* Official SONOS Thread *

mattyg · 30 Jun 2018 at 11:24

I'm a massive fan of Sonos and have it pumped all through my house with connects. connect amps, Play 1's and play 5's... But I wouldn't touch their soundbars.

I also wouldn't use Sonos as a HIFI as such.. Its there for background music and at parties or pumping football/F1 all round the house but If I want to listen to mozart die zauberflöte I'd pick something else to listen on.

bfar · 30 Jun 2018 at 14:54

Minstadave said:
Well not really because all but one of the reviews you posted did find it less impressive than Whathifi but none found it awful. There’s no million miles about it. That’s the case.

My point was that the Whathifi review should be considered somewhat suspect. The product is more than OK but not normally what Sonos achieve sonically.

Also it’s not being reviewed at £600 that the predecessors cost. £400 buys a lot of Soundbar and the Beam is a bit underwhelming

Where are you getting that from? The press is overwhelmingly positive, and not one of the reviews has called the product underwhelming, quite the contrary!!!

And Whathifi is a credible site. More credible than you or me, at any rate.

Minstadave · 30 Jun 2018 at 15:10

bfar said:
Where are you getting that from? The press is overwhelmingly positive, and not one of the reviews has called the product underwhelming, quite the contrary!!!

And Whathifi is a credible site. More credible than you or me, at any rate.

It is an opinion, I’ve read the reviews and for a Sonos product the reviews, to me, are underwhelming.

The press is good, this is not a bad product, but not overwhelming positive. This is unusual for a Sonos product - and normally the main criticism is price, not sound quality, which is where the Beam is falling down consistently.

Whathifi is credible in your opinion, which you’re welcome to, but not shared by many.

bfar · 30 Jun 2018 at 15:14

mattyg said:
I also would use Sonos as a HIFI as such.. Its there for background music and at parties or pumping football/F1 all round the house but If I want to listen to mozart die zauberflöte I'd pick something else to listen on.

Definitely a lifestyle product, but even their cheapest stuff is capable, and the ability to scale your setup over time is really cool.

mattyg · 30 Jun 2018 at 16:01

bfar said:
Definitely a lifestyle product, but even their cheapest stuff is capable, and the ability to scale your setup over time is really cool.

I've not heard a pair of new Play 5's yet but I believe they are quite a step up form the old ones

Minstadave · 30 Jun 2018 at 16:14

mattyg said:
I've not heard a pair of new Play 5's yet but I believe they are quite a step up form the old ones

I’ve got a couple of the old 5s and would love to hear the new one but waiting for the Alexa integration update.

robfosters · 30 Jun 2018 at 17:48

Do they sell any SONOS that give off electric shocks when handled?

My brother thinks it’s acceptable to help himself to mine whenever he fancies it :mad:

bazzabear · 30 Jun 2018 at 21:22

Minstadave said:
To play from an external drive you’d be looking at one with DLNA functionality or a NAS type device. Sonos supports that fine.

Google music does let you upload all your music but I think you need a paid subscription. I’d check though I’ve not used it.

Honestly I’d just get a cheap Deezer/Spotify collection but I don’t have a large collection of music digitally.

Alarm clock does indeed work with Sonos but it’s basic.

Thanks! For the alarm, all I really want is for it to wake me with my music on random.

Regarding Google Music, I did a search and found that my own Google Music account is still in place despite not having used it for years (and has been continuing to upload my newly purchased music, despite me being on a different computer now to when I had that account set-up)! And their FAQ says:
Add your personal collection
You can store up to 50,000 of your songs for free.

So looks like as Sonos can access that, I'll be able to play my own music through that source and avoid having to set up a NAS for this purpose. No idea what bitrate Google puts in it's cloud though, so probably if the computer is switched on, better using that as the source?

bfar · 30 Jun 2018 at 21:32

Minstadave said:
sound quality, which is where the Beam is falling down consistently.

