screen remote control. Using either the free app or the Sonos Controller, people can control music on multiple ZonePlayers and on other Sonos devices. For example, from my iPod Touch, I can mute one ZonePlayer and crank up the volume on another; I can skim through and play a list of Billboard Chart hits from Napster or listen to one of my personalized stations on Pandora.

If you’re like me, you don’t like bothering with plugs as you move electronics around your house. Even though the ZonePlayer S5 has a built-in handle and can easily be moved around (it weighs only about nine pounds), it will need its AC adapter cord wherever it goes. And the ZonePlayer S5 doesn’t have a dedicated iPod dock. Sure, you could buy a cord to plug an iPod into the auxiliary port on the back of the ZonePlayer, but that’s not the same as a dock.

Competition Report

Competitors, such as Bose Corp.’s $270 SoundDock Series II, work as speakers and iPod docks. The Bose can’t sync with other SoundDocks, as Sonos products are made to do, nor can it wirelessly play music from the hard drive of a nearby Windows PC or Mac. But as long as an iPod Touch or iPhone is loaded with free apps from Pandora or Last.fm, it can be placed in the SoundDock to play Internet radio through this system. And Bose’s $360 SoundDock Portable works plugged in or for over three hours on rechargeable batteries, making it easier to move around the house.

It took me less than 10 minutes to set up two ZonePlayer S5s, one ZoneBridge and a Sonos Controller 200 remote control in three different rooms. The ZoneBridge is just 1½ inches tall and its surface measures about the area of a piece of toast. It plugs directly into a router so the S5s can work anywhere within the Wi-Fi network, though they still must each be plugged into a power outlet.

I installed Sonos’s setup software, which came on a disc with the ZonePlayer S5, on a Dell (DELL) XPS One running Windows 7. When prompted, I followed on-screen instructions that explained how to press a button on each ZonePlayer S5, the ZoneBridge and the remote to wirelessly link them to my system. An indicator light on the S5 and ZoneBridge changed from blinking to solid to signify the connection.

Listen Up

Free 30-day trials of Sirius Internet Radio, Napster and Rhapsody come with the ZonePlayer S5, and the software is smart enough to set everything up in one step so users can start listening without first filling out any forms (like email address, name etc.). If users don’t have accounts with Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, they must go to those sites to create accounts online.

I entered my Pandora Internet radio user name and password on the computer, and my saved radio stations appeared on the computer screen. These personalized stations also showed up on the Sonos Controller’s colorful touch screen, as well as in the Sonos Controller app on the iPhone. And Pandora’s thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons also work on these portable remotes, so my musical preferences were saved in my account as I selected each to indicate whether or not I liked a song.

I played all sorts of content from the Web directly on my ZonePlayer S5s: hip-hop from Jay-Z, Ella Fitzgerald jazz, classical Christmas songs sung by the York Minster Choir, my local NPR station and tracks from Shakira’s new “She Wolf” album. I also listened to music from my computer’s hard drive.

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 lets you build a stereo system that can be wirelessly spread around with help from the company’s $99 ZoneBridge. And, as is the case with all Sonos products, the setup process is fantastically simple. Now that the iPhone and iPod Touch can use a free remote-control app that works just as well as the Sonos Controller 200, these players are even more accessible.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

A Home Base for iPod Hits

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:01:00 +0000

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

Next time you get comfortable on the couch, remember that you’re relaxing in the consumer electronics battleground: the living room. Major tech companies are pouring resources into products they hope you’ll use to remotely receive your computer’s content — namely videos, music and photos — in a more comfortable place.

But while some of these complex solutions are still struggling to catch on, digital music marched steadily into the land of recliners long ago. IPods naturally plug into home stereos, multiplying music collections and bringing playlists to parties. And an industry of devices sprouted up specifically for playing iPods and other music players to a crowd.

This week, I tested a new version of one of these dock systems that specializes in wirelessly distributing music via small, cube-shaped speakers that can be spread throughout your house: the $300 Evolve speaker system from Griffin Technology Inc. (http://evolvespeakers.com). This setup offers a straightforward and stylish solution, delivering what I consider good quality sound.

Griffin Technology’s $299.99 Evolve is an affordable wireless speaker system.

