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Sonos Bundle 250 review

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Verdict

There's no denying the new controller is gorgeous, but it's priced beyond the pockets of all but the most dedicated multiroom music fans

Review Date: 26 Aug 2009

Price when reviewed: £695 (£799 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
6 stars out of 6

Value for Money
3 stars out of 6

Sonos audio-streaming systems have always stood out as the luxury choice in a market stacked with cheap and cheerful products. And for those with a bit of extra cash to splash, there's no doubt its multiroom systems are the best-designed, and easiest to use and set up of any on the market. Its latest Bundle 250 marks a small step forward for the brand, building on its already excellent reputation.

The star of the show is the new Sonos Controller 200 (CR200). Replacing the old landscape iPod-style remote with scrollwheel, the CR200 mirrors Apple's own development process by introducing a capacitive touchscreen.

It's a glorious piece of equipment, clad in aluminium and translucent white rubber, with a touchscreen that both feels responsive to the touch and looks fantastic. The 3.5in panel under the glass front boasts VGA resolution and LED backlighting - both specifications we'd normally expect to see adorning high-end laptops costing in excess of £1,000. There's an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness to the optimum level, and also a motion sensor that automatically wakes the controller from sleep mode when you pick it up.

Vorsprung durch technik

Everything about the new remote radiates the sort of engineering excellence you'd expect of a luxury German car, and luckily the interface follows suit. It allows you to flick through lists of tracks, search by keyword (the screen keyboard looks very similar to the one you get on the iPhone), build playlists and look up track information on-the-fly.

Music service support is elegantly enabled as well, with Last.fm, Deezer and Napster all available from the More music option on the controller's Music menu. Playback capabilities are excellent, with support for every format you can think of, from the lossless Flac and Apple Lossless formats through to more commonplace MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV. The only disappointment, for audiophiles at least, may be the lack of support for 96KHz files.

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Comments

User comments

Better than anything at the price

I searched for a long time to find a system that would allow me to archive my CD collection in lossless format and would allow playback from a NAS drive. I connected a ZP80 to my router and Arcam amp, recorded my CDs to my Buffalo NAS drive using Mediamonkey (try the free download) and now I have a very versatile system that plays back with more clarity than my £900 Arcam CD player. It connects to internet radio (again the quality is amazing) and I am listening to my music more and more. All that is needed is a ZP90 and a controller and you can find some real bargains at present - really do check it out if you like listening to music. Sonos have committed themselves to this product and it will be a long term asset. No background hum of fans as NAS is hidden in a cupboard two rooms away and muvh more eco friendly than leaving a PC switched on.

By malcolmv on 27 Aug 2009

@malcolmv - as someone who's just got a mini hi-fi (albeit an Onkyo) hooked up to their computer, can I say I'm very jealous of your setup.

By pbryanw on 27 Aug 2009

Don't be jealous

I really would say look at the good discounts on last years models at Richersounds. This and a low price amp and speakers will be amazing - I am very fortunate to have what I have but I saved for 3 years before putting it all together. Just try Mediamonkey - its free and is a big improvement over Windows Media Player and iTunes which lock you into their format.

By malcolmv on 28 Aug 2009

Exceptional!

It's sad, but when I purchase technology these days, I generally expect to be a little disappointed with it. With most high tech devices there is usually a reliability niggle, a slight compatibility gottcha or a feature that doesn't quite live up to the marketing hype.

Sonos stands out as the exception to this rule!

I've owned a system for about three months now and I have to say it has performed flawlessly in daily use. I've not had to do a single reboot, not had a single problem connecting, never been unable to play music. This equipment does exactly what it says on the tin and does it exceptionally well. Other manufacturers would do well to take a leaf out of the Sonos book!

My only criticism is the lack of a headphone output on the zone players. I use a ZP-120 (the amplified one) with a pair of bookshelf speakers in my home-office and it would be nice to be able to plug in a pair of headphones for late night working when my other half has gone to bed!

Apart from this one small wish, I cannot fault Sonos - this is a 10/10 product!

By kendolondon on 23 Sep 2009

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