Any alternate product just like SONOS?

Why are you seeking an alternative? What is it that you don't like about Sonos? Is it price? A missing feature set? Form factor? There are lots of "solutions" out there, depends on exactly what you're looking to do. Airplay to Airport Express and Squeezebox come to mind, but neither are as robust of a solution.

I have used rocketfish wireless adapters with mixed success. The sound quality is pretty good, but it was a pain to reset when the power went out. I have had two blown receiver/amplifier units. (could be my luck though)

The sender receiver works well though if you want to hook it up to an external amplifier, or powered speakers.I get no interference and I live downtown in a condo jungle of 2.4 ghz router noise. A guy a few floors below me uses sonos with some powered MA speakers and I think my setup sounds as good as his.

In addition to the Squeezebox (Logitech) and Apple solutions already mentioned, there's Sony's HomeLink/S-AIR, Bose's BoseLink, and a number of IP based solutions from Western Digital, ViewSonic, Asus, etc; there's also DLNA for supported devices.

other than hardwiring your speakers back to a central location and using an impedance protecting switch or distribution block, there is nothing "inexpensive" about a 5 zone setup

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Beginners_Guide

There are plenty of other/different solutions, but no, nothing is going to be exactly like Sonos except Sonos. If you want something else, it will have ups and downs just like Sonos does.

It uses its own.

I use the logitech (slimdevices) Squeezebox equipment and am well satisfied with it.
A friends loves his more expensive Sonos.
The new "MusicLites" looks intriguing. www.musiclites.com

Lets give this thread a shot in the arm. If there are plenty of Sonos alternatives, lets list them. There should be a sticky thread about this.

Personally I just need the music control and output part. For the $399 a Sonos 90 costs, you could buy an entire mini Atom PC and run XBMC on it, and control with the Android/iOS apps. There has to be something cheaper out there, without all the extra feature costs Sonos bolts on... like the cost of an entire computer.

But then you lose 90% of the ease of function sonos provides. And the op is looking for 5 zones doubt he has room for 5 pc's.

audio|acacia from Plethra is newcomer to the market. Its a software solution so you can just install on any computer and you're not forced to buy proprietary hardware. There is a product comparison chart relating Sonos, Squeezebox, Casatunes, and audio|acacia here.

I took just 5 minutes to install my Play5 and Bridge on saturday.
Next up is a Nas.
I'm not sure wether to go for Napster or Juke here in Germany.
Anyone have experience with them?

^^^

well, napster no longer exists...

It does in Germany and I'm doing a 30 day trial as of saturday?
Google Napster .de the websites still running but not .com.

It essentially works by using peer-to-peer/master-slave hybrid where the software automatically discovers what sources and rooms are available at any time. There is heavy emphasis on zero configuration. A white paper discussing it more in depth is located here.

While I was already pretty well setup to accomodate (denon 3311 with optional zones 2 and 3 with preouts for zone 2) It cost me $100 bucks for an apple TV hooked up to my AVR, which has wireless control of which zones should be on/off via Iphone app, I simply have outdoor speakers on zone 2, main zone is the theater room, and zone 3 will soon be the main kitchen/den area. I have all external speakers from the theater running into a speaker switcher. There I can choose top outside deck, bottom outside deck, garage for zone 2 (This part is manual but what the heck, just do all this in a centrally located spot, you gotta run speaker wire anyways right?)

This all kind of depends on wether your speaker wires are all coming back to a centrally located amplifier or AVR, if so, the speakers switcher works wonders, if not, and you are using older avr's or amps in each one of the locations, the easiest option there would be to get a single AppleTV to run in the main listening/viewing area and then grab an airport express for each of the additional systems. Full control from your phone or ipod, as well as for your main area, a great option to use for youtube, missed tv episodes, and movies

I love walking in the door, pulling out my phone and hitting play on the apple remote app, there simply isnt an easier way to go about it IMO. With the new update you can now control the internal volume of itunes, and can stream directly from your phone as well so that is big plus. When friends come over and want to hear a song on THEIR device, they simply sign on to my wireless network and boom, they can control their whole playlist as well, it is GREAT! Now dont go off calling me a fanboy just yet, I pursued this avenue since I already have half the puzzle with an idevice and my whole library in Itunes, the only reason I suggest this way is since you mentioned it once or twice. If setup right, it beats any other option that ive found thus far... and for less if you already DO have most of the parts.

I didnt like how the sonus had a proprietary wireless setup and didnt integrate with what I already had going at the time.

^^^

ain't nothing wrong with being a fanboy of an elegant and well working solution...

I looked long and hard at the Apple offering, especially with their iCloud music service. I really like it.

However, I concluded that is it just not "there" today with the single, but for me significant, drawback that it requires iTunes running somewhere in the setup, through which the music passes. In all practicality, that means running it from a computer if you have a large library.

You see, I absolutely do not want to have a computer running all the time, and I want to have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device serve my music collection.

Sonos delivers, and with so many other added features it is just silly. Apple is very nice and tight and comes so close, but just not quite. On other non-Apple devices, DLNA promises way more than it delivers in this area, once you figured your way through the maze of marketing speak.

One of those features, another requirement of mine, was Spotify streaming...a recent Sonos add.

As an Android smart phone user, I don't have to worry about being behind the iOS platform when it comes to remote controller updates.

The only other alternatives that come close to Sonos are beyond consumer grade product and get very expensive. I also have to think that support for those products are going to be scarce and expensive too vs the large Sonos community online.

You need to decide if you want centralized control of all your speakers, or want control every zone locally. If it is the latter, you do not need Sonos. Get media players with touch screen interface and Wi-Fi plus power amplifier for each zone. It will cost you $400-500 per zone, but will be a very flexible solution. You still need to keep you music library somewhere. If you do not want to run computer 24/7, you can use NAS device that supports DLNA (which by itself a specialized computer usually running Linux). I recommend Squezeebox Touch as player. You can even control ALL players in your house from a single Android phone or tablet, if you need it. It will play Internet radio too.

Yes...that is a very workable solution and there are many folks who like the Squeezebox.

For about the same price ($400-$500) per zone (or less with Sonos Play 3), the Sonos system has the added benefit of using it's own wireless network. Don't underestimate this, as it is the primary area where folks have had serious trouble with the setup and performance of alternative products to Sonos. Sonos is as close to plug and play as you can get on this. Read reviews at Amazon before you buy alternatives.

Airport Express, 65.00 a zone. Apad , laptop , itouch , iphone, anything can control it. I am using two zones now. My laptop is the hub to the whole thing