Sonos Bundle 250 review

Sonos audio-streaming systems have always stood out as the luxury choice in a market stacked with cheap and cheerful products. And for those with a bit of extra cash to splash, there’s no doubt its multiroom systems are the best-designed, and easiest to use and set up of any on the market. Its latest Bundle 250 marks a small step forward for the brand, building on its already excellent reputation.

The star of the show is the new Sonos Controller 200 (CR200). Replacing the old landscape iPod-style remote with scrollwheel, the CR200 mirrors Apple’s own development process by introducing a capacitive touchscreen.

It’s a glorious piece of equipment, clad in aluminium and translucent white rubber, with a touchscreen that both feels responsive to the touch and looks fantastic. The 3.5in panel under the glass front boasts VGA resolution and LED backlighting – both specifications we’d normally expect to see adorning high-end laptops costing in excess of £1,000. There’s an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness to the optimum level, and also a motion sensor that automatically wakes the controller from sleep mode when you pick it up.

Vorsprung durch technik

Everything about the new remote radiates the sort of engineering excellence you’d expect of a luxury German car, and luckily the interface follows suit. It allows you to flick through lists of tracks, search by keyword (the screen keyboard looks very similar to the one you get on the iPhone), build playlists and look up track information on-the-fly.

Music service support is elegantly enabled as well, with Last.fm, Deezer and Napster all available from the More music option on the controller’s Music menu. Playback capabilities are excellent, with support for every format you can think of, from the lossless Flac and Apple Lossless formats through to more commonplace MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV. The only disappointment, for audiophiles at least, may be the lack of support for 96KHz files.

Elsewhere, the system is just as capable as before. We were supplied with the BU250 for review, which adds two ZonePlayers – one 90 and one 120 – to the CR200 controller. The former hooks into your router, providing a bridge between your home network and the Sonos system’s mesh network technology, while the latter boasts an integrated Class-D 110W amplifier for direct connection to a pair of speakers.

Setting everything up is also just as much of a doddle as before. Plug everything into the wall, hook the ZonePlayer 90 up to your router and creating the Sonos network is as simple as pressing a couple of buttons. Better still, it gets one up immediately on the cheaper Logitech Squeezebox Duet system by not requiring a PC running proprietary software. You can access music on any UPnP-media server device.

Making it cheaper

It seems as much of a waste as it always did to simply use the ZonePlayer 90 as a network bridge when it boasts all the kit to be a streamer in its own right (stereo phono, plus optical and electrical S/PDIF outputs), and especially when buying one costs a not-inconsiderable £279 inc VAT.

There are options if your want to save a little bit of cash, though. The Sonos ZoneBridge does a similar job to the ZonePlayer 90, but costs £200 less at £79 when purchased separately, while for iPhone and iPod Touch owners, there’s an app that echoes much of the CR200’s capability for absolutely nothing. You could then, in theory build a full Sonos system for £360 inc VAT – a considerable saving on the huge £799 for the Bundle 250.

Conclusion

But if you’re thinking of pinching the pennies you’ve probably missed the point of Sonos systems – they’re designed for those who want a reliable, simple wireless multiroom system that won’t look out of place next to their van der Rohe armchair and Joseph Hoffman sofa.

It’s undeniably expensive, but nothing else quite matches its combination of engineering excellence and all-round ease of use.

Related Posts

Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: A Great Phone in its Day, but Don’t Buy One Private Internet Access Review Pluto TV Review—Is It Worth It? ExpressVPN Review – Unbiased and Tested In-House “Your Payment Requires Additional Review” in Zelle – What Does it Mean? CyberGhost Review Best VPN Services 2023: What’s the Best VPN in the US? What Is a VPN? How It Works and Common Uses How to Use GIPHY in Slack