[SteveMD]

It was my birthday Thursday so I splurged and bought a Sonos system with three zones. The thing is off the hook crazy. How I have lived without one for all these years is beyond me.

A little background info. In my 40s, huge music fan of all genres, I play piano and guitar and always have music playing in the house. I'm on my 4th iPod with a library of about 17,000 songs.

Sonos is a wireless music system that provides access to your Itunes library, Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster, Sirius and thousands of radio stations. You can control the whole system through an iPhone/iTouch app.

Each 'zone' of music requires a zone controller. There are three types. The 90 has RCA outputs so you need an amp or reciever and speakers. The 120 has an amp so you just need speakers. The S5 is a 'boom box' that you can put anywhere. Looks slick too.

So I got one of each. The 90 is in the family room and plays through my A/V system, the 120 is on the deck and it plays through my outdoor speakers and the S5 is in the kitchen and can be located anywhere you want.

So, how does it work? You simply plug one of the controllers into your router. Sonos only uses WiFi to get the music from the web or your iTunes library and to access it with the iTouch. For the actual music, Sonos uses its own proprietary mesh wireless network to stream the music through the house so it doesn't eat up your wireless bandwidth. After downloading the app, it took me literally 5 mins to set it all up, name the zones, find my itunes library, my Sirius account and sign up for Rhapsody.

From the iTouch, I can turn on any zone, play literally any song on the planet (Rhapsody) through that zone, control volume bass, treble etc, then I can have something completely different coming out of the second zone, and something completely different coming out of the third. You can group zones together in any combination or hit 'Party Mode' and have them all play the same music source. In party mode, the music is absolutely sync'd across the zones. No delay. The Sonos app can handle 32 zones.

Sonos does make a controller for about $300 but in my opinion, the iTouch is all you need and the app is total slickness. You can also control the system from a computer

Anyway, I'm psyched. It is an awesome bit of kit and you will be the center of attention if you host a party. 10 of us including kids sat out on the deck last night and passed the iTouch around, each picking a song which is queued and then played in order. So everyone got to listen to their song. So cool.

If you like gadgets and you like music, this is a no brainer. A tad expensive - about $400-$500 per zone plus speakers plus the controller or an iPhone/iTouch.

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. This video explains it all and exactly the set up I have: http://www.sonos.com/demo/demo.aspx

Cheers.

[shuarma]

but happy birthday!