Customer Reviews

Sonos BU130 Digital Music System Bundle

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the absolute best digital jukebox out there, period. As an added bonus, it's flexible, scalable, multizone, wireless... and systems costing twenty times as much do not even come close the ease of use: Sonos currently has the highest Wife Acceptance Factor of any techno-gadget out there, only equaled by TiVo.

Although some amount of technical savvy is required for the initial setup, anybody can pick up the beautiful remote and immediately figure out how to use it (it's a bit like an iPod).

This bundle contains the wireless controller and its charger (but no charging cradle, more on this later), a ZP80 and a ZP100. The main difference between the two zone players is the ZP100 has a built-in amplifier so you can hook up speakers directly to it, whereas the ZP80 doesn't but it offers digital output (coax and optical) which the ZP100 lacks. Both zone players feature an analog input (you could use it for a TV or a satellite radio receiver, for instance) as well as analog line output. It's the perfect starter kit for a two-zone system; you can always add more controllers and zone players later as needed, and seamlessly integrate them into your system.

Sonos has been relentlessly adding features since its initial release: Rhapsody, Pandora, Napster, Sirius Satellite Radio (no antenna needed, you get the feed over the internet). Reliability has been exemplary.

The price may seem a little steep for a music system, but the nearest competitor (Logitech Squeezebox Duet Network Music System) is nowhere near as fully featured (no amplifier, no audio input, no Sirius) and doesn't cost much less for a two zone system. It also seems to be a lot more complicated to setup and use, but I must admit not having any first-hand experience with it.

The only blemish on the Sonos is that they sell the charging cradle separately for a ridiculous amount of money (it's just a dumb piece of plastic) when it's an indispensable part of the system. Considering the fairly high price of the system, I fail to see the rationale behind excluding it from the bundle... It must be the brainchild of some marketing moron. Other than this minor but irritating point... This is just the most enjoyable, reliable, easiest to use system out there.

This NAS box is a perfect complement to your Sonos system and will host the music files so you can turn off your computer and keep the music going: D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

The infamous cradle (don't forget to order it): Sonos CC100 Charging Cradle for Sonos CR100 Controller

Edit: the Logitech Squeezebox Duet now supports Sirius.

[Edit August 2008] Sonos released new ZonePlayers, ZP90 and ZP120, part of the new BU150 bundle which replaces the BU130. Don't buy the now obsolete BU130 bundle unless you can get it at a significant discount over the BU150.

Fantastic product. Pipe music wirelessly to every room in your house and when you're finished setting that up, send the tunes out to the garage and to the hot tub. I have 6 amps and plan on adding three more, so as you can see I'm hardly objective about the system. And why? Because it just works, and works perfectly. I have access to my entire hard-disked music library via the color remote and when I'm in the mood can stream music via internet radio or via Rhapsody etc. Let me cut this short by saying if you have the cash, this is the way to go. Easy set up, flawless operation. Couldn't ask for more.

I've had Sonos for two years, and have added two zones to my original two. I'll simply say that I haven't bought a piece of consumer electronics in the last 10 years that has given more enjoyment and caused less frustration than Sonos. If you're serious about multi-room audio this is the way to go.

Pros: simplicity, build quality, reliability, flexibility, Pandora
Cons: still expensive, Pandora extra cost

I have been searching for a wireless audio system for my home for years. There have been virtually no choices at the $1000 level. The Sonos founders must have noticed. I am amazed that they got everything right the first time around. I ordered the BU130 bundle plus the Sonos speakers. The setup was simple. Connected one of the two units (either one will do) to my router (using wired connection). The router recognized it immediately and I was in business.

The bundle comes with the 100 (amplifier included) and the 80 (no amplifier). The speakers turned out to be weak - would not get those again. If I had a choice, I would not get the 100 again because I don't need the amplifier. But, the package includes it and the package is cheaper than buying two 80s and a controller. You might find the four 10/100 etherports on the 100 useful (I didn't).

I connected my media system to the 80's line input and I now can pipe that sound all over the house (no wires). I just bought another bundle to add more rooms.

This system is just crazy rich. Besides the obvious flexibility of line-in from any of the units, Sonos includes 30-day trials of Pandora and Rhapsody. If you've ever tried Rhapsody, you may find it hard to go back to radio (broadcast or Internet). Unfortunately, you'll have to pay for it after the 30 day trial. Pandora is basically like satellite radio. I'm not hooked, yet. Sonos also delivers a broad selection of Internet radio genres. All of this is selected from the fantastic remote. Be sure to spend the extra $40 for the cradle.

One last comment. When I first set the system up, I was concerned that the range would be limited. I've had it all over my house, in every room and closet and upstairs far, from the server. No problem.

