Two very good friends of mine – the Coogan’s (Bram and Dolly) are perhaps the epitome of what I call – gadget freaks! Think of a gadget and this Irish couple has it. Off all the cool stuff in their house, the electric wine openers, outdoor speaker systems, mood lighting, their wireless music system takes the cake.

Most you have probably never heard of Sonos – don’t be alarmed, neither have I until I saw it at their house. To be very truthful, memory deceives me, I’ve been seeing Sonos adds in the back of the T3 (gadgets and technology magazine) for years, but never dwelled upon it until the night when my wife and I were invited to dinner at the Coogans. Just this 13th of August, we celebrated our 10th anniversary and Dolly invited us over.

It was a beautiful setting, candles all around (bear with me), patio doors open for the summer, nice John Coltrane playing in the background (Bram knows I love vintage jazz and who doesn’t love Coltrane?). Because we were sitting outside near the patio, I knew we were far away from the study where all the gizmos are.

Then I noticed, Bram had this controller on the side, waiting patiently for me to discover his prized possession. The system that Bram had was the Sonos BU250 Multiroom Music System – it has three components

• Controller CR200

• ZonePlayer 120 and

• ZonePlayer 90

It is essentially very easy to setup. The controller obviously controls everything.  Its about the size of a old PDA, has a 3.5 inch LCD backlit screen and can wirelessly control the music and players anywhere in the house, and I mean control, music, choice, volume, etc.  It even comes with its own cradle.

Bram has connected his ZonePlayer 90 with the main stereo components in the study. and the Zoneplayer 120 in the lounge (neat the open-patio area) where we were. The ZonePlayer 120 was connected to his Tannoy bookshelf speakers.

The clarity of the wireless music transfer was amazing. Both of us have an acute sense of hearing and are very picky about how sound comes out.  But in this case it was just awesome. We were listening to Coltrane on Bop City (which is a Vintage Jazz radio played on Live365 – you should check it out sometime).

I honestly wish I had to money to invest in this – but the Mrs won’t allow it. Gadgets perhaps now consume more power in our house than everything else combined. Anyhow, I digress…

By the way, the Controller comes in its own cradle as you can see.

The ZonePlayer 120 is an ‘amplified’ source. So all you need to connect to it are speakers and voila! You’re up and running. The ZonePlayer 90 is a non-amplified appliance and in Bram’s case it was connected to all his stereo equipment in the study, from where it was beaming the music via his computer to the patio.

Really folks, if there is something classy and worth while to get, the Sonos BU250 Multiroom Music System is no doubt something worthy of having in your house, and not an apartment, unless you have an uber-cool apartment, and I tel you why I say house rather than an apartment, because it is very easy to transport music within a small apartment, but with a house, you’re looking at all sorts of messy wiring, etc. so in this case the Sonos BU250 Multiroom Music System is an excellent choice.

Not only is it cool, you can also keep adding more controllers, and ZonePlayers if you have a very large setup (something like 4,000+ square feet) then you can get additional zoneplayers and controllers for various parts of the house.

I did ask the beloved Coogans why they did not simply opt for Apple’s airport and their ipods, and their answer was that it just didn’t cut it, the iPod being a bit proprietary but the Sonos was more open and flexible.

So if any one of you is thinking about it – check out the Sonos links I have given above. I’m simply in love with this… . *sigh*  soon… very soon…. I too, shall get one.

Hope this review was helpful, please do give me some feedback if you can.