Sonos Play 5 All-In-One Wireless Music Player With 5 Integrated Speakers (S5, White)
by Sonos
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Category: Speakers
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: SonosBrand: Sonos
Edition: Electronics
Release Date: 2009-11-02
Model: ZPS5
Color: White
Publisher: Sonos
Studio: Sonos
Music Label: Sonos
Product features:
- 5 integrated speakers powered by 5 digital amps for room-filling sound
- Unlimited music, wirelessly play iTunes, free Internet radio, Pandora, Napster and more
- Wireless control with free apps for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
- Simple setup and wireless expandability to play different songs in different rooms
- Requires high-speed Internet connection and wireless router
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sonos Play 5 All-In-One Wireless Music Player With 5 Integrated Speakers (S5, White)
Customer Review: As easy as it gets!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Sonos system is a fantastic option for anyone looking for an extremely easy (if not entirely economical) way to stream music with good sound quality throughout your house without destructive and cost prohibitive, non-adjustable, non-movable hard wiring. All it took was a zone bridge for the router in the office, a zone player 90 for my main house receiver and existing speakers, and S5's for each of the rooms where I wanted music but didn't have speakers, and I was up and running in under 20 minutes streaming music from Pandora, Napster and my iTunes library. The sound from the S5 is excellent for a single box, not-thousands-of-dollars speaker. One of my favorite things is the music integration -- when controlling the music from your iphone, it plays from a queue in which you can mix and match items from your Napster library and iTunes. I love being able to mix the music I just borrow from Napster with the music I own from iTunes. It moves seamlessly between the two -- you don't even notice a pause. Also, this is the only system I am aware of that can synchronize music throughout your house easily and perfectly. I can quickly move from playing a playlist throughout every speaker in the house, to just a couple of rooms, to just the room I am in, and back.
Despite the five-star review and the fact that I love it, nothing is perfect and I know the negatives can be more helpful sometimes in making a decision than the positives, so here are a few things to keep in mind:
(1) as noted by other reviewers, if you don't intend to have a player where your router is, you will need a zone bridge. Add $100
(2) if, like most of us, you have DRM protected music from back in the day from iTunes before most went DRM free, the Sonos will not play it. Music bought more recently from iTunes will work fine, so if you just joined the iTunes party in the last few years, you shouldn't have issues. For those with older, protected music, there are easy converter programs that will do a virtual burn of a CD onto your hard drive that will allow you to have copies of these songs which are playable on Sonos without breaking the DRM protection itself. (I found Tune4Mac extremely quick and easy to use if you have a Mac. Factor in the added software cost ($30-40) though when budgeting for your Sonos.)
(3) The s5's are addictive! I thought I wanted three. I liked them so much, I thought of another place to have one, and was quickly up to four. I actually now want 2 more, but will wait for the budget to recover!
(4) If you have a particularly large room in which you plan to use the s5, you may want to invest in two (add $399) and set them up as a stereo pair. I currently only have one in a very large master bedroom with a sitting area, and while the sound is really excellent, that is the one room where I can really tell that all of the sound is coming out of one box. In the smaller rooms, the sound just fills the room, but in the larger room, it is more directional. Having two, one on each side of the room should solve that issue, but its so minor for me, I haven't decided if its worth the cost yet.
(5) The iphone controller is great, but I assume most people have their iphone set to have the screen go dark pretty quickly to save battery power and to keep you from accidentally calling people when you bump the phone. While the Sonos controller comes back up quickly, it still has the pause while the phone reconnects to the wifi when you wake up the phone. 99% of the time, its not an issue, but if you receive a call or need to stop the music quickly for some other reason, it is not going to be an instant fix. The players all have mute buttons on them which can be used quickly, but if you have multiple ones going at once or are not right next to the player, the issue remains.
(6) The ads show how portable the S5 is, and it certainly is easy enough to pick it up and move it outside or to another room when you want music where you don't normally have it. What they don't really let you know clearly is that, after unplugging it, you will likely have to reconnect that player to the system. It is a 30 second to one minute process you can easily do when the need arises, but it is enough of a deterrent that if you thought you would be better off saving money and buying less, and then moving them around, you may change your mind. It is also a slightly annoying factor when you first set up the system, as you will probably want to move them around to find the perfect spot. I ended up having to redo one of them about 8 times just because I couldn't make up my mind where I liked it best, so I kept moving it. Of course, once it found its home, I haven't had to do it since.
(7) I am not a huge fan of how Sonos does its playlists. While I imported my iTunes playlists, I use the Sonos ones so I can combine iTunes and Napster music, and it would be nice if they improved on this. As it is, you basically have to queue up some music and then save that queue as a playlist. It seems like they should give you a way to set up the list without ever acting like you were trying to play the music first.
So, as you can see, trying hard to focus on the negative, I still only came up with a few issues that are easily remedied or easily lived with. Absolutely none of the issues affect my love of my Sonos system. I use it non-stop, listening to music even more than before. My Sonos wakes me up with a Pandora easy listening station in the morning with the alarm (which is nice that you can automatically have it come on Monday through Friday, so no more having to remember each night to set the alarm or worrying about an auto-alarm waking you up on the weekends), plays my favorite wake=me-up-and-get-me-ready-to-work pop music while I get ready in the mornings, switches to my workout music when I get home, to the classical music i have it play on a sleep timer while I go to sleep -- plus the thousands of other ways I use it in between. Five stars indeed!
More Sonos Play 5 All-In-One Wireless Music Player With 5 Integrated Speakers (S5, White) reviews:
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Description of Sonos Play 5 All-In-One Wireless Music Player With 5 Integrated Speakers (S5, White)
The reason Sonos works so flawlessly all over the house is because we designed a complete multi-room music system from the ground up. From the flexibility of our ZonePlayers to the ubiquity of our Controllers, no other company gets multi-room music like we do. Our system lets you play the same song in every room with perfect synchronicity. Or you can play different songs in different rooms and please everyone in the house.Digital Cameras & Photo Categories
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