Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:

Time to pick up the Sonos Controller and fire it up! The Sonos Controller is about the size of an original Gameboy and has a rubberized back, to keep it from slipping out of ones hands. The Scroll Wheel is reminiscent of the iPod and functions in a similar fashion. The remote feels comfortable in ones hands and using it to control your system is very intuitive.

The main interface screen for the Sonos Controller works like this:

From the interface, you can choose to play from your Music Library, Music Services (from which you can choose from Napster, Pandora, Rhapsody and Sirius), Sonos Playlists, Internet Radio, Line-In Sources, Clocks and Alarms and System Settings.

The Music Library can be viewed through Artists, Albums, Genres, Composers, Tracks, Folders, Search and Imported Playlists. These interfaces can be interacted with the bottom three buttons. For instance, the Power Scroll gives you the ability to scan your music library alphabetically by first letter. This is a huge time saver if you have a really large library.

The Now Playing Screen lists the track number, Artist, Album, Album art Work, next track, songs in the queue. The bottom of the screen has options for Viewing the Queue and Play Mode which allows Normal, Shuffle, Repeat and Repeat-Shuffle.

The Queue allows you to build a playlist instantly with a couple of clicks of the controller. The Music Services give you a free month trial to test out and figure out which music service fits your tastes. These services put millions of songs in the palm of your hand. You will never be lacking the right song for the right mood with the Sonos in your possession.

In addition to these services, Sonos gives you access to hundreds of Internet Radio stations that folks are familiar from using them in iTunes and WinAMP. The desktop software allows you to add Internet radio stations if your favorite station hasnt been preprogrammed into the Sonos.

The beauty of the Sonos Controller is that it works wirelessly, so you can control any Zone from one remote, from anywhere in your home.

Besides having the ability of controlling your Sonos system from your remote, you can also control it from any PC or Mac that had the Sonos Desktop Controller installed, the interface is almost identical to the Sonos Controllers setup.

Another killer feature is the ‘Line-In’ available on every ZonePlayer, using this option allows you to connect an external audio source to your system. This source can then be streamed to any ZonePlayer in your home, thus audio from a CD/DVD, TV, VCR, etc can be streamed throughout your residence. The ZonePlayer encodes this analog audio into uncompressed or compressed formats WAV or WMA. This setting is managed in the System Setting -> Advanced Settings screen.

So I have had an opportunity of playing with the Sonos BU 130 for the past couple of weeks and have to say, I am utterly impressed. This system was so simple to install and get up and running. The remote is excellent and the only fault I have with it, is that it takes about 15 seconds to start up when recovering from its sleep mode. There is no off switch on the system, so basically the remote will shut itself down after a predetermined interval. The remote has a motion sensor, so once it is active, then any movement will turn the screen on to control your digital music system.

The Sonos can play everything from MP3s to uncompressed audio, unfortunately, protected WMA and AAC tracks are not playable, so if you have a large iTunes library, you should be aware of this ahead of time.

(Edit from SONOS: “note that we can play protected WMA music”)

One strange thing that I noticed is that the ZonePlayer 100 does not have digital outputs, while the ZP80 does. I guess since the ZP100 only needs speakers then the digital output is not necessary, though it does seem to be an odd decision not to include it, especially when the ZP100 has analog outputs.

Zones are what set the Sonos system apart from something like the Logitech Squeezebox setup. Using one remote, you can manage multiple Zones. This allows you to play different music from the same music library in different Zones in your home or to play the same music simultaneously in up to 32 Zones.

The Controllers scroll wheel is reminiscent of the iPods version, but it is slightly less responsive, plus the scroll wheel only functions to scroll through menus. If you are accustomed to the iPod scroll wheel on the newer generations, you will want to press the top, bottom, left and right portions of the wheel to control the Sonos like an iPod and unfortunately, that does not work. The Controllers display is crystal clear and the layout is well thought out with very little space wasted but not too cluttered.

Another cool feature of the Sonos is that you can set up various alarms. So you can own the worlds most expensive alarm clock, if you lack one by your bedside.

One of my favorite features about the Sonos is the integrated Sirius Internet Radio setup. I love my Sirius Radio and having the ability to listen to it anywhere in the home is terrific. If you have a Sirius subscription, you will have to pay the $2.99 upgrade fee for the CD quality version.