Sonos ZonePlayer ZP120 and ZP90 leak out
By Nilay Patel 
posted Aug 4th 2008 9:50PM
posted Aug 4th 2008 9:50PM
There's no official word on the wires, but we don't think Stuff.tv has a particularly good reason to fake press shots of new Sonos gear, so we'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt until we hear otherwise -- the cheeky Brits say Sonos is set to unveil two new ZonePlayers, the ZP120 and ZP90, both of which feature MIMO antennas for extended range. Just as in the current lineup, the £249 ZP90 is a receiver only, while the £349 ZP120 features a built-in amp in a package 43 percent smaller than the ZP100. Should be available soon, separately or in the £699 BU150 bundle.
Far, far too expensive for what it does. At least now it is. The Logitech Squeezebox Duet accomplishes essentially the same thing for half the price or less, and is a very good system.
The Duet does the same on paper, but usability is still nowhere near as good as the Sonos. It's also much, much slower than the Sonos. I can browse a 25000 song list in an instant on the Sonos, on the Duet, it took forever.
That said, it's time for a new Sonos controller, all these new zone players are nice, but we are still stuck on the same boring controller they introduced several years ago...
To be fair, you would need two Duet's and the controller to match what Sonos provides for $1k including a powered amp, so it's not half the cost. Let's say 2/3 the cost and not as good per the reviews I have seen...
The biggest weakness of the Sonos system is its indexing limitations, which make it run into problems when your music library reaches a certain size (depending on tags, around 25 thousand tracks)
This is not a problem on the Squeezebox, at the expense of requiring a somewhat powerful server, unlike the Sonos which is perfectly happy with a lowly NAS.
The Squeezebox is extremely active and open; features are added on a regular basis, and they have some features in store (the remote has a built-in infrared blaster and a headphone port that are not used yet). The Sonos is more mature.
@Sc00byDoo: I have a 35,000 track music collection and the Squeezebox duet has no problems zipping through it. Responsiveness of the system is linked to the CPU power of your server; it will totally suck if you're running the Linux Squeezeserver on an el-cheapo 400MHz ARM box. I would guess a 1GHz Celeron with 1GB of RAM is a minimum if you want good performance. The joke is that you're ready to hit the killer limitation on your Sonos... Good luck when that happens: there's nothing you can do about it.
I still think the Sonos is absolutely perfect for technophobes, it works brilliantly and the software polish is remarkable. However, the Squeezebox has a hell of a lot going for it: low cost, more flexibility, much better battery life... I recommend the Sonos to my rich clueless friends and the Squeezebox to my poor nerdy friends :)
this thing makes about as much sense as Ron Paul.
waste of cash.
Well, it makes more sense than RuPaul, that's for sure...
Ron Paul makes a lot more sense than you do
You are like a troll, except you aren't.
for that price, you can put eeeBoxes linked
with decent speakers, and runs MX Air on every of them,
besides, it's a proper computer with WiFi
yawn.......they still don't do video.......dumb. These guys have such a great design and interface, but they waste it by not doing video. God, I don't even think it does photos.
sonos rocks.. expensive..maybe, but well worth it. I have like 6 zones in my basement..in-ceiling speakers.. sooo cool. if i had a flat with one room.. maybe not..
Why not just get an 8GB iPod Touch, an Airport Express, speakers, and download Apple Remote...
It controls all your music and you can then have it transmitted wirelessly to the airport express and play through the speakers...it'd totally save you money.
don't have an ipod touch so i don't know but where i have the sonos units - at least in two rooms i use the aux-in for tv/dvd etc to play say in the bar or pool room. so like if a game is on i can select aux in and play it over all units.. plus it has sirius connection for music if my collection starts getting.. tiresome
^ because Apple products are shit.
sure the itouch is cool and all, but they suck.
I'm looking to do something similar, however the speakers need to be connected to some sort of amplifier. You could buy powered speakers, but they are crap.
Any ideas on a solution using Airport Express throughout the house (cost-effective) is welcome.
@Jason.
Save your time and money. There is nothing out there that beats Sonos. If you want a seamless, easy to install music distribution system, don't bother looking anywhere else.
Squeezebox, Roku and Olive all require you to have moderate to advance technical skill to get music from device A to device B. That is all fine until you are away from home and your wife/girlfriend calls asking how to get music over the deck speakers.
With Sonos, you literally plug in the components give it about 10-15 minutes (I have 175GB of music on a Buffalo NAS) and all your music is searchable/playable. I also have a Napster account that gives me access to 6+ million additional songs. I was skeptical about the search and streaming of Napster content, but it literally is easier than looking up music on a jukebox. Music plays within milliseconds of selection.