Strengths: One hour and it was all set up.
Excellent customer support.
Great wireless range (we have trouble with wireless phones but the sonos signal went 50' through old plaster walls and ceilings, no problem).
Excellent audio quality.
Pulls album art on its own.
Intuitive remote. Learn on the fly.
Lots of internet radio stations and has Sirius radio capability.

Weaknesses: Very pricey.
Must use controller wheel, no touch recognition on screen.
Slightly outdated with no video capability.
Needs its own wireless network with at least one unit wired to your computer. Need a $99 Zone bridge if you don't want to leave a full unit attached to the computer.
Won't play protected itunes songs (most of the ones bought on itunes are protected).
Can only handle 50k songs so if you have a huge hard drive of music you cant use it all at once.
No up and down channel controls for Sirius radio. must go to menu w/ track wheel to change channel. Also must add $2.99/month to upgrade internet radio account if you already have a Sirius account.
Music management is not very robust.

Overall its awesome, but at a price. For $999 for the combo set it should not have many of the issues i cited. If Price does not matter to you then it is five star.

Please know that Amazon had an amazing deal on Sonos in which it offered the BU130 bundle for $999 but also threw in a charging cradle (model CC100) and a pair of Polk Audio R150 Two-Way Bookshelf Loudspeakers at no additional cost. I bought 2 of those bundles because it was a great deal, but only bought two because we hadn't used Sonos yet. Now, I wish I had bought more. We love Sonos.

It was easy to setup the software to find my iTunes collection, which is stored on an external drive connected to a Mac mini. It found all the MP3s and lossless encoded songs. However, Sonos is not able to play the purchased iTunes songs with DRM protection. (Apple now sells some songs without DRM and some with DRM). From what I've read, nothing other than iTunes can play those songs. Some people have found work arounds, but 99% of my music was ripped into a lossless or MP3 format directly from CD, so that limitation is minor to me. People with large collections of DRM protected songs might see this as a deal breaker though.

The physical setup was very easy, too. To get things started, I connected the ZP80 from the bundle (1) to my home theater stereo and (2) to my router / computer. That allowed the software setup described above. Already, that unit could play my iTunes collection and the Internet radios via the Sonos remote control. Then, I plugged the ZP100 into a power outlet in a different room and connected some speakers to it. After telling the software package to add the ZP100 and giving it a name I had to press and hold some flashing lights for a few seconds. It took less than one minute to add the second zone. Then, I could listen to my music collection in that room, too.

I've since purchased a few extra ZP100's and have seven zones in the home. We can play the same song in all seven zones (perfectly synchronized between rooms) or we can send different songs to different rooms.

The remote control is very easy and intuitive. It operates A LOT like an iPod, but with a bigger screen and some extra buttons that come in handy. Although, after playing with some friends' iPhones, we look forward to a day when the Sonos controller is just a touch screen... Still, it's very easy to use and very powerful allowing the user to send whatever music to whatever location at the same or varying volume levels. Linking / unlinking two or more zones is easy.

Sound quality is audiophile grade and perform very well through our Dynaudio speakers.

The free music trials are an unexpected benefit. Rhapsody was great and give instant access to 2,000,000 on demand songs for less than the cost of one CD per month. Napster was much less impressive.

A few other feature are nice, too. (1) Each zone can also transmit an extra audio source to all the other zones. For example, I'll connect a turntable to one of them, then share the LP sounds throughout the entire house. (2) The ZP100's and ZP80 can be either hardwired with ethernet cable or they connect wirelessly, automatically as described above. I noticed that the ZP100 actually works as a router allowing it to share a single internet connection with several other devices you might have in that room. (3) These devices are reasonably small and can be hidden. (4) Album art is displayed on the controller, and the controller has "power scroll" is a nice way to move quickly through large music collections. Just zip down to artists starting with "X", then scroll to Xavier Rudd. (5) ZP100 has an separate subwoofer connection and automatically detects is a subwoofer cable is connected. That's an easy way to make small, less expensive speakers sound better, like the free R150's Amazon gave me.

Got my Sonos bundle a week ago. Installation, as many reviewews have already pointed out, couldn't be simpler. I have had toasters taken longer to "install". I am also using a Sonos bridge as I didn't wanted to waste a zone player in my home-office where my wi-fi router sits. Same ease of configuration there. Let's move on to actually using the product....

Well, this is where I have a few complaints. It seems to me that the system is preferrentially optimized for folks getting their music piped directly off internet using services like Rhapsody and Napster. You say, what's wrong with that. Nothing, if that's how you get your music. Actually Rhapsody's integration with Sonos is done in such a nice way that it could be fairly addictive.

