Sonos

Sonos system components.

I harbor no illusions that I spent a reasonable amount of money on my speaker setup. Like a sailor drawn to the siren's song, though, I ordered Sonos' Playbar, sub woofer, and 2 Play:1 speakers.

I actually haven't set everything up yet, but I've played with it enough to write something up. As advertised, the setup is easy. I actually bought the Sonos components just as they were doing a software update to their hardware. You can read about it in this blog post. Gone are the days of needing a $40 bridge to get started. I started by setting up the Playbar, which acts as a bridge and uses a cat5 network connection. I then setup the subwoofer. We haven't fully moved into the house, so we haven't had a chance to watch a movie or listen to music with this setup. Originally I was going to also add 2 Play:1 speakers to the setup, but I am going to hold off. I ended up using the 2 Play:1 speakers on our first floor, and they sound great. We're going to keep them there for now. If we watch movies and feel like we're missing something with just the soundbar and subwoofer, I'll grab a couple more Play:1 units.

The software lets you easily pair speakers together. For instance, I have paired the 2 Play:1 speakers on the first floor, selecting one to be the right speaker and the other the left. When I stream to "Living Room" which is what I called the two paired speakers, they work together. The Playbar and subwoofer are paired together and will be hooked up to the TV (once we get it moved!).

The Sonos software is fine. Again, I ordered at a good time, because they updated their applications across platforms. I have installed the software on a Mac, PC, Android phone and tablet, iPad, and iPhone. I need to find out if I am doing something wrong, but on each device I have had to do the full setup, rather then simply log into my Sonos account and have the settings automatically load. I'm fine with the fact that you need the "controller" on each device, but it seems they could streamline this a bit more. I'll be emailing support to see if there is a better way to do this.

The Sonos software also has support for most of the popular online music services. I happen to use Google Play All Access. Luck was once again on my side as Sonos and Google have partnered to tightly integrate the product and services together. When I open the Google Play Access application I can press the "cast" icon and select which Sonos setup I want to stream to. You can also start playing music by hitting the play button right on the speaker. This is a feature my 19-month-old daughter found out! The bad news is, she likes to hit play/pause over and over and over...

When all is said and done, I am happy with my purchase. Sonos seems committed to keeping their software up to date and feature rich, which is crucial when buying a system like this. I'm also very impressed with the sound, which is the whole point, right!? If I'm not too lazy, I'll update this post when I finalize my entertainment setup. Aren't you on the edge of your seat?