Sonos Upgrades System to Include Built-In Rhapsody

Music maniacs don't get much more manic than Tom Cullen, co-founder of Sonos, whose revolutionary Sonos Digital Music System is inarguably the most well-crafted and full-featured digital music system on the planet.

So it was a nice thrill for Cullen to drop by my house last week to demo the latest updates to the Sonos hardware and software.

The big news is that Sonos is integrating the Rhapsody music subscription service directly with its hardware, no PC needed. Just grab your Controller and start browsing through the two million or so songs on the Rhapsody service: Pick whatever you'd like and it's streamed directly to your speakers via your broadband connection. (After a 30-day trial you'll have to sign up for the service at $9.99 a month.) Other players let you play Rhapsody music, but it's all routed through your PC, requiring you to download your playlists which are then beamed over to your media player. Sonos gives you direct access to the Rhapsody catalog from your remote control, anywhere. As far as I know, Sonos is the only company doing anything remotely like this.

Other new features include an alarm clock, 300 Internet radio stations, multiple languages, and better browsing of enormous music catalogs (which you're sure to have after playing with this system for long).

A few months back, Sonos also made it easier (and cheaper) to connect to your existing stereo system. The old Sonos ZonePlayer 100 ($499) had a built-in amplifier: You just plugged in speakers, and you were off and running. But since you probably already have an amplifier where you listen to your music, the Sonos ZonePlayer 80 ($349) connects to your existing amp and speakers and lets you do exactly the same thing. Don't get me wrong, it's still a superpremium product that doesn't come cheap, but if you're fanatical about music, it's an awesome product that just got a little awesomer.