Cool Hunting

Putting control of multi-room music playback into a smaller, easier to navigate device, Sonos' new remote makes their already winning system even better. Over the past several years using Sonos' Multi-Room Music System, we've been loving the balance it offers between quality, control and options.

For the uninitiated, the Sonos system plays music from computers, the Internet or any attached storage device, wirelessly and in multiple rooms. Because the Sonos system creates a proprietary network, sound doesn't suffer from a loss of quality or frustrating interference like other networks can. It even has the capability of playing different music in each room simultaneously. Always central to the Sonos brand, overall usability and elegant solutions for managing the various features are out-of-the box intuitive, the latest of which is the CR200.

Representing a huge user-friendly leap forward, it emulates the design of their iPhone application, ditching the scroll wheel of its predecessor for a touch interface that dramatically improves text entry for searching and setting up internet radio stations, in addition to the basic functions. It's also about half the size of its predecessor and more ergonomic, which makes one-handed use a breeze.

Buy it from Sonos for $350.