Review: Sonos, the iPod For Your home

A little while back, in a post I wrote about the Dis-Connected Home, I mentioned how Sonos and Windows Media Center seemed like candidates to help connect the home, but appeared to be too costly.  The folks at Sonos offered to send me a started set to try out to see for myself.  For those not familiar with the product, it is trying to be to the home stereo what the iPod was to the Discman.  So I got their shipment and following is my take, which largely mirrors Fred Wilson's conclusion, which is that it rocks as a product even though it is pricey and has a few shortcomings:

The Context, aka my Dis-Connected Home:  My wife and I both have iPods.  Most of our music collection resides on our Powerbook although I have some music on my Windows laptop as well.  Given the size of our place, there are 2 rooms that we have stereos in.   To date, when I've wanted to listen to my music collection at home, I'd either play it from the Powerbook or play it through my iPod, which is connected to our home theater's speakers from the iPod dock.    

The Install:   The Sonos set came with good instructions and setup was quite easy.  The Sonos system consists of these brick-like things called ZonePlayers and a remote called a Controller -- catchy, isn't it.  The bricks are basically the equivalent of stereo receivers and connect to speakers.  One of the bricks has to be directly connected to your broadband connection so, ideally, your broadband modem is in a room that also has speakers, otherwise it's a bit of a 'waste' of a brick, which was the case for me as we have a DSL modem in our office but no speakers in there.   Once you've connected a brick to the internet, you can add others wherever you have a need to play audio and each newly-added 'child' brick will find the 'parent' and, voila, you've just created a wireless music network.  You install their software, which will find the music on your computer(s) and add them to your virtual music library, which can be accessed via the Controller.   What's nice here is that you can have multiple computers with music on them and all of it shows up in 1 place via the Controller.

Performance:   The folks at Sonos have built a first-rate product.   I'm now able to navigate my music collection from the comfort of my couch.  Even better, I can tune into various internet radio stations or Rhapsody.   The Controller is intuitive and gives that satisfying 'click' as with the iPod when you're using the scroll wheel.   You can use the Controller to play different audio in different rooms (called Zones), control volume and add to playlists on the fly (which is an annoyance on the iPod).   Besides working seamlessly, it's a well-designed product too evoking the clean, smooth aesthetic of the iPod.  There are also some nice touches:  for instance the Controller has a motion sensor so it turns itself on from standby mode as soon as you pick it up.  Cool. 

Wishlist/Gripes:  There are some shortcomings:

• Computer & Wireless Connection Can Be 'Weak Link' -- When playing music off your computer, you need to make sure it doesn't go to sleep (and the software will help you change your settings accordingly).  Still, this means that your computers must be on at all times and, if your computer runs low on CPU or crashes, your music could be interrupted.  Ditto for your wireless connection.  There were a couple of days where mine was spotty and the music stopped.  It'd be great if the Sonos would actually store copies of your files in their boxes and cut out these links in the chain.  Then there'd be a periodic synch with your computer(s) to update changes made to your music library.  I recognize that this architecture has lots of technical and potentially legal implications and added costs.
• Internet Radio Directory is Weak -- As a lot of you know, internet radio is dear to my heart.  Sonos has a internet radio directory, and you can also add the URLs of your favorite stations and they will be added to your directory.  The problem is that doing this is a pain and the existing internet radio directory is sparsely populated and I'd often get error messages when trying to stream some of them. 
• Other Connections -- Sonos is meant primarily as a way to listen to digital music and audio, rather than a replacement for your stereo received.  It can connect to your home theater, which I have yet to do, but this is via analog connections.  This is more a feature request than a gripe:  Sonos doesn't purport to be a stereo receiver, but I'd love to replace my stereo receiver with their box and not lose fidelity in the process.   In fact, I'd love to save a ton of room by replacing the DVD Player with, say, a Mac Mini, and the receiver with a Sonos ZonePlayer, but I don't think it's quite there yet. 

• Price -- This was my original gripe and it hasn't gone away.  The introductory bundle I set up costs $1,200 and includes 2 ZonePlayers and 1 Controller.  I love the product but it's still too pricey considering it is what I call a 'discretionary' product.  In other words, while it greatly enhanced my music metabolism, it is not needed to consume (digital) media unlike a 'non-discretionary' product such as the iPod.  For comparison, I could probably buy an iPod and a decent TV and maybe even a DVD player with $1,200.

The Upshot:  The Sonos Digital Music System is a beautifully designed and engineered premium product that will greatly enhance your digital music consumption and experience in your own home.  It is intuitive and easy to install and won't be an eyesore in your home.  It is for people that have a lot invested in their music collections, and so ought to be willing to pay to extract more value out of the investment they've made in their music.  Sonos is also for you if you have a big house or lots of rooms.  I look forward to continued innovation from the team at Sonos.  They have a good thing going. 

