To be (wireless) or not to be (wireless) that is the question…
Music is an intrinsic part of my day to day life, I can’t seem to go very long without having some sort of audio in the background, it makes up the fabric of our home.
The drill was always the same, using one of the many Apple devices and the AUX lead from the hi-fi speakers Spotify was connected loud and proud. I would utilise the iPad when possible, so I didn’t have to give up my phone to the tether of the AUX wire. I would make sure my Spotify account was open, up-to-date and accessible across all our devices.
…at the end of the day that was the way it was… and it was worth it until, well, it wasn’t!
Did I notice that I would have to go all the way across the room to change the song or playlist? Did I notice that it was a mad rush to attach the device to a charger if things were running low, and make sure that the AUX lead was still within reach of the device on charge? Did I notice that there were occasions when I had to sacrifice screen time to the AUX lead and forsake IG if I wanted to hook my phone up and not hoover over it in the corner of the room? Truth be told, I'm not sure I did… at the end of the day that was the way it was… and it was worth it until, well, it wasn’t!
A gift from a friend changed everything. A SONOS appeared in our home. My first impressions where NOPE. I actually remember thinking “this will be a nightmare to use”, “it won't sound as good”, it took me about 3 days to even bother unboxing it. Then one morning I decided to see what was inside. This small stunning piece of product design, a thing of beauty I would only associate with the Gods at Apple, was sitting on the kitchen table. It had a wire, but that was to connect it to a power source…everything else about it was wire-less. It asked, for one thing, access to wifi (and these days who doesn’t come into your home and demand the wifi code…).
it required I perform what felt like a ritualistic worship dance around the rooms
In the initial set up it required I perform what felt like a ritualistic worship dance around the rooms. This was to set up an impeccable intelligent EQ level system that took into account the SONOS proximity to the limits of the rooms, understanding like sonar where the deviations in the space where and its scale. It asked for access to my Spotify (which I gladly shared) and just like that no matter where I was in the house, I could control the music, wirelessly.
I was initially concerned that this single tiny (by comparison to my hi-fi speaker setup) digital speaker could never sonically compete… I was wrong, very wrong.
Within 15minutes the past 10 years of my audio life had been disregarded…The umbilical AUX cord had been cut… It seemed I could survive without it and I wasn’t just surviving, with SONOS I was thriving!
What followed was a daily routine built around this device, it now wakes us up in the morning, it takes up almost no physical room yet a tap totally fills the room with sound. It doesn’t matter where I am or where the device is, it is connected, friends can control it, the sound was sharable instantly, the control was effortless and instant.
It wasn’t long before the tiny pitter-patter of extra bass arrived. We expanded our (SONOS) family with another speaker. With home speaker sound system compatible with each other, wireless and effortless to integrate the sound just keeps on getting better.
I haven’t packed away the hi-fi, it stands as a reminder of days gone by, like a museum piece that we should never forget and occasionally when the wifi drops, it still serves a vital service.
