The satellite speakers are ingeniously designed so that you can hang them on the wall by simply plugging them into an electrical outlet. This obviously doesn’t put the speakers in an optimal position for critical listening, but the sound quality is such that you won’t be doing much of that anyway. You can also detach the power supply if you’d rather place the speaker on a bookshelf or table top, but be aware that the electrical cord is a scant three feet long.

We’ve obviously taken a long time to get around to talking about the EOS system’s audio quality, but we’ve laid enough hints that anyone unwilling to sacrifice audio quality for price or convenience has most likely made up their mind about the product: This is not an audiophile system.

The base station and each of the satellites has two one-inch neodymium tweeters and a three-inch paper-cone woofer. The amp is small (delivering just five watts RMS to each channel), but it’s relatively efficient and puts out enough volume to fill a small room (pushing it hard results in clipping and unpleasant distortion). It’s also somewhat noisy, producing detectable hiss at higher levels. Our biggest disappointment, however, is the fact that the included SRS Wow signal processing can’t be defeated. That won’t be a problem if you like the wider soundstage and other “enhanced” effects that Wow promises to deliver, but we generally don’t appreciate such sonic manipulation.

If you want a high-quality multiroom audio system, pair a Sonos or a Squeezebox with some great bookshelf speakers. But be aware that doing that for two rooms will cost as much or more than a five-room EOS configuration. If all you’re looking for is background music in up to five rooms, give the EOS shot: It’s a better product than it’s low price tag might lead you to believe.