Review of the Sonos Bundle 250

USING YOUR IPHONE OR IPOD TOUCH AS A SONOS CONTROLLER

If you decided to buy your Sonos kit separately, and there is nothing stopping you from doing that, then you may not want to buy the CR200 controller if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch (or you may want to add another controller if you already have the CR200).

The Sonos Controller app is free from the Apple App Store.

Once installed it’s just a case of clicking on the App to start it.

The next thing is to connect to either a ZonePlayer or ZoneBridge, so I just pressed the buttons on the ZP120 and waited a few seconds for it to find it, connect and complete the setup. It really was that quick, and that easy (exactly the same as connecting the CR200).

I could then see the Office zone I created, and I selected some music to play there.

You can also access various menu options from the app as well, including play lists and settings.

I was disappointed at the time that there wasn’t an iPad version, but a few days later one was announced: Introducing the Sonos Controller for iPad

FINAL THOUGHTS

So what did I think? Well, I have to be honest, I loved it! It was very hard boxing it all back up to send back to Sonos when I was through with the review.

It was a lot easier to setup and and use than I thought it would be. I don’t know why I thought it would be harder, I suppose its just that it is considered to be expensive high end kit that is often used in places like clubs and offices and you think that some specialist installer will be needed. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Everything about the Sonos kit was just a pleasure to use – and I really loved the controller (although if you wanted to save yourself some money and had an iPhone or iPod Touch, or even an iPad you could run the app on that for free).

The Sonos Bundle 250 is a great starter kit to get you going, but you can buy all of the components separately if you don’t need them all at once or if you are on a budget. Perhaps you can do one room at a time?

So, how much were the items used in the review?

These are the prices shown on the Sonos website both here in the UK and in the US (you may be able to find better deals though, so have a look around):

SONOS BUNDLE 250 : $999 or £799

SONOS ZONEBRIDGE : $99 or £79

SP100 LOUDSPEAKERS : These do not appear to be for sale, the US store has Klipsh Loudspeakers for $389 and the UK store has an exclusive Canton Loudspeakers pack for £449

If you wanted to buy the components from the Bundle 250 separately, you can:

SONOS ZONEPLAYER 120 : $499 or £399

SONOS ZONEPLAYER 90 : $ 349 or £279

SONOS CONTROLLER (CR200) : $349 or £ 279

So, if you purchased the Bundle 250, you would be saving $198 or £158 over buying the components separately, so that is very good if you want all those items, otherwise you may be better off buying the bits you need.

Don’t forget you will need speakers as well as the Bundle 250, so bear that in mind when you are looking at the cost. And you want to have as best quality speakers as you can afford – there is no point spending this sort of money on kit to stream your music only to connect it to cheap, low quality speakers!

To learn more about Sonos, click here: http://www.sonos.co.uk/

Have you got any Sonos kit? What do you think of it? Let is know…..