Have your say & ask the experts

If so I have the following queries: 
1. Is the sound any better than my current Airport Extreme system? 
2. How do I connect it to my music. The websites seem to indicate that my computer needs to be connected to it via an ethernet connection. My nearest amp is across the room and I have no way of hiding all that wire. Would I therefore use a Zonebridge? I would then have a Zonbridge and a Zoneplayer in one room. 
3. Most of my music is on a separate hard drive, presumably that gets streamed via the computer connection 
4. My airport system cannot reach my dining roomdue to the thickness of the walls. I presume Sonos would not have greater reach

Any other views on Sonos would be welcomed

1. Quite confident there is no difference is sound quality between Airport Express and Sonos. Sonos is really worth it for multi-room setups. 

2. Only one of the Sonos elements needs to be hard wired, and that is to your router, not your PC (a relatively cheap Sonos bridge will do, if you will not have music amplified from that location). The other Sonos elements work wirelessly.

3. The music folder can be anywhere on the network. Can be your PC. Can also be on the hard disk of a network attached device (NAS) , in which case no need to have a PC turned on. You say your music is already on an external hard drive. If it is USB or Firewire, you need to have a PC on. Better to have a NAS. I use the Apple Time Capsule both as router and as NAS.

 4. Sonos does not necessarily have greater reach tha airport if you use only one device. Again the beauty of Sonos is its mesh network architecture allowing multi-room music. Adding players and/or bidges increases the reach dramatically. The more Sonos devices you have, the more reliable the system. 

 It is a fantastic system. easy to set up and easy to use. You can manage it from dedicated remote, and/or from computer, and/or from iphone/ipod touch. Quality is very high. Use lossless rips. The simplest high quality cost effective way to setup from scratch is non-amplified ZonePlayer 90 linked  to AVI 9.1 active speakers.

Thanks Aristide.  I have an iMac as my main computer  attached to a Airport Extreme via USB.  My iTunes library is on a seperate hard dive attached to the Extreme.  What I really want to know is whether I need a Zonebridge to connect to a zoneplayer or will the extreme act as the connection.  The Sonos website states that the first Zoneplayer or zone bridge must be connected via ethernet.

Correct: as I stated only one bridge or player needs to be wired (Ethernet). It needs to be connected to the router, not to the PC nor the airport extreme, unless the Airport Extreme can act as DHCP server, in which case Sonos can consider it as the router. I am not sure at all if Airport Express has that feature (Airport Extreme and Time Capsule do have that feature).

 Also, I do not quite understand why your PC is attached to the Airport Extreme via usb. Does not make sense to me. Would make sense to connect to it via wi-fi or via Ethernet, not usb.

 How is the separate hard drive attached to the Airport Extreme?  The AE only has 1 usb port, and it is designed to connect/share a printer. I do not believe (but not 100% sure)  Sonos would see a hard disk connected in this way, except maybe through the iMac, which would need to stay on.  Apologies, but I am a bit confused by your setup....

Sorry Aristide you are right.  My printer is connected via USB and my hard drive is attached to the Airport Extreme via ethernet.  I can then access the iTunes contents from my MacBook if need be.  I have several Airport Express units around the house which I can control via the iMac/MacBook or my Touch.  I have a Netgear modem which provides the internet for the Extreme and which presumably is the router I connect to?

The Netgear would by default be the router where you would connect the first Sonos device. Check first on Sonos web site for list of incompatibilities with some routers, but should be fine.

I also have a Netgear. However, I only use this as ADSL modem. I disabled DHCP service (as well as wi-fi) at the Netgear level, and I let my Time Capsule do the DHCP bit (distribution of IP addresses across the local network). I find it easier and more robust to manage that with Airport Utility than using Netgear's browser based management tool.

 That also means my first Sonos device can be wired to the Time Capsule rather than to the Netgear. As that Time Capsule also happens to be the NAS device containing my music library, that means the Sonos is de facto also wired to the music. Which I feel should improve reliability at that end.

 In your situation, as your disk is connected through Ethernet to your Airport Express, it should be seen by Sonos as a NAS, and therefore Sonos would work for you without turning on the iMac. e iMac can be taken out of the equation (except for ripping purposes I suppose). Again, do a check on Sonos website first to make sure that your NAS has not been identified as problematic.