*** Official SONOS Thread ***

Amp34 said:
Out of interest, how do you connect chromecast to multiple speakers in multiple rooms, and manage playing different songs/playlists on each and/or then merge rooms to play the same music on the fly?
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you can create groups of chromecast audios and then cast to the group. I guess you would have to create enough groups to cover all possibly combinations then just cast to whatever group you want - don't think you can cast to more than one group from one device at the moment.
 
snow patrol said:
got a couple of play 1's. Just started getting into spotify as well - however, i'm utterly dismayed to find that i can't 'cast' to my sonos directly from the spotify app.

Instead I have to use the spotify tab of the sonos app..and the sonos app doesn't let me browse by artist!!

This has put a major bump in my musical road, The only work around i have is to manually click 'save' on every ALBUM in my spotify saved artists. Then in the sonos app i can view by album but they are at least ordered artist by artist.

Is this some kind of licensing issue? I cannot understand why this feature isn't implemented.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but you can certainly search by artist on the Spotify tab. I find that is good enough.
 
snow patrol said:
got a couple of play 1's. Just started getting into spotify as well - however, i'm utterly dismayed to find that i can't 'cast' to my sonos directly from the spotify app.

Instead I have to use the spotify tab of the sonos app..and the sonos app doesn't let me browse by artist!!

This has put a major bump in my musical road, The only work around i have is to manually click 'save' on every ALBUM in my spotify saved artists. Then in the sonos app i can view by album but they are at least ordered artist by artist.

Is this some kind of licensing issue? I cannot understand why this feature isn't implemented.
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I agree with this. Would be far more intuitive to use the more feature packed native apps rather than the dumbed down Sonos app integration. It's pretty much the same for all music apps.

Although I'm not a Spotify user, I think the basics like searching through artists are there, somewhere.
 
Banzai_Joe said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but you can certainly search by artist on the Spotify tab. I find that is good enough.
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i can search by artist, but i can't see a list of all the artists. For years this has been the way i have listened to and browsed music and i'm pretty gutted that i can't do it on this so called state of the art sonos system.
 
james.miller said:
you can create groups of chromecast audios and then cast to the group. I guess you would have to create enough groups to cover all possibly combinations then just cast to whatever group you want - don't think you can cast to more than one group from one device at the moment.
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So if you were listening to music in the living room and kitchen, and then wanted to change the music in the dining room from another song to what you are listening to in the kitchen, without interruption could you?

It sounds like chromecast doesn't have many of the options Sonos is designed for, and why most people buy Sonos (and similar) systems for.
 
Amp34 said:
So if you were listening to music in the living room and kitchen, and then wanted to change the music in the dining room from another song to what you are listening to in the kitchen, without interruption could you?

It sounds like chromecast doesn't have many of the options Sonos is designed for, and why most people buy Sonos (and similar) systems for.
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You also can't listen to two different songs in two rooms at the same time from one Spotify account with CC. You can with Sonos. Lots of people seems to misunderstand how Sonos works - you don't stream from your device to it, you tell it what to stream and it does it itself.
 
"Buy a chrome cast its much cheaper" comes up in every thread about Sonos - usually ignoring the fact it is more limited and you need a separate stereo and all the wiring and space that entails.
 
Minstadave said:
"Buy a chrome cast its much cheaper" comes up in every thread about Sonos - usually ignoring the fact it is more limited and you need a separate stereo and all the wiring and space that entails.
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Yes but at least it sounds decent and saves you a fortune

Play 1 and 3's are hilariously bad
 
dmsims said:
Yes but at least it sounds decent and saves you a fortune

Play 1 and 3's are hilariously bad
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Nothing competes with Sonos for the ease and simplicity of what it does. Most people would agree that Play 1's (Play 3's not so much) are the best in the market for multi-room speaker systems. To say they are 'hilariously bad' is a bit strange, given all of the independent reviews they get.

If you want a no hassle, wire-free speaker system that just works, buy Sonos. If you want to potentially save a couple of quid and build it all yourself (with less features), but Chromecast.
 
dmsims said:
Yes but at least it sounds decent and saves you a fortune

Play 1 and 3's are hilariously bad
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In what way? The Play 3 I've never been that enamoured with but the Play 1 sounds excellent to my ears - and what are you comparing it to?

A Play 1 is £160 ish, so once you've bought a CC audio you've got £130 quid to spend which is going to get you what? You could probably get some Wharfdale 9s or similar and a cheap amp from RS but it's hardly compact or a slick setup.
 
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Amp34 said:
So if you were listening to music in the living room and kitchen, and then wanted to change the music in the dining room from another song to what you are listening to in the kitchen, without interruption could you?
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There's no facility for transferring or duplicating what's playing on other devices / groups, no. You're also still limited by the software like Basher said - spotify doesnt allow more than one song to be played at a time using the same account. google play music doesnt really like it, either. In both cases you would need multiple accounts to play multiple different streams.

It sounds like chromecast doesn't have many of the options Sonos is designed for, and why most people buy Sonos (and similar) systems for.
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No, CCs are much simpler devices aimed at a different market. In some cases they are a great low cost alternative to a sonos but if you make heavy use of simultaneous multi-room then chromecasts have their limitations.

Minstadave said:
"Buy a chrome cast its much cheaper" comes up in every thread about Sonos - usually ignoring the fact it is more limited and you need a separate stereo and all the wiring and space that entails.
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It's not really much of an issue. You can just plug a cc audio straight in to a pair of powered speakers; You don't need a separate amp or dac or anything else if you dont want to go down that route. I did for the kitchen, but only because i had the components to hand. £50 2nd hand denon amp, pair of mission m71i's and a chromecast all sitting on top of the kitchen units. All switched on and off via a single plug socket (wife friendly). I can control it from any phone / tablet / pc with google play audio, it sounds better than any sonos and its cheaper too. It has it's limitations but i've never needed to move the playing music from the kitchen to the livingroom, for example, so i've never had an issue with that.


It's perfectly reasonable to talk about chromecasts when discussing sonos and visa versa, as long as people are honest about the limitations and costs of both.
 
Bet those same reviewers think Beats sound good

If you are happy with lift type muzak then Sonos is fine (though how anyone can tolerate that one note boomy bass is beyond me)

even then there are much better/cheaper wireless speakers
 
dmsims said:
Bet those same reviewers think Beats sound good

If you are happy with lift type muzak then Sonos is fine (though how anyone can tolerate that one note boomy bass is beyond me)

even then there are much better/cheaper wireless speakers
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Do they? What Hi-Fi gives the Play 1 5 stars, they give Beats 2-3 stars ...

Can you direct us to these much cheaper and better multi-room systems that you're comparing Sonos to?
 
dmsims said:
Yes but at least it sounds decent and saves you a fortune

Play 1 and 3's are hilariously bad
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Compared to what? A dedicated amp and speaker set?

james.miller said:
It's perfectly reasonable to talk about chromecasts when discussing sonos and visa versa, as long as people are honest about the limitations and costs of both.
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Unfortunately most of the time people suggest Chromecast instead of Sonos they never mention the negatives, even when the system being looked at is multi room audio.
 
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Currently looking at 4 x Play 5s, connect Amp and sub for a restaurant install I'm helping some one with. Whats the sounds like compared to a Play 3?
 
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