ZonePlayer S5 Multi Room Audio System
Price: $399
Talk to anybody who cares about multi-room audio, and Santa Barbara-based Sonos will almost always pop up as a leader. But its units are pricey. Entry level products are $1,000. And they can be tricky to install. No more.
The company is coming to market with what amounts to a high-quality boom box that wirelessly connects to an iPhone, iPod or just about any other portable WiFi-enabled device. Simply pull the S5 out of the box, find the unit on your iPod WiFi network's tab and there's your music in all its glory. The new box puts Sonos smack in the middle of the lucrative Bose, Cambridge SoundWorks, Tivoli desktop audio wars. And those operations are sure to respond. But consumers looking for a plug-and-play iPhone/iPod music option should consider this device.
