Sonos -- First impressions

Most of my Sonos system arrived today: a pair of Play:5 speakers.Before I go further let me vent a moment about Amazon. I ordered this setup on Monday with two-day delivery. (Prime member for maybe 5 or 6 years) The box with the two speakers that arrived today was shipped via FedEx out of Indianapolis yesterday and it dutifully arrived today with next-day shipping. (Well, they could've shipped it 2-day if they got it out of the warehouse) The box with the Connect that'll connect to my big stereo and router is with some no-name turd called OnTrac. They don't even have current tracking info for it... Grrr. (The other thing in that box, a free Bridge would've worked for the network connection. Boo Amazon FC!)But let me get back to the Sonos.Each speaker came in a very nice Apple-looking packaging. Not much graphics on the boxes, mostly just a picture of the unit on the front.The cool thing is how flexible the system is. Like I said I didn't have a Connect or Bridge so I put one by the router (near the stereo) and the other in the living room.The totality of the connections are:

  • Living room Play:5 plugged into a power outlet.
  • Family room Play:5 plugged into a power outlet.
  • Family room Play:5 connected to my router.

That's it. Setup consisted of installing the software on my Mac and pressing two buttons on each of the speakers.Again, stupid simple.The remote is any iPhone or iPad. Setup is install from iStore, run and press two buttons on anything in the network. The cool thing is that all of the sources you set up on any of the devices (like Spotify or Pandora) are immediately available on all of the connected devices.Cool.I've tried both linked and independent mode and it sounds pretty damn good. The linked "Party Mode" is almost creepy with the music just seamlessly following you around.Hopefully I'll be getting the rest of stuff soon and I can link the Play:5's into a stereo pair.At this point I'm actually thinking about getting a Play:3 as a roving speaker just to move wherever I want music.I'll dive deeper when I get the rest of the setup and I can really get a better feel for the whole setup.Overall, my first impression is very positive. I'm getting an "it just works" vibe big-time!

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