But my situation is a bit different. I like to listen to Bollywood and Indian classical music, most of which is not (yet) available on Rhapsody or Pandora. My primary music source is CDs, which I rip in pristine lossless WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, and carry them on my Zune. This is where Sonos fails to deliver for me. It doesn't support either lossless WMAs format or Zune playlists. The alternative presented to me was to rip my music (if I can even find my CDs) in either MP3 or lossy WMA formats. The workaround for the Zune playlist issue is to recreate them in Windows Media Player. Needless to say, these limitations marred an otherwise pleasant experience with the system for me.

I am still giving it a 4 stars for all the other great stuff the system offers.

I purchased the Sonos BU 130 Digital Music System Bundle, along with an additional Sonos ZP 100 player and two sets of Sonos speakers. Set-up was amazingly simple and I was soon playing my music library all over the house. The controller is one of the more amazing products I have ever owned - - allowing you to add and drop rooms, pick any artist, track or album to play, create playlists, adjust volume, play internet radio,podcasts,Sirius (I enjoy blasting Howard Stern throughout the house) and search music services. I am using the free trial of Rhapsody and it is an service and so easy to use on my Sonos controller. Rhapsody is amazing to have millions songs at your fingertips at a low monthly fee, and the ability to play those songs in any room almost instantly (bye bye Itunes). My only challenge was accessing music on a second computer, but the Sonos tech support had this resolved for me in 5 minutes. (This was actually a file share setting on my second computer that I had to make). I am so happy with the $2,000 investment I have made to put digital music all over my home. The "fun" factor of the Sonos system puts this product near my Infiniti M35 as my all-time favorite purchase. Viva La Sonos!!

During a recent remodeling project, we installed speakers in the walls and ceilings of most of the rooms. We had planned to install a high-end wired system, but the cost was a bit staggering, and it required us to make some unchangeable decisions about where to locate audio equipment. Then I heard about the Sonos system. I did a bit of research and liked what I read, so we went ahead with it. I especially liked that I could get the whole Sonos system installed and connected to the speakers for far less than just the speaker wiring was going to cost!

The Sonos system consists mainly of small units called Zone Players. Each is a combination of a wireless router and an audio amplifier. You attach one (hard-wired) to your network router, and you place one in each room in which you have speakers. You attach each pair of speakers to a Zone Player exactly as you would to a normal audio receiver or amp. The Zone Players communicate with each other in what is called a "mesh network." The system can use audio from a variety of sources: (1) your digital music library, (2) any audio source patched into a Zone Player, (3) Sirius internet radio, or (4) the Rhapsody music service. Using a small wireless remote control panel you can direct music from any source to any Zone Player. You can have multiple sources playing in different rooms at the same time, or you can group rooms together. One side benefit is that each Zone Player can serve as an access point to your wireless home network as well.

The Sonos system installed easily and works flawlessly. The UI is excellent. In addition to the aforementioned wireless controllers, you can also operate your system from your desktop or laptop. Our system uses the Zone Player 100, since the speakers it drives do not have their own amplification. If some or all of the speakers you have are already attached to amplifiers, you can use the Zone Player 80, which is basically a router without a built-in amplifier.

I am completely satisfied with the Sonos system. I can recommend it without reservations to anyone who wants to be able to distribute audio flexibly and wirelessly to multiple rooms.

I spent a lot of time researching before making this major purchase. Thankfully, it has lived up to expectations. I have an extensive music collection: it took me nearly a year to rip it all to flac, a lossless digital compression system. I loaded much of it onto a 1 tb Buffalo Linkstation server (purchased from Amazon for about $350) and linked the Sonos to it. Now I can scroll through the entire collection and select and play albums or tracks in seconds (and no more hours putting away dozens of CDs after they are played).

I researched both Sonos and the Logictech Squeezebox, which does the same thing: stream music from a hard drive to a device connected to your receiver. The Squeezebox is cheaper and may very well be a great product. I decided on the Sonos because it seemed likely to be more stable and easier to connect. If you review the Squeezebox website, you will see the latest software and products have been released, but still are undergoing development. The Duet, the most comparable product, is very new. I am not a computer geek and am easily frustrated when technical problems develop. Again, I cannot speak to whether Squeezebox would have caused any problems, but Sonos was very easy to connect and has worked perfectly.

Perhaps the best example I can give of how simple this is to use is that my wife uses it. She found switching on the CD player, loading discs, and switching the receiver to CD too frustrating to bother with. But she figured out the Sonos controller on her own and has started playing music.

As with any technology, I have my fingers crossed, but one month into this system, I have to say that for anyone who spends a lot of time listening to music, you cannot live without this system!