You get one Play:5 device. I would guess you need several of those to equip different rooms.
> Where will I put my mp3s? Can they stay on my Linux box?
Your mp3s can reside on any machine as long as they are reachable via CIFS/SMB protocol.
> Do I have to transfer them to a special device?
No. You only need a so called "Sonos Controller"- a small piece of software available for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android - where you actually manage your Sonos network: define your SMB share folders, create your playlists, search, stuff like that...
> It looks like Sonos uses its own wireless transfer mechanism. Why do I have to connect it to my router?
Yes Sonos does not really use 802.11 as we know it. It uses its own protocol called SonosNET (a kind of Spanning Tree Protocol) to create a wireless mesh network. So at least one Sonos device must be connected to a wired network to act as a wireless AP to allow other Sonos devices to connect to the network and use standard internet services (DHCP, DNS, etc...).
Honestly, it sounds overly complicated and I still dont understand the basic principle.
Why not just put a music player program on my computer that streams the song into my existing network and have speakers that connect to the network and play it?
You say "You get one Play:5 device". So what is that? Why cant I just buy "speakers" that play whats send to them over the network?
You say "CIFS/SMB". Well, I could make my files available that way. But somehow it feels wrong. Will the song that is played then be streamed to some central device and from there to the speakers? Seems like twice as much streaming as necessary.
You say "Windows/Mac/iOS/Android". So I would have to bring one of my tablets into the game. ANOTHER machine in the mix.
You say "at least one Sonos device must be connected to a wired network" and I still dont understand why. I would understand it if you said "to access your files". Even thought I would prefer it to just swallow an usb stick so I dont have to fiddle with my existing IT. But you say "to act as a wireless AP to allow other Sonos devices to connect to the network and use standard internet services" and I wonder why do they have to? I want the "other devices" just to be speakers and play music.
You get one Play:5 device. I would guess you need several of those to equip different rooms.
> Where will I put my mp3s? Can they stay on my Linux box?
Your mp3s can reside on any machine as long as they are reachable via CIFS/SMB protocol.
> Do I have to transfer them to a special device?
No. You only need a so called "Sonos Controller"- a small piece of software available for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android - where you actually manage your Sonos network: define your SMB share folders, create your playlists, search, stuff like that...
> It looks like Sonos uses its own wireless transfer mechanism. Why do I have to connect it to my router?
Yes Sonos does not really use 802.11 as we know it. It uses its own protocol called SonosNET (a kind of Spanning Tree Protocol) to create a wireless mesh network. So at least one Sonos device must be connected to a wired network to act as a wireless AP to allow other Sonos devices to connect to the network and use standard internet services (DHCP, DNS, etc...).
Does that make sense?