The Sonos system has been thoroughly written up in a number of articles and reviews, including Dan Frakes in Playlist (probably the most complete explanation of the system), David Pogue in the NYT and Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal. But I think the best overview of the system and its advantages over competitors comes from Louis Rossetto writing at Cool Tools. Louis is one of the original founders of Wired Magazine, and his review provides more context than others I’ve read, which is essential in understanding why the $500 Sonos ZonePlayer is so much better than the $100 AirPort Express with AirTunes.

With so many good reviews, I’ll just add a few of my own notes:

• The system provides a wonderful out-of-box experience. Like an Apple product, unpacking is An Experience, with well thought out package design and gorgeous quick-start explanations.
• The Mac OS X software is terrific, it’s a standard application, no installer necessary. (I really appreciate that, and it stands in stark contrast to the Mac software for TiVo, which I decided I didn’t trust enough to install).
• On first run it checks to make sure you have the latest release of the software, and will download the newer version if you don’t. This is also true of the firmware in the Sonos hardware, which will automatically upgrade itself (you just need to confirm it’s OK).
• Running the assistant to set things up, it automatically detected my firewall settings, and gave exact instructions for what to do next, with instructions clear and simple enough they would pass the proverbial grandmother test. This was also true when I installed the Windows version of the software on Rochelle’s (now decomissioned) PC.
• The other steps in the process were similarly easy to just follow along as the software lead me.
• Most importantly, it was able to use my iTunes music library, natively and automatically.

That’s not to say that the Sonos Desktop software isn’t without flaws. It’s not iTunes, either in flexibility or in usability. But if you set up your playlists in iTunes, the Sonos can make use of those, so it gets the job done. You’ll want those playlists for your iPod anyway, right? And of course, it won’t play music purchased from the iTunes Store.

At any rate, for having music playing regularly, throughout the whole house, the Sonos cannot be beat. Highly recommended.

Audible.com’s features provide support for receiving paid content using the same process for subscribing to the free podcasts which have recently become very popular. Although his article uses the very nice iPodder application to demonstrate the features, there’s no reason why you can’t use the built-in podcasting features of iTunes 4.9, and skip the extra application.

Here are instructions and a couple of screenshots, which you can splice into Phillip’s article where he’s working with iPodder.

Subscribing to Audible.com Podcasts in iTunes

Note: These instructions require iTunes 4.9 or later, available as a free download from Apple.com. These instructions may be used with both the OS X and Windows versions of iTunes.

1. Visit Audible.com, log in, and go to the My Audible Podcasts page (irritatingly non-linkable, currently in the Gifts & Tips box on the left side of Audible.com pages).
   
2. Copy the personalized Audible.com podcasts URL provided there. (These first two steps are exactly as documented by Phillip.)
3. Switch to iTunes, and choose Subscribe to Podcast… from the Advanced menu.
   
4. Paste in your Audible.com podcasts URL, and click OK.
   

You can now view and manage your Audible.com podcasts in the iTunes podcasts window, just as you would any other podcast:

Note: I don’t have any periodic subscriptions at this time, so there’s not much to see in my Podcasts list. I currently use Audible.com exclusively for audiobooks…