Griffin’s attempt at claiming valuable real estate in the living room pits it against Sonos Inc., a high-end competitor that is already well-established in the wireless-music arena. Sonos sends digital tunes from your computers to up to 32 rooms using an attractive remote with a full-color screen. But this system starts at $1,000, not including speakers, and its computer-related set-up might intimidate potential buyers.

Closer competitors to Griffin’s Evolve can be found in Brookstone and Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs, where similar wireless speaker systems for the iPod are sold for $150 (on sale) and $400, respectively. Brookstone’s set-up includes small, spherical wireless speakers and Hammacher’s uses bulkier, rectangular-shaped wireless speakers with visible antenna.

I tested the Evolve system using my iPod touch and a first generation iPod nano bought in 2005. Both devices worked with the system, and the Evolve speakers connected wirelessly to the base station from up to 150 feet away on the digital 900MHz spectrum, which doesn’t interfere with Wi-Fi and works through walls and floors. Two speakers come with the system, each carrying a charge of 10 hours according to Griffin, though I got 11 in my tests.

Evolve has some downsides. While it’s great to know that its speakers work 150 feet away from the base station and iPod, they can only be controlled by the base station or by a remote control in view of the base station. So, if you and the speakers are in a room without the base station, you can’t see any information about the song that’s playing, nor can you adjust the volume. Each speaker does have its own power button.

And when I switched from my iPod touch to the iPod nano, the Evolve remote stopped working, and I couldn’t get the remote to work with my iPod touch again. Griffin acknowledged a bug that occurs with speaker systems when an iPod isn’t up to date with the latest firmware, which it wasn’t, and assured me that updating the device, unplugging and re-plugging the Evolve would fix the issue. These fixes didn’t help, nor did repairing the remote, and there wasn’t time for Griffin to send a new remote. I continued to use Evolve without the remote, but hope that other units won’t operate like mine.

Griffin’s Evolve base station seems to hover just inches off the ground and is made of a brushed aluminum. Left to right, it measures about 16 inches, and an iPod dock and three buttons mark the center of the base station. Two squat antenna stand behind this dock, and square wells on the left and right give the speakers a place to rest while charging. These wire-free charging wells are designed with overcharge/undercharge protection, so each speaker’s battery isn’t harmed by resting on the base station for a long period of time.

When the remote was working with my iPod touch, I navigated through songs from across the room, pausing and adjusting volume. I easily carried the speakers into my kitchen using handles built into the back of these cubes, and my roommate enjoyed listening to Amy Winehouse in stereo while she made dinner. But during the actual dinner, when we wanted to turn the volume down, we had to walk back to the living room where the base station was located while calling down the hall to one another to find out if the sound was low enough.

Hidden indicator lights in each speaker tell whether they’re charged or not; orange signifies a charge is needed, while green means you’re in the clear. A switch on the base station changes the speaker sound from mono (useful when listening to audio books) to stereo. Each speaker contains built-in technology that assigns it to automatically know if it’s right or left. To conserve battery, a speaker that’s turned on but isn’t playing music will turn off after 60 minutes.

I kept my speakers on for 11 hours straight before they pooped out, moving them to different floors and as far from the base station as possible — the signal stayed strong. In just two hours, the pair was recharged. I kept the volume pretty low for at least half the time my speakers were on, and Griffin says lower volumes conserve battery, and vice versa. I listened to all sorts of music, including hip-hop, jazz, country, rock and classical. I’m no audiophile, but to my ear, the Evolve handled each genre with aplomb.

All iPods (even the iPhone) work with Griffin’s Evolve, and this gadget will also work when connected to other MP3 players, stereos, TVs, and CD players, which could come in handy. In early March, Griffin will sell add-on speakers for $99 each with separate charging plates for $30 apiece; $200 bundles will include two speakers and two charging plates. There’s no limit to the number of speakers that you can add to a system.

Though Griffin’s Evolve lacks some of the luxuries that high-end systems have, it solves a problem with minimal effort on the user’s part, and looks good while doing it. If you don’t mind returning to the base station to make adjustments, and if your remote doesn’t stop working, you’ll enjoy this sleek and functional device.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:

Griffin Technology Inc.’s Evolve wireless sound system uses a remote that can control certain functions of the iPod, even when it is out of sight of the base station. This column erroneously implies that the remote must be in view of the system to work.