The Need
Phase I: Set up media server (NAS)



Phase II: Set up sound (SONOS)

SONOS was part of my master plan from the outset. The stuff is amazing. So, I knew it would be the means to provide the sound, and it was, in large part, what drove the NAS purchase. Since we are still sorting out the design/use of the living room space, the only place I knew I wanted sound was the kitchen. To do that, I got the smaller Play:3 and the Bridge. Unless your speaker is close to your router and can be directly Ethernet wired, you'll need the Bridge. It connects to your router and then talks to the rest of your SONOS components. It's cheap. It's the speakers that cost a bundle.
The setup was simple. Plug the Bridge into power and into the router via Ethernet cable. Put the Play:3 where you want it and plug it into power. Run the provided software, press a few buttons on each component to get it recognized on the SONOS network, and you're done. The last key step is just to point the SONOS Controller software to your music library. In my case, this was the shared music folder on the Synology NAS. Then comes the fun part. The SONOS Controller software is brilliant. With it, you can:
- Play music from your libary
- Play playlists from your library
- Play Internet radio
- Control volume, shuffle, cross-fade
- Play the same music across all your SONOS speakers throughout your home*
- Play different music on each of your SONOS speakers throughout your home*
- Control the volume of each speaker independently throughout your home*
- And more.

The SONOS Controller software runs on your PC as a basis. But, you can also download their Controller app and run the whole system from your iPad/iPhone or Android device. This how I plan to control the sound.