Sonos Surround Sound wireless multi room music system

By now you could probably gather that the goal we are after is building a surround sound wireless system. This is no small feat, as a typical surround setup involves more than two channels. For instance, a standard home theater system makes use of six channels: a left-front, right-front, middle-front, left-back, right-back and a subwoofer.

Sonos is an integrated system, in the sense that it can be all be managed from a single control point, such as a computer, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. A wireless broadcasting unit, such as a ZonePlayer or a ZoneBridge will pick initial wired signal from an Ethernet connection and route it wirelessly to different satellites and/or repeaters. The Ethernet signal can come from a computer or straight from the Internet, via a router. Due to this, the system can play Internet radio, for instance, without the need of a computer! Nevertheless, the system can access also different wired network media, such as files shared on a PC, Mac or a network attached storage (NAS) drive.

There are different types of ZonePlayers, some amplified, some not. But, in essence, several ZonePlayers, possibly supplemented by a ZoneBridge, will interconnect in a Peer-to-Peer mesh network. Different Sonos Controllers can connect to this network and control it globally.

The difference between a ZoneBridge and ZonePlayers is simply that, although they both constitute nodes in the mesh and, as such, forward network traffic, only the players can actually play audio locally; the bridge doesn’t. For instance, one would use a bridge in a room where the main internet router is located, if no Sonos system sound is needed in that particular room.

Moreover, every ZonePlayer and ZoneBridge is also fitted with Ethernet ports that accomplish the same networking function as Wi-Fi, only through wires.

The beauty of the Sonos system is that it can select different audio sources for different ZonePlayers, much like a wired mixer does with wires. Although they would all silently route different traffic to different locations, they are, in effect all contributing to simultaneous transfer of multiple stereo audio streams. In the same manner as these streams can differ totally, so that a room can have Beethoven while the other can have Bach, these streams could also, theoretically, complete each other, if synchronized properly.

Synchronization of audio streams is the key to Sonos surround sound, and, actually it seems it is not such a difficult thing to accomplish. Already, there is a third-party web controller for the Sonos system, that works in pretty much any browser.

Pricewise, ZonePlayers cost between $349 and $499. The ZoneBridge is priced at $99, while the Sonos hardware controller CR200 costs $349.

Article Source: http://www.seoserviceprovider.com/articles

www.surround-sound-wireless.com/ is a blog dedicated to delivering the most up-to-date news and reviews for home wireless surround sound products. For more information and photos of the Sonos multi room music system visit us at www.surround-sound-wireless.com/sonos-multi-room-music-system/

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