MacMost Now 355: Sonos ZonePlayer

The Sonos ZonePlayers are devices for playing music from your Mac or streaming service through your home network. Take a look at the S5 and the ZP90 ZonePlayers and see how they work. You can also get a ZoneBridge to use your ZonePlayers wirelessly. Sonos Web site. Sonos at Amazon.com.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost, on today's episode let's look at the Sonos ZonePlayer. So sonos sent me two models of their ZonePlayer. The first model is the s-5 which is this thing. It is basically a speaker system with the sonos technology built into it .so you connect the ZonePlayer up to your network say your ipod extreme through an Ethernet cable and then on your Mac you can run Mac software and it will se all of your I-tunes collection and it will also allow you to playback a service say Pandora or rhapsody and then it will also allow you to play any streaming radio , now it all plays through the ZonePlayer so you don't have to keep that application up and running you can cue a bunch of music or you can or tell it to play Pandora and then you can quit that application and the ZonePlayer will continue to play on its own. Even better you can get a free app for the i-phone or the i-pod touch that will allow you to control your ZonePlayer just using your i-phone so with your Mac not even actually running anything you can select your music from i-tunes library or a service and have the ZonePlayer start playing music. Now the sound quality is excellent and you can even get more than one of them, put them in different rooms and control them all from your Mac or your i-phone. You could have them play different things or you can have them play the same music, it syncs perfectly. That's the s-5; I was also sent a ZP90 which is basically a ZonePlayer without the amplifier and the speaker system. So you use this to plug it into say your regular stereo system if you already have one in your room. Now by themselves, both of these devices need to be wired into your network. So they won't work wirelessly, but you can get the ZoneBridge and that will connect your wire network and that will establish a separate wireless network into either one of these players. So with one ZoneBridge you can connect multiple ZonePlayers throughout your wires without having them wired. I'm guessing that they work on their own wireless network and don't use your regular airport network is that they can sync better, they sync perfectly and I cant imagine that happening if they weren't competing with all the other devices that might be connected to your regular network. these are a lo of fun its great to be able to stand your network of music beyond the rooms that have your computers in them and its great to be using your i-phone app to listen to music in one room through a really good speaker system even though your Mac is in completely different room of the house . I can also imagine it's a lot of fun to have entire house filled with these and to be able to sync them all at a party or to have different people listening to different music in different rooms. Now the sonos software is really good but I still find myself wishing if I could control it through i-tunes somehow or get a few more features of I-tunes into the sonos player like some of the playlists. I also wish if there was a way or may be a systemic extension where I could pipe the audio out of my Mac into one of the sonos player, you could technically do those auxiliary cable and one of the inputs on the back but I really wish there was a way to do it through the normal system so that I didn't have to use another cable. It would be great to play some games and to be able to listen to the music and sound effects in the game through these speakers rather than speakers hooked up directly to my Mac the s-5 sells for $400 and the ZP90 for 350 there is also a ZP120 for $500.a ZoneBridge to connect them wirelessly is for $100.so it isn't exactly cheap but it is in the range that the casual music listener could still find it interesting. Hope you liked this look at the sonos ZonePlayers you can get more information of course at the sonos site and you can find them for sale at a lot of online stores like amazon.com till next time this is gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 355: Sonos ZonePlayer”

Terry

15 years ago

You only need a Zone bridge if you Don't want music where your internet connection is, otherwise the Zone player will create the network.
From the SONOS web site....The ZoneBridge™ is a wireless product that can be used instead of a ZonePlayer to set up your wireless Sonos system. If your house doesn't have Ethernet wiring or your router is in a room where you don't want music, connect the ZoneBridge to your router to instantly activate the SonosNet wireless mesh network. The ZoneBridge can also be used as a wireless extender to increase the range of your system and expand the Controller's wireless coverage.

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MacMost Now 355: Sonos ZonePlayer

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 355: Sonos ZonePlayer”

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