Hi Christina, OK, I'll try to cut this down to the basics:
The Sonos app allows you to control your zone players as Sonos calls them. A zone player can be any one of the following: Portable/stand-alone devices: Play 1, Play 3 or Play 5 - basically boomboxes of various sizes and price ranges Connect: A small PreAmp which you have to hook up to an existing receiver or you can use powered speakers. Connect Amp: A stand-alone Sonos player with built-in 110 Watt amplifier and you have to hook up normal stereo speakers with speaker wire. OK, so basically you use the app to select on which player you want to play music and this could be music in your Sonos library (you point the app to where all your music is on your computer or network attached external hard drive) or it could be music from any of the online sources which include Spotify, Sirius, Rhapsody, Pandora, Slacker, Songsa and many more. Of course if a service requires a subscription like Sirius, you have to be a subscriber and enter your user name and password when you set up the service in the Sonos app. For example, I decide I want to play a Slacker stream in my bedroom. I open the Sonos app, select Master Bedroom and then I am presented with a list of music sources. I pick Slacker and just go on to find my station or stream and in the end tap on "Play Now". Now, let's assume my wife is in the living room and she wants to listen to the album "Come on Over" by Shaniah Twain and she has her iPod Touch there. She'll open the Sonos app and of course she can see what's playing in the Master Bedroom if she looks at the list of players in our house. So now she taps on Living Room, she then taps on "Music Library" then she can go by Artist or Album and find the album or the artist she wants and play it. Next I decide I am going into my woodworking shop downstairs where I have my Play 5 and I want to listen to an Audible audio book I have on my iPhone. Now here I have to use Airplay and in order to use Airplay on a Sonos system you have to have an Airport Express connected to one of the players (doesn't matter which one). In my case my Airport Express is connected to my Connect Amp in the kitchen. So I now select my Play 5 in my shop and select "Line In" as the music source. Here I now have 2 chouices, my laptop which I can connect to another Sonos player in the office or my Airport Express in the kitchen. I select the Airport Express and now I can start to play my book, I tap on Airplay and select "Sonos" and bingo, my audio book is now playing in my woodworking shop. Think of the Airport Express as just another music sorce except that that in this case it's a hardware device and not a music service or music coming from your computer's hard drive. You can connect any device that has a 3.5mm or analogue RCA outputs to either a Play 5, Connect or Connect Amp. This means a CD player, tape deck or if you wanted your iPhone's headphone jack, but then of course Voiceover would also be coming out of your Sonos player. I find for my own digitized CD collection the best solution is a network drive because this way it's always available even if your computer isn't even turned on. I have most of my music on my iPhone as well, but I rarely use it unless when I'm travelling because if I am at home and want to listen to a CD I just use the Sonos app to play whatever I want from my network attached hard drive. Like I said, you set this up once in Sonos and point to where your music library is located just as you have to tell iTunes where the music is and then you can set up the app to automatically index the library once a day or so so that if you add new music it's going to be available. If you let's say rip a CD and copy the content to the folder where your music library is located then you won't see these songs in the app until you index/update this which of course can be done right from the app. OK, I hope I answered most of your questions. Regards, Sieghard -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christina C. Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 4:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Sonos multi-room Wireless music system was: Bluetooth speakers I was quite excited to read the info shared here. :) Thanks! I am somewhat confused though. I do have a BOSE speaker with airplay. I love airplay because VO does not go through the speakers but I only hear it on my iPhone. I had always been afraid to try bluetooth speakers because I don't want to hear voiceover through the speakers. Anyways, I have been in the market for speakers because for whatever reason, I can't seem to keep my BOSe playing the music without having to reboot it every so often. That's a real pain when I'm jamming to music while showering or doing chores and my music stops playing. :( LOL! Anyways, I was wondering what the benefit is to using the airport express to make the system airPlay? Do I use the Sonos app on iOS to play music or do I use the Sonos app to manage the Sonos system? I'm a bit confused as to how it all works. I am a slacker Radio subscriber. Do I open the slacker app, then play the music then go to the Sonos app to manage the speakers I want to use? How would the process be different with airPlay through airport express? I'm just trying to figure this all out so I can figure out what to buy. I apologize if I seem really dense. :) Also, if I use the Sonos app to play music and I do not use airplay with the airport express, will VO play through the speakers? If I do use airport Express do I still use the Sonos app? I think i am confused as to the what the Sonos app is for. is it to play the music or is it to to manage which speakers I use? I hope I am making sense. So, can we hook this system up to our TV/cable/bluerayplayer and listen to a movie while the kids listen to music upstairs? Or is this Sonos system not really suited to hook up to the TV and is best for putting speakers in various rooms and listening to music? If I do purchase this system, I will definately contact them to make the Mac app more accessible. It is great to know that they seem open to accessibility since they improved the iOS app. Thanks, Christina -- The following information is important for all members of the viphone list. All new members to the this list are moderated by default. 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