*** Official SONOS Thread ***

Chris344

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Grim5 said:
how desperate are you for Atmos?

it's possible that the Arc is actually much better at creating a sound bubble around the listener so even without Atmos it could sound better. That's what I always liked about the Bose soundbar - it doesn't do Atmos but it creates a much better bubble of sound than the Playbar.

The Arc claims to now use phase guide tech along with two upfiring drivers - so if they've done the job correctly the Arc should create a much bigger soundstage and the listener should get more sound on the sides and sound overhead.

My only concern with sound quality is that the drivers have been downsized - they had to do this because they fit in more speakers into nearly the same size as before. But with tuning and I've got a sub it may not make that much difference. If you don't have a sub you may notice a bigger audio quality variance between the Arc and Playbar

the Arcs main selling point is directional sound - so it's possible the Playbar will have the edge with absolute music quality while the Arc has the edge for home theatre - it's pretty telling that Sonos has said the Playbar is not a legacy product it will be sold alongside the Arc so it would seem they are two seperate products and the Arc is not a replacement
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Thank you that’s a good summary.

I would like Atmos, yes - I have the LG65C9 OLED. We watch more movies than gaming/music. For example, the other night we watched 1917 in pitch black with the sound turned up quite high - it was like being in the cinema. We also have the sub, and x2 One surrounds - the audio is fab. I would also like ApplePlay 2 built into the bar, although the TV has it, I would like it on the Playbar too. I would also like HDMI for ARC audio as currently using optical.

The question is whether I can justify he cost given I’ve o it had the current setup for 24 months...
 

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Change of tack slightly but what is the most cost effective way of getting into Sonos gear? I ultimately want a surround sound set up in my relatively small living room. As its not the biggest room in the world my wife wants a system that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb or have cables everywhere so despite the cost Sonos seems the way to go. It will be expensive but I want two rear speakers, a beam (as the room is small) and the sub as it can go anywhere. Im happy to get it bit by bit too. Is there a time when there are sales on? Will any prices change in light of the new soundbar? Is it like apple where you are just going to pay a premium and if you get 5% or 10% off you should jump on it?

Any advice gratefully accepted. Just don't want to spend money and find if I had waited I could have got a better deal. Im in no hurry and will buy it piece by piece anyway.
 

Chris344

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placeholder said:
Change of tack slightly but what is the most cost effective way of getting into Sonos gear? I ultimately want a surround sound set up in my relatively small living room. As its not the biggest room in the world my wife wants a system that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb or have cables everywhere so despite the cost Sonos seems the way to go. It will be expensive but I want two rear speakers, a beam (as the room is small) and the sub as it can go anywhere. Im happy to get it bit by bit too. Is there a time when there are sales on? Will any prices change in light of the new soundbar? Is it like apple where you are just going to pay a premium and if you get 5% or 10% off you should jump on it?

Any advice gratefully accepted. Just don't want to spend money and find if I had waited I could have got a better deal. Im in no hurry and will buy it piece by piece anyway.
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The price of Sonos gear doesn't tend to drop however, with the introduction of the Arc, you should some prices drop slightly on the Playbar. You can use cash back and discount from work portals for places like John Lewis/Curry's etc.

Buy used for great deals.
 

a1ex2001

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Chris344 said:
The price of Sonos gear doesn't tend to drop however, with the introduction of the Arc, you should some prices drop slightly on the Playbar. You can use cash back and discount from work portals for places like John Lewis/Curry's etc.

Buy used for great deals.
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Plenty of offers especially around Black Friday and Christmas with the beam regularly down to £350 and often £329. Second hand values are strong but you can save a bit and don’t rule out using the Ikea Sonos speakers.
 
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Scramz

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If anyone is after a discount I purchased a unidays Sonos code from eBay for £5, it knocked £119 off the bar. Preordered the arc for £679.
 

Simmz

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Let us know what it's like Scramz. I currently have the playbar and two play 1's but tend to really only watch movies with it rather than use for music. I've heard the arc does a much better job of clarity on voices, as with the playbar you can sometimes turn it up for speech but then all of a sudden something else kicks in and it's way too loud.

