*** Official SONOS Thread ***

[jpaul]

the interconnectdness of all things

with the sonos patent infringement cases against amazon, Amazon, as suggested, could retaliate limiting its alexa/cloud services,
at which point, for those for whom voice matters, the proposed sonos system for a local voice agent, would need hardware resources only available on their newest (higher ram) system;
other than that, haven't seen any proposals of new streaming functionality that would be missed on older systems.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

It's not very clear or substantial. Have to wait it out on this one I think.

Splitting to separate systems makes little sense.

i've never liked sonos because they didn't support all the codecs anyway.

amazing for what it could do but it seemed locked down and this just confirms the older tech was pants. it won't be supported going forward. they said the memory isn't capable and neither will the processors be.

 

[BMox81]

I’m new into the Sonos gear so I expect my stuff will last quite a long time, but I’m under no illusion that it will have to get replaced eventually. That’s just the nature of tech these days.

 

[jpaul]

i've never liked sonos because they didn't support all the codecs anyway

this is probably catch-22 itself ... they don't support the lossless dolby formats because they haven't upgraded the hardware, to save cost and maintain compatability with older systems; but, do the amplifiers and speakers, in sonos justify their support anyway ?
(I need to read up on eq options with sonos, since for relation who still wants a soundbar/smart speaker, a parametric eq is really de-rigeur)

 

[Minstadave]

Sonos still doesn’t even support DTS, let alone high res or Atmos formats. I don’t think it’s a hardware issue, they’re just slow or incapable. Hell the Playbase came out in 2017 and didn’t even support HDMI. The Beam came out in 2018 and still doesn’t support DTS.

 

[hornetstinger]

They don't pass hdcd or 2 channel DTS pcm which means not bit perfect

 

[jpaul]

some intereseting charts here
https://www.facebook.com/Phonos.application/

showing memory/flash size diversity in sonos generations (apparently play5,2nd gen bar is wrong) so you can see why they might have an issue.

 

[a1ex2001]

Sonos still doesn’t even support DTS, let alone high res or Atmos formats. I don’t think it’s a hardware issue, they’re just slow or incapable. Hell the Playbase came out in 2017 and didn’t even support HDMI. The Beam came out in 2018 and still doesn’t support DTS.

They are a lifestyle brand the kit doesn’t sell because it supports the latest thing it sells because it is easy to use looks good and sounds good. If you care about DTS and ATMOS etc Sonos probably isn’t for you!

those memory numbers are scary they have done well to keep them going!

 

[Minstadave]

They are a lifestyle brand the kit doesn’t sell because it supports the latest thing it sells because it is easy to use looks good and sounds good. If you care about DTS and ATMOS etc Sonos probably isn’t for you!

those memory numbers are scary they have done well to keep them going!

I don't buy it, there's nothing special about DD over DTS, especially at the time the Playbar was out, both were mainstream. Not having support for both was poor.

You could argue that HD/Atmos are beyond the scope of the Sonos market but it leaves their spec sheet looking pretty poor in comparison far cheaper items.

Same with HDMI support, hardly anything uses Toslink anymore.

Hardware wise those numbers are interesting and give some perspective about how the hardware has moved on.

 

[a1ex2001]

I don't buy it, there's nothing special about DD over DTS, especially at the time the Playbar was out, both were mainstream. Not having support for both was poor.

You could argue that HD/Atmos are beyond the scope of the Sonos market but it leaves their spec sheet looking pretty poor in comparison far cheaper items.

Same with HDMI support, hardly anything uses Toslink anymore.

Hardware wise those numbers are interesting and give some perspective about how the hardware has moved on.

I didn’t say there was anything special about DTS but it is not needed for the way Sonos markets it’s self they don’t sell based on the spec sheet and the growth figures for the company clearly show it works!

 

[The IPB]

I was planning on getting a play 5 soon, but looking at that memory I'm better of waiting to see if they replace it.

I noticed they had basically everything on offer over the christmas period, but not the play 5. So I wonder if that is going to get canned fairly shortly.

