When we test a product with which we are unfamiliar Spot Cool Stuff always starts out skeptical. And almost always we find that at least part of our skepticism is well founded. Not so with the Sonos Multi-Room Music System. We were delighted by this near-flawless, easy-to-set-up, way to wirelessly stream music and internet radio throughout a house.

It works like this: In any room you’d like to listen to music you place one of Sonos’s ZonePlayers. You then plug into each ZonePlayer a set of stand alone speakers, or high-end clock radio, or home theater system or whatever you’d list to listen to your music on. Connect one of those ZonePlayers to a CD player and/or to a computer that has your MP3 music collection. And there you go. There’s no reason to lay wire around your house—or even to have wireless internet—because the Sonos ZonePlayers create their own wireless network.

Playback over this wireless music system can be managed via the very cool Sonos Controller. This controller consists of a 3.5″ inch LCD screen, buttons for the volume and for other common commands, and a navigation flywheel similar to that on an iPod. Spot Cool Stuff has seen enough bad user interface in our time to know really great UI when we see it. And the Sonos Controller has a great user interface. The controls are all intuitive and navigation to the various functions is fluid and fast.

The Sonos controller isn’t only for selecting music tracks and changing the volume. With the Sonos controller you can surf over 15,000 (!) free online radio stations. The Sonos system also automatically syncs with free online music services such as Last.fm and Pandora and pay services like Napster, Rhapsody and Sirus Satellite radio.

Whatever you are listing to—MP3s, CDs or sound streaming over the internet—you aren’t stuck with just one choice. The Sonos Multi-Room Music System is flexible enough to let you play Bach in your bathroom while also putting the BBC news on your kitchen speakers.

Further, the system is flexible enough to allow for more than one controller, or one type of controller. You can control your Sonos on your computer desktop or—how cool is this?—on an iTouch (or iPhone) via wireless internet. In fact, if you are looking for additional controllers you’d almost be better off buying an iTouch rather than a more expensive Sonos controller; the Sonos iTouch app is completely free.

As for the ZonePlayers there are two types: the ZP120, which includes 55W per channel amplifier and a separate analog subwoofer output, and the ZP90, which does not. (In other words, you’d need a ZP120 to connect a pair of unpowered stand-alone speakers; the ZP90 is for anything else: a stereo receiver, speakers with their own power source, etc.). Both ZonePlayers are attractive enough to incorporate into your room decor but, if you’d rather, they are also each small enough to discretely tuck away.

The whole Sonos Multi-Room Music System is astonishingly easy to set up. Spot Cool Stuff tested out the two-room Sonos 150 bundle, which includes one controller, a controller charging cradle and two ZonePlayers (one of each type). It took us exactly 67 minutes set up the entire system, including the time to simply unpack the components from the box. About 15 minutes of that was spent trying to figure out exactly where we wanted to place the ZonePlayers.

For our test we hooked up a pair of the Sonos SP100 loudspeakers to one of the ZonePlayers (recommended!) and to the other a Shuttle D10 and pair of Logitech Z speakers. It all sounded fantastic! The most impressive aspect was how perfectly synchronized both speakers were. Prior to getting the Sonos system we had jerry rigged our own suboptimal multi-room speaker system by streaming the sound via wifi and an Apple Airport Express. One of the many problems with that system is that one speaker always lagged the other, meaning we had to keep each speaker out of earshot of the other in order to avoid a massive migraine. Not so with the Sonos system.

A few other noteworthy qualities of the Sonos Multi-Room Music System:

Finally, we are extremely impressed how easily expandable the Sonos system is. Want to incorporate another room into the Sonos system? Simply purchase another ZonePlayer. You can expand the Sonos to work in up to 32 rooms. (If you live in a house in which you need to control the music in more than 32 rooms from one central controller well, then, we’d love to meet you).

Easy set-up, easy expandability, easy-to-use controllers, cool iTouch integration and most of all, fantastic sound—we are no longer skeptical about the Sonos Multi-Room Sound System. It has earned our Most Excellent award.

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