We have somewhat similar to drbeanie but not with Sonos. Ours is just set up through a standard multi-zone stereo receiver system connected to TV/dvd/ipod, galaxie, and sirius radio. We have speakers in the kitchen, dining room, and outside. The choice to stream a separate source is nice, but in our case we only use that for outdoors since our kitchen, family, and dining rooms are open concept. Similar to drbeanie, we have speakers and on/off/volume control at each room. Very happy with it for several reasons. In dining room it's nice to be able to have soft music playing at table conversation level without having blast the speakers from the family room. And at night if either DH or I are up later than the other, usually sitting at the island with computer, we can put the overhead kitchen speakers on softly rather than having the family room speakers on loud. Since our bedroom is overhead this makes a big difference. And having the separate wiring outside on the patio is another nice advantage. Here are a couple pics that show the overhead speakers, not the most beautiful things ever but they blend into the background after a while. :) The kitchen pic also shows the on/off/volume control which is just above the light switch on the right. I can't really imagine watching TV in the kitchen unless it was visible straight on and I was doing something very mindless, like eating breakfast or something. I guess some people just listen to it and look at the screen when something of interest comes up. Is that true, kitchen-TV users? Yes that's true. We usually "watch" tv while sitting at the island. We aren't big TV people so it's normally set to one of cable news or discovery or history or hgtv channel and we just look up when something is interesting. That's probably how most kitchen tv watchers do it too, I'd imagine. Either that, or it could also be handy for watching morning news with breakfast and a coffee before heading to work.

Our issue was dialog clarity. Due to the setup in our master suite it would have been fairly complicated and expensive to set up all the various angles my DH wanted, since it also includes his being able to see/hear the TV in the next room over (his game room aka the garage). We have friends with good sound systems but it doesn't always help with the 'dialog mumbles', as we call them. We got this instead (not from this seller, but this specific company/product). It actually works, and we are VERY pleased with it. The Voice Clarifying TV Speaker: http://www.hammacher.com/Product/84896?promo=search

It's true that no matter what tag database is used, the supplied information can have problems. Not usually with the big name, blockbuster mainstream albums - which for me I might cite Sgt Pepper's, Hotel California, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and similar others - but rather the ones where the name is ambiguous, there are multiple different albums with the same name, or the album is a bit more obscure and less known. But sometimes even with well known, popular ones. There is a freeware program - contributions welcome at the downloaders option - called MP3tag. The name is misleading, it can edit and change tags for all types of sound files. MP3tag will access databases MusicBrainz and Discogs for tag info, album art, or both, at the user's choice. It's easy to use. As I said before, tag editing is essential and quite often becomes a manual rather than automatic exercise. Other than the auto ripping devices which themselves can be kludgy with sometimes undesired compromises, I know of no shortcuts. I was able to do it over a long period of time as a side effort when working on PCs. Sometimes feeding in CDs one after another while doing other things, then going back a week later to edit tags. I've always used a separate folder for each album and have them as branches off of a higher level that is by artist. For classical music, I have it organized by composer, then by artist or orchestra or conductor, then by album It's worth the effort to clean up your metadata, you'll have your music everywhere you want it and with easy and swift access to everything you have. There's another corollary programs I use to make random playlists, or genre-flavored playlists or theme playlists, for focused variety. That's a topic for another thread.

With every wireless wi-fi speaker there will need to be a power source and was about to add this fact but @anj_p beat me to it. As far as sound quality it is true wired is better than wi-fi but with the right speakers it could be hard to tell the difference. Each Wi-fi speaker will basically have a small built in receiver with a decoder and a class D power amplifier, along with the speakers and frequency crossover circuitry. All of these components in the speakers need to be top quality (and usually be of a matching brand) along with a wi-fi signal with no interference. With quality wi-fi speakers and a good wi-fi signal the difference would be negligible, but going cheap with inferior components the difference could be nearly unbearable comparable to a 2 star motel lobby or a big box store. So be prepared to pony up the cash for top quality speakers. Other reasons Music isn't reproduced to to a flawless enjoyment level is Using D class amplifiers, (and basically universal today) because they sacrifice some high fidelity for efficiency and reduced size and cheap to make, but still good little amps for most people. How you download audio files also makes a difference, when downloaded a large file it is compressed into a smaller file and some information is removed and discarded never to be reproduced again that you will never hear. Combine all of above with bad acoustics in a room and the result is a muddled mess. This is why audiophiles resort to quality class A and A/B transistor or vacuum tube power amplifiers, vinyl and CD's music sources that pump large amounts of power to big speaker systems. It's not for everyone but I would suggest going to a orchestra hall if you've haven't before and witness what real music sounds like, then decide if you want wired or wi-fi for your entertainment area and what kind of equipment to buy.