 

[Junglist]

So is a beam still OK to pick up? I want one, like the size and the fact we can grab some ikea speakers at a later date but this whole fiasco seems a bit off putting

 

[jpaul]

howing memory/flash size diversity in sonos generations (apparently play5,2nd gen bar is wrong) so you can see why they might have an issue.

the sonos 1 was the one that was wrong in that chart actually 8gb+4gb -> https://blog.bolt.io/sonos-one/
the comments there about amazon overengineering (subsidy?) of its echo plus, interesting - they're throwing money at this - same processor as fire HD

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I’m new into the Sonos gear so I expect my stuff will last quite a long time, but I’m under no illusion that it will have to get replaced eventually. That’s just the nature of tech these days.

My kit in my living room will never need replacing. The AVR might at some point but it's atmos and 4k capable so I don't think it will until it dies.

My yamaha soundbar supports all the codecs that are required. It will be replaced again when it dies.

Sonos on the other hand you may need a codec and it doesn't support it. Or you find you need a HDMI input as arc moves on and optical is removed. Then you find yourself having to upgrade.

SONOS just seems to be cheaping out on specs when it's asking a fairly high premium. Just weird that basic stuff that has been around for decades not just a year or two wasn't included.

I've never liked them for that reason and there are better alternatives available now. Yamaha even offers a rival system. I use google speakers elsewhere which are considerably cheaper.

 

[Basher]

They are a lifestyle brand the kit doesn’t sell because it supports the latest thing it sells because it is easy to use looks good and sounds good. If you care about DTS and ATMOS etc Sonos probably isn’t for you!

those memory numbers are scary they have done well to keep them going!

Nailed it.

My kit in my living room will never need replacing. The AVR might at some point but it's atmos and 4k capable so I don't think it will until it dies.

My yamaha soundbar supports all the codecs that are required. It will be replaced again when it dies.

Sonos on the other hand you may need a codec and it doesn't support it. Or you find you need a HDMI input as arc moves on and optical is removed. Then you find yourself having to upgrade.

SONOS just seems to be cheaping out on specs when it's asking a fairly high premium. Just weird that basic stuff that has been around for decades not just a year or two wasn't included.

I've never liked them for that reason and there are better alternatives available now. Yamaha even offers a rival system. I use google speakers elsewhere which are considerably cheaper.

On the other side of the spectrum, I have a fair amount of SONOS and couldn’t care less about codecs. It sounds great, is incredibly convenient and for our use case (often playing diff songs in diff rooms from the same Spotify account) nothing beats it.

I suspect I’m more the target market for SONOS but granted, I’m not sure how big that market is.

 

[Junglist]

We just want it for how easy it is to set up and use and from what I've heard, sounds good enough to my ear. I know you can get much better but audiophiles we are not.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Nailed it.

On the other side of the spectrum, I have a fair amount of SONOS and couldn’t care less about codecs. It sounds great, is incredibly convenient and for our use case (often playing diff songs in diff rooms from the same Spotify account) nothing beats it.

I suspect I’m more the target market for SONOS but granted, I’m not sure how big that market is.

I can play different songs in different rooms too. Using anything (spotify, google, youtube, etc). Or I can combine them. Plus google speakers can be had for as cheap as £19 and go up to a few hundred for the top end models and even include screens for video, etc.

SONOS will soon be dead. Give it 5 years and they will be gone.

 

[Basher]

I can play different songs in different rooms too. Using anything (spotify, google, youtube, etc). Or I can combine them. Plus google speakers can be had for as cheap as £19 and go up to a few hundred for the top end models and even include screens for video, etc.

SONOS will soon be dead. Give it 5 years and they will be gone.

You can play different songs in different rooms both from one Spotify account at the same time? I tried this with Google speakers last year and one stopped when I started the other song.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

You can play different songs in different rooms from one Spotify account at the same time? I tried this with Google speakers last year and one stopped when I started the other song.

not from the same app or device.

but from multiple devices yes.

as in 3 different phones can play 3 different songs across 3 different speakers.

 

[Junglist]

I had thought about the Google ones but wasn't sure how it would play with Apple products. Plus it seems to be much easier to make a wireless surround sound system out of Sonos than anything else