[Disclosure:  While the Company sent me a unit for review, I have not received any compensation nor was I obligated to write about the product.]

Comments

[Steve Nettles]

I just read your review. Are there any newer products that do the same as Sonos at a lower price?

Steve

[Dave Schappell]

Funny but I'm a Sonos lover as well... but just got this answer to my question about 'other players' like Sonos...

CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Nathaniel Wilkins
Edited by: John P. Falcone
Reviewed on 3/20/06 Release date: 10/15/05

The Olive Musica is really two devices in one, combining the functionality of a wireless-audio streaming client with the capabilities of a home audio server. Featuring an internal 160GB hard drive, built-in Ethernet and 802.11g wireless networking, and a CD player/ripper/recorder, the Musica is equally proficient with CDs and streaming audio. The Musica retails for a hefty $1,100, but discriminating listeners in the market for a high-end music server may very well find the premium worth paying.

Design of Olive Musica (160GB, black)
Measuring 3.35 by 17.1 by 11.4 inches, the Olive Musica can readily be stacked with home-theater gear such as an A/V receiver or a DVD player. It's available in silver or black. Although the Musica lacks the sheer heft of Escient's comparable FireBall units, the round, luminescent front-panel controls (power, eject, play, stop, next track, and previous track) and the slide-in disc slot give it an overall sleeker appearance. Navigating menus with the front-panel scrollwheel is easy. Tilt the wheel's outer ring left or right to change menu levels, and spin the center ring to quickly navigate through lists. (The unit sometimes briefly hesitates while loading the next list, but that's more a hiccup than a full-blown annoyance.) The full-size 40-key remote features niceties such as buttons for Artist, Album, Songs, and Genre, which provide shortcuts to those respective music-navigation categories. Using the remote, you can dim the display to several different levels or turn off its light-blue backlighting altogether. The remote's volume control facilitates connecting the device directly to powered monitor speakers, such as the NHT Pro M-00 pair we used during testing. One minor quibble: To change the volume or dim the display, you have to repeatedly press the desired button; you can't just hold it down.

Unlike Escient's FireBall models, this unit doesn't have a TV output; instead, you'll have to rely on the 4-by-1.75-inch front-panel display. When you're browsing artist or track lists, for example, titles appear on the display six at a time and are readable from about 5 feet away. After playback starts, the unit switches into a large-font mode, which allows you to easily read essential information from around 10 feet away.

Because you can use the Musica without connecting it to a network or installing any software, you can start enjoying it right out of the box. Connecting it to a Wi-Fi wireless network isn't hard, though. You simply open the unit's Network menu, prompt it to search for your wireless network, and enter a 64- or 128-bit WEP key if your network uses one. WPA security is not currently supported.

Features of Olive Musica (160GB, black)
Many digital music devices are limited to one of two functions: an audio server with a built-in hard drive, such as the Yamaha MusicCast MCX-1000, or a networked audio receiver, such as the Sonos Digital Music System, which lacks an internal hard drive and streams from a networked PC or storage device. The Olive Musica handles both functions with aplomb, doubling as a home audio server and a digital audio receiver for maximum flexibility. The Musica can play CDs and rip them to its internal 160GB hard disk. Once you load up its drive with some choice tunes, you can burn custom-mixed CDs, share the digital audio library with other networked devices, and stream from other network audio sources, such as a PC's hard drive. The Musica can handle a wide variety of audio formats, including MP3, AIFF, PCM, WAV, OGG, FLAC, and AAC--but not WMA. Moreover, it can perform other functions, such as local CD playback, while simultaneously streaming to client devices.

The Musica has four Ethernet ports in addition to its built-in 802.11g wireless capabilities. In case you don't already have a network, the unit can set up its own, assigning IP addresses to wired or wirelessly connected clients such as PCs and UPnP digital media receivers. With just a couple of button presses on our Roku SoundBridge M1000, we were readily able to wirelessly stream tracks from the Musica's hard drive to the Roku. (Olive's own digital audio streamer, the $200 Sonata, is due to be released in February 2006.) Furthermore, the Musica can stream tracks from your PC's iTunes libraries, and you can even use iTunes to play tracks stored on the Musica through your PC. What's more, the Musica automatically appears in the My Network Places menu of any PC connected to the same local network, allowing you to transfer music files to it without using special software; it also supports the Mac's Bonjour/Rendezvous networking protocol. After copying files onto the Musica over the network, you have to prompt it to index the files to make them playable, but the extra step is painless. The Musica doesn't support playlists imported from iTunes and other applications, but you can create playlists using its controls.

