Whether you're taken with the S5 largely depends on how you feel about Sonos in the first place. If you've been itching for an elegant way to play music and internet radio over your home network, and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you'll probably love the S5. It's not very different from Sonos's other products, really: Instead of plugging in your own stereo, the S5 simply supplies its own. Navigation, playback and music discovery are unchanged from previous Sonos products, so I'm going to focus on the hardware, mostly sound quality.

The receiver/speaker all-in-one is smaller than you'd expect, no bigger than a mid-sized iPod dock, and conservatively styled in white metal with a grey grille. I tested it alongside the winner of our iPod dock Battlemodo, the JBL OnStage 400p, for purely sound-specific purposes, since the actual products have a different feature set. Hardware-wise, the Sonos S5 lacks the JBL's iPod dock (as it doesn't really have a need for one) but does have Wi-Fi, ethernet and audio-in and -out.

It's super easy to set up; the iPhone app discovers any Sonos hardware, which you name and then have access to from the main menu. You choose music, either from a location on the network (like a computer, or in my case an Apple Time Capsule) or from streaming services like Pandora, Napster and Last.FM. Streaming was very quick, with only a split-second lag before the song started, and streaming music (both from a saved location and from the internet) played back so smoothly you can't tell that it's streaming. The Sonos iPhone app is excellent, as always—check out our review for more on that. Suffice to say that it's extremely fast and easy to use, whether you're searching through Last.FM for an artist or just streaming your own tunes from a computer.

Sound quality was actually very slightly disappointing, in that it didn't totally blow me away. It sounds quite good, don't get me wrong, and played far louder (without audible distortion even at its highest setting) than the JBL OnStage 400p, but on the whole I preferred the JBL. Though the Sonos is packing two tweeters, two mids and a subwoofer, bass wasn't nearly as full and rich as on the JBL. EQ can be tweaked via the remote (iPhone/iPod Touch or Sonos controller), but its stock setting was a little jarring on the highs and slightly thin-sounding compared to the JBL. At low volumes, the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but blasting Discovery's "Orange Crush" showed a distinct difference between the two.

I don't want to imply that the S5's sound quality is lousy in any way: It's definitely above-average for an all-in-one system, and I was impressed with the lack of distortion and clarity. But I kind of expected to be wowed, and I wasn't. That doesn't mean it's not an interesting and worthwhile product, but it could be better.

The S5 worked flawlessly with other S5s, able to play different songs simultaneously—but if you want one to stop playing its song and join in with another S5 to play in tandem, it can do that too, and sync perfectly. It's pretty cool and worked well, but I'm not sure why you'd need two all-in-one units to play the same song at the same time in different rooms.

I really like the Sonos S5 as a speaker for a room where you don't want a full stereo—like the kitchen, say, or the back porch. It's great to be free from wires yet still have access to all of your music, and services like Pandora. If you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, it's actually a solid deal, provided you're sold on Sonos: The ZonePlayer 80 costs $300, but for $100 more you can get a portable (and pretty decent) speaker with the S5.

But the question I was left with: Is it worth the $160 premium over the JBL OnStage 400p? I'm not sure, really. The S5 is a more elegant solution, certainly, but a lot of users just want a quick-and-dirty playback device, and the S5 is too refined for that. If you're already a Sonos devotee, the S5 is an interesting and affordable addition to the lineup, but if you aren't sold on the whole concept, I don't think the S5 will change your mind. [Sonos]

The Opus 4, which previously maxed out at 1TB of storage in a $1799 incarnation, now lugs along 2TB of ripped music, preferably, according to them, in lossless format. The software touch interface has gotten a hefty overhaul, promising greater responsiveness, search and custom internet radio streaming via the device's Wi-Fi. The core functionality, however, remains unchanged: this is a music device, and that's it. The Melody extender gets the same software upgrades, but must draw on an Opus box or PC media server for content, and retails for substantially less, at $599.

Olive's strategy with the Opus and Melody is possibly more interesting than the products themselves, at least to most folks: they advertise their highest price options over their lowest ones (the Opus actually starts at $1500), and are completely upfront about the fact that their technology is deliberately simplified, to the point that obvious potential functionality—through the Opus' Linux-based OS, for example—is left unrealized. The thing is, if these issues bother you, you're not the target audience. Who are they? Old people with money, basically. Related: Hello, old people with money! [Olive]

As you will see in the video, the process looks pretty smooth—even with beta software. Hopefully this will mean less annoying adapters and cords for us to deal with in the future. [Kicking Tires]

Price: $1000 (as tested)

The Verdict: Despite having some great ideas, the WHA system lacks any semblance of reliable quality and performance. It felt rushed and unpolished, whether it was the cheap feel of the products—a collection of wireless players and a controller, all which you'd buy a la carte to suit your household needs—or the glitchiness of system software. When it was working, the ability to push and share content from one zone to another, connect to internet music services and connect your own devices directly were all very nice. But getting there was a headache, and the system was unreliable—to say the least—even when running.

While it is nice that the Linksys 802.11n streaming means you don't need every component tethered via Ethernet—or, as in Sonos' case, a whole separate wireless network dedicated to music and music only—it also increases the complexity of setup tenfold. Each component must be plugged into the router via Ethernet (or in the case of the Remote, your PC's USB), and you have to use Windows software to detect and configure each and every device in a multi-step wizard. In the case of the Director, a screen-equipped WHA music player, I tried to connect to the network without the PC, and it did work, but when I entered my network password incorrectly once, the only way to backtrack and reenter the password was to reboot the system.

Also, in a separate test we ran using a Time Capsule as the main wireless router, we had too many troubles to list. We're still unclear whether or not it was a problem with the Apple router or a faulty component from Linksys, but either way, if you use non-Linksys routers, be forewarned you may experience added difficulty.

Once I actually got the system working, it wasn't long before a torrent of random problems started to kick in. Plugging a FAT32-formatted HDD into the Director's USB port would cause the system to freeze. Rhapsody would sputter and spew after a few minutes before ultimately dropping the connection. The response between the remote and the device in question would lag. Despite selecting a playlist from my iPod, only one track at a time would play. Sometimes the Director iPod wouldn't detect the iPod at all.

The touchscreen remote actually performed admirably, but its use of a cheaply built resistive touchpanel for a finger UI meant that it wasn't very responsive. (Calibration did help, but it was still annoying.) Essentially, you spend more time worrying about WHA breaking down than you do enjoying your music.

Despite being the most versatile streaming audio player we've seen to date, the lack of quality control really makes the Cisco Linksys Wireless Home Audio system a product line to avoid. (Note: To ensure that our negative result wasn't a fluke, we tested two separate sets of brand-new Linksys components in two distinct households, and we experienced severe problems in both instances.) For roughly the same price you can pick up Sonos' two comparable Zone Players and an 8-gig iPod touch to run Sonos free software, giving you a much more polished, easier to use package. [WHA on Giz]