I looked for every cost effective solution before I jumped on the Sonos and I don't regret it at all. Every cost effective solution would have cost me time and aggravation. I'd rather pay the $1000 and enjoy my music, not troubleshoot it.
some people really just want cool shit and don't care about the money. a grand is dirt cheap compared to other music distribution systems like products from elan, netstreams, and crestron. those are in the neighborhood of 2-5k per zone.
some of us don't think that ilife is where its at. we might even find it quite embarrassing to explain to an adult visitor that we listen to our music through some sort of ipod dock with built in speakers to save a few bucks as we pick our burger king uniform up from our sofa/bed (and yes I know that you can hook it through a proper stereo system, but then you are back at the above product’s price or above).
Don't do the Airport express route unless all of them are wired to your network. While a short 5 second delay in loading a web page while your net burps is tolerable, a 5 second gap in your music while the house is rockin' is like an eternity. If you can wire them all in then it's a great solution. Use Airfoil if you want to stream anything other than itunes (e.g. Rhapsody) to speakers around the house.
That's strange, I get no delay in my home.
@LordJohnWhorfin - You're in absolute dreamland, man.
Firstly, the Sonos is VERY happy indexing up to 65,000 tracks. Very happy indeed. Prior to today's update, the limit was 50,000 - massively more than your inaccurate claim. You're right in that it's tag dependent, but over 99.9% of users have never hit any limits whatsoever - and this was before Sonos raised the bar further.
Squeezebox requires a server, a fairly powerful server, in your own words "around 1GHz". We're talking power consumption and fan noise in the corner of your living room - the kind that any wife or girlfriend loves. Maybe you hide yours under the bed?
But still, if you want a music server, Sonos can use it too. Sonos will also have no track limits or indexing limitations of any kind. It will supply an infinite number of tracks and it's been able to do this for around 2 years now.
But the root fact is that less than 1% of users have more than 65,000 tracks in their collection. Many don't even have the money to own that many, but of course there's always the freeloaders.
If you're one of the 99.9% of people who have less than 65,000 tracks and you want the best multi-room music system, you aren't going to put up with a noisy server in your home that needs rebooting and upgrading all the time. You're just going to buy Sonos.
Of course, if you're desperate, the Squeezebox does offer a headphone jack that doesn't actually work. If you're into paying for a box that doesn't work well at launch but might work properly sometime in the future, then go for it and but the Squeezebox.
If you want something that's up and running in 15mins and continues to work for it's lifetime without a hiccup then look at Sonos which also has double the wireless range.
Oh, and you're wrong about the Squeezebox battery life too. In my testing, both systems have lasted around the same length of time. The screensaver settings are more important than the hardware in this area although the Sonos controller always retains a solid connection to the network during power saving...the Squeezebox may get a bit unstable and sometimes even the clock stops!
Ultimately it all comes down to cash. If you only have the money for a cheap run-around, then that's fine. It'll get you to work on-time most days and be just fine in the summer except for the air conditioning crapping out occasionally. In the winter it may have trouble starting but once you've finally got to work and got some charge in the battery then it should get you home ok too.
But if you can afford the best, you ignore the rest and choose the Sonos.
"Squeezebox requires a server, a fairly powerful server, in your own words "around 1GHz". We're talking power consumption and fan noise in the corner of your living room - the kind that any wife or girlfriend loves. Maybe you hide yours under the bed?"
Our server is an inaudible Mac Mini sitting about 12 inches above our TV. It's not terribly powerful by today's standards and does a great job paired with the Squeezebox.
I think we're seeing an example of some early adopters who dropped a grand on Sonos before the Logitech came out exhibiting a bit of agitation in their attempts to defend their choice. Hey, we're not hating on you...you guys did well and spent a crapload of money to help build a market for these things. Now that Logitech has come out and undercut the original device by 50% while giving a comparable user experience, there's no reason to get all huffy. But, someone who buys the Sonos *today*, even after trying out the Logitech, either has no technical sensibility whatsoever or has so much money he doesn't know what to spend it on (clue: charity).
@Craig
"But, someone who buys the Sonos *today*, even after trying out the Logitech, either has no technical sensibility whatsoever or has so much money he doesn't know what to spend it on (clue: charity)."
I don't have a Squeezebox Duet, so I can't comment on the quality or functionality. I do know that I waited 4 years for someone, anyone, to come up with a product that could match Sonos' features and ease of installation. I believe the Squeezebox is the closest thing at the moment but still doesn't deliver on ease of deployment.
I am an IT guy who has technical sensibility and I surely don't have too much to spend on technology. Your logic can be made on the premium one pays for an Apple product over a PC product. When I looked at a MacBook Pro vs. Dell XPS, I couldn't justify the $1400 additional I would have to spend on the MBP for a less capable system (from a hardware perspective). When did the barrista's start making more than the IT guys? Because they all have the Macs!
Luckily, there are choices and those who choose to spend more on a Sonos reap the benefit of a "Plug & Play" solution, while others who prefer to save some $$ get to tinker with their Squeezeboxen, AirPort Expresses, Soundbridges amongst others.
Just my 2 cents.
Regarding the headline, Sonos doesn't leak anywhere...it's kinda waterproof.
Don't try this at home!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqHdxVK9cvI