Hey, look what sprung from CES! Ya, it’s the Sonos ZP80 - basically the little brother to the ZP100. Sonos now brings an affordable sibling to the amazing power of music of the digital home. The ZP80 is basically the ZP100 but with two Ethernet ports, digital out, RCA in and out, as well as its Sonosnet wireless network all in this little box. Besides a couple of Ethernet ports, notice anything else missing? Yup, an amplifier. Sonos listened to its customers and gave them a passive unit to hook up to their own existing systems.

“We created the ZP80 because many of the rooms where consumers want to listen to digital music already have an amplifier,” said John MacFarlane, chief executive officer, Sonos, Inc. “Our goal is to provide digital music lovers with a range of products for building a wireless digital music system throughout their homes.”

Also new for this little guy is the software. Version 1.3 (available for current Sonos users January 4th,) includes support for Apple’s Lossless codec as well as for Audible files. Playlist and Queue Management is another new feature which allows the user to move songs within the playlist (yes!). Another major “YES!” is Sonos Playlist Locater. This will automatically repair broken playlists from files that are relocated on your hard drive or network. Apple iTunes Folder Sharing on a PC will allow you to more easily share your iTunes playlists and Sonosnet gets tougher security with WPA, 128bit AES encryption. If your mansion is having issues with losing its wireless connection, well Hidden Zone Mode / Sonosnet Extension will help extend your range just dandy. All in all, a great update to an already great piece of software. Oh ya, press in the OK button (the middle button on the wheel) of the Controller and see what happens.
The new tyke ships in the spring for a total of $349.

[tags]sonos,zp80,zone player,new release[/tags]