Despite its vast array of capabilities, the Musica isn't quite a jack-of-all-trades. It can't play protected WMA files, such as those purchased from Internet music stores or downloaded as part of a to-go subscription plan. Actually, it can't play any WMA files, rights-managed or otherwise. Despite compatibility with iTunes playlists, the Musica--like every other non-Apple device--can't play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store. And unlike the comparably priced Sonos Digital Music System, it doesn't support Rhapsody's subscription-based on-demand music-streaming service, which is a favorite of ours. It does, however, include a vast, automatically updated database of free Internet MP3 radio stations, and it allows you to manually add selections.

The Olive Musica doesn't have the veritable forest of jacks you'd get with the pricier E2-series Escient FireBall models, but it's better equipped than the comparably priced Escient SE-80. In addition to one optical and one coaxial digital output, it has a stereo analog output and a matching analog input. It also has a front-panel 1/4-inch headphone jack. Two USB ports allow you to connect devices such as portable music players, through which you can play music and to which you can transfer files; however, the feature didn't work with our Cowon iAudio MP3 player, even though it's mountable as a USB drive and should have been compatible.

The Musica can encode tracks to its internal hard drive in AIFF, WAV, and FLAC lossless formats or in MP3 at up to 320Kbps. It can also burn CDs, but they must be the more pricey audio CD-Rs, not the data CD-Rs you use with your PC. Furthermore, the unit records only audio CDs, not MP3 CDs. Using its built-in Freedb database, the unit automatically tags files that are ripped into it; of course, it doesn't tag tracks recorded via the analog line-in. If a CD's info isn't in the local database, the Musica checks the Internet-based version of Freedb to fetch the data. It's worth noting that Olive will currently preload up to 100 of your CDs into the unit without extra charge.

If the $1,100 Musica is a bit too rich for your blood, consider its little brother, the $900 Olive Symphony. Aside from its smaller 80GB hard drive and its inclusion of special software to manage classical music, the Symphony is nearly identical to its more expensive sibling.

Performance of Olive Musica (160GB, black)
To verify Olive's claims about the Musica's audiophile-grade sound quality, we tested the unit against Escient's FireBall E2-40. We hooked both of them directly up to our high-end NHT Pro M-00 studio monitors via analog connections and played the same source material. We didn't hear a stark difference, but the pricier Escient sounded a hair better. For instance, vocals in Steely Dan's Do It Again displayed a bit more texture, and the soundstage had more depth. Nonetheless, we were generally happy with the Musica's crisp, clear sound.

The Musica has a maximum rated CD-ripping speed of 12X but worked a bit slower on average; it took nearly 5 minutes to rip Sly and the Family Stone's 40-minute Fresh CD, for instance. Turning to its analog inputs, we recorded Annie Lennox's Bare CD from an outboard CD player. The recording sounded clear and dynamic, but we would have preferred a simpler and more automatic track-splitting process than the Musica's, which requires you to manually confirm where tracks should be divided within the single long file the unit initially records. What's more, the Musica can save line-in recordings to only the uncompressed AIFF format; it can't save to smaller compressed file formats such as FLAC or MP3. Still, it's nice to have the line-in option for recording non-CD sources, such as LPs.

On the flip side, the Musica has a maximum CD-burning speed of 24X. When burning an uncompressed AIFF file from the internal hard drive to a CD, the Musica pretty much attained that rate, completing a 23-minute disc in just under a minute. However, when we burned Porno for Pyros' eponymously titled 39.5-minute CD from FLAC files on the unit's hard drive, the Musica took nearly 11 minutes to complete the disc. Whenever it has to transcode tracks from compressed formats such as FLAC or MP3 into CD-Audio files, you can expect disc creation to be slow.

In the final analysis, if you're looking for a high-end digital audio server that offers a full array of stand-alone music-management and playback features but also supports streaming from and to other networked devices, the Musica is a great option. Despite lacking the TV-based interface you'd get with Escient's comparably priced SE-80, it offers twice the hard drive space and includes lossless FLAC encoding--a key ingredient for discriminating listeners. Its compatibility with inexpensive UPnP digital media receivers such as the Roku SoundBridge helps make it the hands-down choice in distributed audio for all but the superwealthy and those who prefer the stream-only Sonos system ($1,199 with two players) for its Rhapsody compatibility and superior remote control with integrated display.
Sources: http://reviews.cnet.com/Olive_Musica_160GB_black/4505-6470_7-31787374.html?tag=pdtl-list