Seriously dude? You must be reading a different version of the internet than me! All of the reviews I've read have praised the sound quality. The only criticism I've read is that it's understandibly not as full as their larger and much more expensive home cinema options - that's to be expected given the completely different price bracket and form factor.

a1ex2001 · 1 Jul 2018 at 06:57

bfar said:
Seriously dude? You must be reading a different version of the internet than me! All of the reviews I've read have praised the sound quality. The only criticism I've read is that it's understandibly not as full as their larger and much more expensive home cinema options - that's to be expected given the completely different price bracket and form factor.

Sadly some people will not be satisfied unless it says Atmos and dts-hd on it! I get the impression some people wouldn't care if it sounded exactly the same as long as it was decoding hi def audio then it would suddenly be a better product!

I'm seriously considering one as I have been enduring the built in speakers on my tv since my htib broke down last year. If you knock the cost of a play 3 off the price (it would free up the play 3 in my living room for use elsewhere.) then it is a suddenly an even more interesting product!

bfar · 1 Jul 2018 at 10:47

a1ex2001 said:
Sadly some people will not be satisfied unless it says Atmos and dts-hd on it! I get the impression some people wouldn't care if it sounded exactly the same as long as it was decoding hi def audio then it would suddenly be a better product!

I'm seriously considering one as I have been enduring the built in speakers on my tv since my htib broke down last year. If you knock the cost of a play 3 off the price (it would free up the play 3 in my living room for use elsewhere.) then it is a suddenly an even more interesting product!

Right!

Same for me - I've two Play 1s in the back of the living room already. A Beam suddenly offers very passable 5.0 with no wires, no remotes and no mess. I stopped using full home cinema systems a few years ago - too much hassle for the time being.

I get the DTS complaint. Especially now that they've gone to hdmi, Sonos are running out of excuses. But Atmos on a soundbar with no upfiring speakers? Harder to justify. My blu rays all get encoded for Plex the day they're bought, so it's not an issue for me generally and I have a PS4 and a sony TV that passes 5.1 around without issue.

ChrisD. · 1 Jul 2018 at 11:12

mattyg said:
I've not heard a pair of new Play 5's yet but I believe they are quite a step up form the old ones

I had the old and now have the new. The new one is considerably better than the old one.

chroniclard · 1 Jul 2018 at 11:16

Play 1 keeps dropping off the wifi after a few minutes of playing music, starts flashing white, then generally reconnects again. Anyone had that before?

Frijj · 1 Jul 2018 at 11:42

Since installing the latest update my Sub seems to drop on and off it's noticable when listening to Spotify

chroniclard · 1 Jul 2018 at 11:43

Play Bar is fine, just the Play 1, think they kids dropped it........

mattyg · 1 Jul 2018 at 16:05

ChrisD. said:
I had the old and now have the new. The new one is considerably better than the old one.

My wallet thanks you......lol

kinger8938 · 2 Jul 2018 at 21:07

Am now a Sonos owner

picked up a Sonos One yesterday and so far I am impressed! Set it all up with the Sonos app on my android phone only to find the trueplay function is exclusive to ios devices. Is that essential? I do have an iPad and could try it if it's worth it?

billystanton · 2 Jul 2018 at 23:06

I’ve heard that trueplay makes all the difference, give it a shot and if it’s no better than you can disable it

bfar · 3 Jul 2018 at 22:00

kinger8938 said:
Am now a Sonos owner picked up a Sonos One yesterday and so far I am impressed! Set it all up with the Sonos app on my android phone only to find the trueplay function is exclusive to ios devices. Is that essential? I do have an iPad and could try it if it's worth it?

Our 5 year old iPad did the job

Minstadave · 3 Jul 2018 at 22:04

kinger8938 said:
Am now a Sonos owner picked up a Sonos One yesterday and so far I am impressed! Set it all up with the Sonos app on my android phone only to find the trueplay function is exclusive to ios devices. Is that essential? I do have an iPad and could try it if it's worth it?

Trueplay makes a pretty significant difference. You only need to tune it once so just borrow an iPhone if your iPad doesn't work. Only takes a couple of minutes to do.

*** Official SONOS Thread ***

* Official SONOS Thread *