So this one was kind of a surprise. I asked Sony for a loan so that I could test out their new S-AIRPLAY iPod-based system and a monstrous box arrived at my door within a week. From the pictures online I thought this thing was a lot smaller! I spent just over three weeks with this wireless music system and used it pretty much everyday to play music on my iPhone.

Setup

This part is pretty simple. Sort of. So the whole S-AIRPLAY (SAP from now on) system consists of two main components: the base station and the satellite speakers (the initial purchase comes with two, but you can add more for $130 a pop).

The base station is where you dock your iPod/iPhone and beam your music out all over your house to the satellite speakers, wherever they may be. Now I don’t live in a house, but my place is big enough to put the transmit range of the system through its paces. I kept the base station in my room with one satellite and I kept the other satellite in the living room about 20 feet away. The base station and each satellite require an AC jack of their own, although the base station is the only one with a huge plug. I guess transmitting the music wirelessly needs a lot of energy.

After the parts are all powered up, you have to insert the SAP cards so that the speakers and base station can communicate. It’s a very simple step and the cards click right into place at the back of each unit. Once that’s done, put your iPod on the dock (there are five docks to fit most any iPod), set the mode to “S-Air Play” and you’re good to go! Well, sort of. If you’re got an iPhone you’re still going to have to skip past the dialogue that says that the equipment isn’t made for the iPhone. But that’s nonsense, since the SAP plays perfectly with the iPhone.

Design

Wanna hear something vain? The primary reason I wanted to check out the SAP system was to see how the awesome blue glow would look on my nightstand. As it turns out, it looks awesome (big shame on me for not taking a picture of that!). The base station is pretty simple overall, but it’s quite a capable little dock. Not only does it transfer music to the speakers, but it also serves as the AM/FM antenna (shown below), an iPod/iPhone charger, and an A/V setup if you hook it up to your TV.

It’s really a great piece of kit, but it does feel just a little bit on the cheap side for a $400 unit. It’s composed of a glossy plastic that just felt a bit too light or too thin, and I thought the speakers looked and felt a lot sturdier. It’s not like you’re going to be throwing the base station around or putting it in your pocket, so as long as it holds up to rigorous um….staying put…then I guess it’ll do the job . Aside from the awesome illumination control button, you’ve also got a few controls on the surface, as well as an LCD that lights up to show you what mode you’re in (AIRPLAY or RADIO).

The speakers are a lot heftier than the base since they pump out room-filling sound. They’ve also got their own sets of controls (playback and volume) and an LCD screen that can show the time, the current song name, or currently playing artist. I think it’s absolutely fantastic that Sony included such complete playback support into every speaker, and the fact that each speaker can play either the radio or the iPod and keep independent volume settings is pretty awesome. There’s also a sleep timer on each speaker as well as an alarm, although I could never quite get the alarm to work with my iPod’s music. As such, it just beeped this truly annoying beep that was perfect for waking me up in time for school – so maybe it was better than music.

Thankfully I didn’t need to run to the speaker each time the alarm rang. Sony includes three remotes with the SAP kit (with AAA batteries – huzzah!) so you can control your music as long as you’ve got line of sight to a speaker or base station. The base station remote can navigate the menus on your iPhone or iPod and the other two are remotes for the speakers. The real kicker (and the on-board speaker controls work the same way) is that you can actually pause, play, or skip tracks with any of the remotes. This means you can keep the base station in your room, go outside and work in the living room by a window with the speakers beside you and just change the song by using the speaker remote.

Usage

One of the biggest kicks I got from using these speakers (besides the kickass illumination) was the strange feeling of going from one room to another and have the sound follow me. I can’t even compare it to a set of headphones since the sound was bouncing off the walls and creating this ultra stereo effect. This is some truly room-filling sound that Sony’s brought to bear here.

I’ve never had a multi-room speaker setup before, but it’s pretty amazing that the sound is transmitted wirelessly. There were just two occasions when the signal was terrible (probably due to bad weather), but overall there was very little skipping (maybe one hiccup every hour or two if that).

But everything else about this sound setup just works. You’ve got three remotes, and the speakers each have LCD screens to show what song or artist is currently playing. Add the fact that there are also playback controls on each speaker and you’ve got a ridiculously easy and flexible system. I especially loved how I could just point the remote at a speaker and have my iPhone pause or forward the music. That’s the first time my speakers have ever spoken that much with my music player. Initially I thought I’d also use the SAP for watching iPhone podcasts on my TV, but I never really took to keeping the base station by my TV since I always liked having my iPod handy at my nightstand or desk. I also had a record low on my number of missed calls since I’d always hear my iPhone ringing right over the speakers of the house. But if you don’t have an iPhone, the SAP also worked just fine with the iPod Nano 2nd gen, iPod Photo, and iPod Touch 2G.

Conclusion

The S-AIRPLAY was my first taste of an iPod dock and wireless speaker system, and it was fantastic having both those things rolled into one package. Really, the only major issue I have with the system is the price point. At $400 it’s not a small purchase, and although it’s a very capable music system, I feel that the $250-300 range would be more reasonable for what it offers, but in a brief conversation with Doug the price seems to be comparable with other speakers in this range.

What I liked:

• awesome, adjustable blue illumination around base station
• charger/TV hookup/wireless music system all in one
• control flexibility: remotes or controls on speakers!

What could use improvement:

• base station build quality should match speakers’

The Sony S-AIRPLAY is available for $399.95 @ Sonystyle.com.

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