Part of the reality of living with digital culture is the ability to access far more culture than you can actually consume. We are more than spoilt for choice. This is particularly true of music, although television and film are not far behind. From the time that ripped CDs became available on file-sharing networks like the original incarnation of Napster, to the arrival of streaming services like Napster’s legal incarnation, to online stores like iTunes, we keep getting access to more, and more easily.

Each time I get access to more music through some new service, I go through the same process. There’s intense excitement, and I dash about streaming and downloading and buying and generally getting excited. Then both the costs and drawbacks gradually kick in. File sharing is illegal and time consuming. Apple’s iTunes is expensive and it’s a pain getting music off your iPod and on to other PCs – even though it’s your music and you’ve paid for it legally. Streaming services like Napster are great but there’s something weird about having access to music you don’t own – there’s no sense of building a collection.

However, the final stumbling block with all of these services, excellent though many of them are, is that they use computer hardware. The last thing I want to do when I’m relaxing is boot up a PC, but getting wireless streaming from a Media Centre PC, or using a product like the excellent Roku SoundBridge to stream music from a PC, gets boring because you end up having to reboot laptops and sort out your wi-fi – usually whenever your partner asks you to play something for friends.

Yet we get ever closer to digital nirvana, which I would define as all music, everywhere, all the time. I’ve long been a big fan of the Sonos music system, which wirelessly streams music around the house from you PC. The great thing about the Sonos is that it comes with a cool remote control, with a very iPod-like interface. This means you can access it without having to boot up a PC. The gotcha with Sonos is that Apple won’t let it stream iTunes content – which immediately means I can’t play my iTunes purchases at home as easily as my other music.

Over time, Sonos has added support for different music services, and the latest addition is Napster. The latest software update integrates Napster completely with Sonos, which means that after you’ve created your Napster account, which will cost you a tenner a month, you can search for over five million tracks, and have that music playing in your home without booting up a PC. I’m ashamed to admit that its fab, as the whole package is much greater than the sum of its parts. The combination dramatically lowers the barriers to experimenting with new music and exploring the tips about new music that you just pick in daily life. You read a concert review in the newspaper on an interesting band, and then can go home that evening and listen to all their work. You notice a poster on the tube, or hear an artists mentioned by a friend, and you can grab it instantly.

Searching through the catalogue from the controller is a bit awkward at first, with much the same frustration as texting on a mobile phone, but you soon get into it. For longer and more elaborate searches, you can use Napster at your PC and then access the music you’ve downloaded from Sonos. I don’t know why, but for some reason the fact that I haven’t permanently purchased the music doesn’t seem to bother me so much now that I’m accessing it through Sonos. I suppose with a PC you’re so conscious of the ability to download something to a hard drive that streaming seems like second best. However, sitting in your living room or bedroom and being able to listen to almost anything you can think of is such a great experience that it somehow doesn’t seem to matter.

Of course it’s not perfect. It would be nicer if the music was encoded at a higher, audiophile bit rate, as the files are only 128Kbps (although I must have cloth ears as this works fine for me). And I love my iPod, but of course Napster’s music files aren’t compatible with the iPod. Even though I can pay an extra £5 a month to carry my music with me on a Napster-compatible device, I don’t really want to get used to another portable music player. On the other hand, if the novelty doesn’t wear off, and Napster doesn’t start to disappoint over the long haul, I may finally wean myself off the Apple music monkey I’ve had on my back all these years, and that would be a curious thing.

As a teenager I remember going to record shops which had listening booths. You choose three seven-inch vinyl singles and got to sit in a little glass booth and play them all - but you had to buy at least one of them. It was very exciting to be sitting there listening to new music that has just been released. Napster provides similar pleasures. The combination of Sonos and Napster is of course an expensive one. A Sonos 130 will cost you £700 for a basic two-room system that uses your existing hi-fi, and Napster with Napster-to-Go will set you back £15 a month. However, the combo is the closest thing I’ve seen yet to digital music nirvana. If you fast-forward a decade, it’s hard not to believe that similar systems will be entirely ubiquitous and a fraction of the cost, which is a nice thought if you love having access to lots of music.

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