The two catches are the lack of support for protected AAC files - that is, music purchased from the iTunes Music Store - (as well as WMA files, which shouldn't matter much to Mac users) and the price tag. The ZP80 Bundle Sonos sent me sells for $999 direct. If you've got a big house and want the best way to stream high-quality audio throughout all your rooms, a thousand dollar entry fee (plus $349 per additional zone player) really isn't asking all that much. For the rest of us, it might be a bit steep. Still, you get what you pay for and in my month with Sonos, Sonos delivered.

The ZP80 Bundle consists of two ZP80 Zone Players and one CR-100 Controller. Sonos also included a Charging Cradle for the controller ($49.99), a Maxtor 160GB NAS hard drive ($250 retail), and a Monster Link optical digital audio cable ($50 retail) as part of the review kit. Sonos works by scanning your computer or NAS drive for compatible audio files and then creating a proprietary wireless mesh network between connected Zone Players to stream audio around your home. Each Zone Player has digital (coax and optical) and analog audio-out jacks for connecting to home stereo/amplifier or powered speakers, and also has audio-in jacks for connecting a CD player or other source to be streamed back through the network. You can connect up to 32 Zone Players to a single network, and the only catch is that at least one of the players must be hard wired via Ethernet to your router or computer (though there is an unsupported hack for full wireless-ness). The Controller is then used to control all functionality of the Zone Players, and the included Sonos Desktop Controller software replicates that functionality from your Mac, as well. You can also add up to 32 Controllers to your system should you want, say, one controller in each room where you listen to music.

The CR 100 Controller is really the only part of the system you touch once installation is complete. Installation, by the way, was a snap once a faulty ZP80 unit was replaced by Sonos - the included documentation is easy to follow and both the Desktop Controller application and CR 100 Controller provide on screen instructions. The CR 100 features a big, bright color LCD display along with an iPod-esque scroll wheel and several buttons to control playback and music management functionality. The LCD display shows song information including album art as well as queue information on a per-zone basis. You can switch from zone to zone (room to room) and manage all functionality - create playlists, cue up individual songs, and change the volume - for each zone invidually. You can also link zones together to hear the same track in sync across as many Zone Players as you have. Interestingly enough, the guys at Sonos told me that getting the multi-zone synchronization of audio was one of their toughest engineering tasks when building the system.

A cool feature of the Sonos system is its ability to play music directly from an NAS drive without the need for any sort of server-side software. This means that you can store all of your audio files on a quiet, low-power networked drive and use it as a server both for your iTunes clients and Sonos system. While the Sonos works like a charm feeding off of iTunes' built-in sharing, you don't need to have a Mac (or PC) running in order to use Sonos. As an iBook owner who often puts my laptop to sleep when I'm not working on it, I really appreciated this feature.

The CR-100 Controller is also used to add/remove music shares from computers and/or NAS drives, and also to update your system's song index each time tracks are added or removed. This process is straightforward, though there is a minor wait for the system to re-index after new music is added. Sonos read music from my various Macs' iTunes libraries as well as from the Maxtor NAS drive included in the review kit. As mentioned, .WMA audio and protected files purchased from the iTunes store are not compatible with Sonos, but everything else I threw at it played back with no problems. The system read id3 tag information including album art and displayed it in bright, easy-to-read characters on the CR 100's screen. Walking around my apartment changing the music in both zones from a single wireless remote was a kick.

Audio quality from the ZP80's was excellent. I connected one ZP80 via optical digital to my Onkyo receiver with Energy speakers and Athena subwoofer in the living room, and the other ZP80 via RCA analog to my Tivoli Model Two in the bedroom. Both systems sounded as good with the Sonos as they ever have. Sonos included a selection of lossless audio files on the Maxtor drive and audiophiles will appreciate the system's ability to play digital music encoded at the highest quality possible. Most of my collection these days is 192kbps AAC files, and those sounded great, as well. I also listened to a fair amount of Internet radio through the system, which accessed the Net without any problems through my Netgear router and Cable Modem connection.

Conclusion

At $999 for a two zone system, the Sonos ZP80 isn't cheap, and that means it isn't for everyone. Apple's $129 Airport Express Base Station with AirTunes is a much less expensive way to stream audio wirelessly around your network, but it requires the use of a Mac running iTunes as a "remote control." iPod owners can purchase any number of sub-$100 docks to connect their iPod to a stereo system and control playback via IR remote, but those are single zone solutions and currently there's no remote that offers any sort of display for browsing or viewing song information. Streaming receivers like Slim Devices' Squeezebox and Roku's Soundbridge start at around $200 each but don't offer the remote LCD functionality that makes Sonos such a joy to use. If you've got the bank account for it (and don't listen to many protected AAC files), Sonos is simply the best way to get digital music off of a hard drive and out to more than one location in your home. It's expensive, but it's a quality product that delivers a great experience.

The Sonos ZP80 Bundle Digital Music System (two ZP80 Zone Players and one CR 100 Controller) sells for $999 direct from Sonos. The Maxtor NAS drive and Monster cables are available separately from online and bricks-and-mortar retailers. Additional ZP80 Zone Players are $349 each, and are also available (along with the Controller cradle included in the review) from the Sonos website. Compare Sonos prices at PCPrices/Mac.

Sonos also sells a version of the Zone Player with a built-in amplifier and binding posts for connecting direct to standard speakers. This player, the ZP100, was actually the original Sonos model, and is still available in a bundle (two ZP100, one CR 100) for $1199 or individually for $499 each. If you don't already have a home audio system, the ZP100 is an easier way to get a Sonos system up and running. Sonos also sells the system bundled with house brand loudspeakers, and is currently offering a promotion for free speakers with the purchase of a ZP100, or two sets of speakers with a ZP100 bundle.