Ive been looking at getting a Sonos system for my flat for a while, the main reason is that i use spotify for most of my music and i like the fact i can use my laptop as a controller and play through the system.

Anybody have one of these and can you please highlight any good and bad points, ill be taking a trip to a not so local Auidio shop soon for a test and i would like to have a better idea of the system.

Cheers all 😀

The girlfriends dad has their house rigged up with one of these systems. It is fantastic that you can either have seperate music playing in each room or have it all playing the same simultaneously (like if youre having a party). I have been impressed with the control and the fact you can use an app on your phone to control it too. They use it so they have all the music on a desktop computer and it all just feeds from there.

Im very impressed, however it is not cheap. I dont thnik id be bale to afford the full set up for a few years yet 😥

I was planning on doing this but I found a Logitech Squeezebox and controller for £130 new and went that route.

That plugs into an existing stereo unit but you can get standalone speaker units that you can stream as well. As a slight negative it is apparently a bit of a pain setting it up to stream from a NAS as it is mostly intended to stream from a running computer but it can be done.

With the computer off you still get access to various internet radio/streaming stations.

It seems to have 90% of the functionality but about 1/3 the price and can also be controlled from an iPhone; i reckon its worth a look.

Squeeze box does work well. If you have multiple computers round the house already you can actually just install the squeezebox software player (eg you don’t have to buy anything) and it basically then allows you to do the same thing. You can then also use your mobile (iphone/android) to control it.

http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/download.html

We’ve got Sonos throughout the house, 5 or 6 boxes – built up over 3 or 4 years and whilst a little sceptical to begin with, I love it.

Good points – so easy to set up, as close to plug and play as I’ve found. Sounds quality ranges from decent using the ZP120s through to absolutely excellent with the ZP90 through a DAC and Amp. We did a back to back test with my CD player through the same amp and speakers and the difference was (disappointingly, given how much the CD player cost) minimal. Interface with Napster, Spotify, Last FM etc is excellent and works seamlessly with iTunes. iPhone / iPad apps are free and as good as the controllers (much better than the old style controllers in fact). Now works with OSX Lion too.

Bad Points – it’s not cheap. Having said it’s plug and play, when I merged two iTunes libraries, I had some difficulty getting to recognise the whole lot, although that’s more my fault than the system.

Sonos is an excellent system.
very easy to set up and works well. esp if your music is on a NAS drive.
you’ll prob want to control it from the free iPhone/iPod touch/android app rather than lug a laptop around.
Easily integrates with Spotify Premium (you need the premium account for Sonos).
Only downside is that the Sonos controller is a little limited with Spotify. You can search for and play music. Unfortunately, that’s about it. Playlists need to be managed in the Spotify desktop or mobile app. Not exactly a huge problem but a little disappointing.