If atmos works pretty well on it, then I'll probably bite the bullet and sell my playbar and purchase it.
 

Blackhawk69

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Sonos have just released two versions of their controller app S1 for older devices, and S2 for new products released in 2020 (Arc, Sub Gen3, new Play 5). And it looks like you can't have any of the new products in the same group as older devices, or managed by one controller. You have to use S1 for older devices, and S2 for new devices. If I'd just bought any new devices to add to my setup I'd be royally ****** about that! This seems crazy as I bet many people are like me, and buy new devices over time to add to my setup.
 

Minstadave

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Blackhawk69 said:
Sonos have just released two versions of their controller app S1 for older devices, and S2 for new products released in 2020 (Arc, Sub Gen3, new Play 5). And it looks like you can't have any of the new products in the same group as older devices, or managed by one controller. You have to use S1 for older devices, and S2 for new devices. If I'd just bought any new devices to add to my setup I'd be royally ****** about that! This seems crazy as I bet many people are like me, and buy new devices over time to add to my setup.
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Yeah its an absolute mess to be honest. I can't buy and Arc because I've got Play:5s which aren't S2 compatible and I'm not replacing my two perfectly functional Play:5s so I can upgrade to S2.

Yes I could run an S1 network with my Play:5s and everything else on S2 but that ruins the elegance of the whole Sonos premise.

Sonos is going to have to sort this if they want to sell existing customers new stuff.
 

Minstadave

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Blackhawk69 said:
And to make it worse, they state that the S1 app won't get any feature updates, only security updates.
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With their initial announcement Sonos said it was likely the functionality of S1 devices would slowly decline as services would get updated for new functionality and may break S1 support. They backpeddled on this but I've not seen anything concrete to say what the future is for S1 devices.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/23/sonos-ceo-apologizes-says-old-speakers-will-still-get-bug-fixes.html

It seems nonsense that they can't integrate S1 devices into the S2 client, even in a limited fashion. Just comes across as forced obsolescence to drive sales. The smart speaker market is getting pretty competitive, seems a terrible move to put loyal customers off buying new kit.

Even if I upgrade my two Play:5s at about £800 so I can upgrade to S2 and add an Arc there's nothing to suggest my Play:1s won't get EOL'd in a few years, forcing another round of upgrades.
 

Basher

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Blackhawk69 said:
Sonos have just released two versions of their controller app S1 for older devices, and S2 for new products released in 2020 (Arc, Sub Gen3, new Play 5). And it looks like you can't have any of the new products in the same group as older devices, or managed by one controller. You have to use S1 for older devices, and S2 for new devices. If I'd just bought any new devices to add to my setup I'd be royally ****** about that! This seems crazy as I bet many people are like me, and buy new devices over time to add to my setup.
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It's been known for a long while but not ideal I agree. What do they do, though? From my understanding a lot of the old devices don't have the HW requirements to support S2.
 

bazzabear

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I could be wrong, but I think you can continue using S1 even if you buy brand new SONOS equipment - you just won't necessarily get the same level of functionality as if you were using S2.

A related question - they offered a trade in deal where you could get 30% off new SONOS stuff by 'recycling' your old SONOS stuff (which basically meant making it unusable). They got a lot of grief about that, and they have quietly changed it so you don't have to lunch the old stuff, meaning it can be given to charity or sold on.

But what's to stop someone getting the 30% discount off the new item, and simply keeping the old item still?
 

Minstadave

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bazzabear said:
I could be wrong, but I think you can continue using S1 even if you buy brand new SONOS equipment - you just won't necessarily get the same level of functionality as if you were using S2.

A related question - they offered a trade in deal where you could get 30% off new SONOS stuff by 'recycling' your old SONOS stuff (which basically meant making it unusable). They got a lot of grief about that, and they have quietly changed it so you don't have to lunch the old stuff, meaning it can be given to charity or sold on.

But what's to stop someone getting the 30% discount off the new item, and simply keeping the old item still?
Click to expand...

You can have S1 and S2 networks in the same house but I don't think the networks talk to each other, so the multiroom aspect doesn't work very well.
 
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