Sonos Announces Amp-less ZonePlayer ZP80

The Sonos ZonePlayer ZP80 converts existing amplified music systems to components in Sonos' wireless multi-room music system.

Sonos has taken the wraps off the ZonePlayer ZP80, which enables users to connect existing amplified audio systems like home theaters, powered speakers, and component stereos to Sonos’ line of wireless, multi-room digital music products.

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

The ZP80 bears a lot of resemblance to its currently-shipping cousin, the ZonePlayer ZP100. The ZP80 features auto-sensing line-in connectors which digital encode any audio input source, so users can connect any audio source (such as a home theater, stereo system, computer, satellite radio, or iPod) and listen to that source throughout their home via Sonos’s secure, AES-encrypted peer-to-peer wireless mesh network of Sonosnet speakers. But the ZP80 doesn’t have a built-in amplifier: you want to hear any of the audio its producing, you need to hook it up to another system with an amp