Warning: avoid purchasing Sonos

[castalla]

Best wishes for your recovery!

 

[Jls]

I’ll just say that I’m rather old, and I’m putting together a system for people having no interest or aptitude for anything technical.

I will not be around to troubleshoot.

I’m old enough to remember when a Fisher console was considered good.

The digital era has made the storage and retrieval of music independent of cost, and no one seems to care anymore about finding the best amp or speaker. My family does notice that my vintage stuff sounds better than anything else they hear, but they don’t deeply care.

There are weird exceptions. I gave my daughter a vintage Thorens turntable, and she unexpectedly took it seriously. She has taught her children to respect it and use it carefully. But when the stylus needs replacing she’ll be lost. Maybe.

What most care about is being able to find and play the music they want. And if something breaks, they’ll want to buy a plug and play replacement. They do not want to fiddle with multiple apps or customized hardware.

 

[d6jg]

I’ll just say that I’m rather old, and I’m putting together a system for people having no interest or aptitude for anything technical.

I will not be around to troubleshoot.

I’m old enough to remember when a Fisher console was considered good.

The digital era has made the storage and retrieval of music independent of cost, and no one seems to care anymore about finding the best amp or speaker. My family does notice that my vintage stuff sounds better than anything else they hear, but they don’t deeply care.

There are weird exceptions. I gave my daughter a vintage Thorens turntable, and she unexpectedly took it seriously. She has taught her children to respect it and use it carefully. But when the stylus needs replacing she’ll be lost. Maybe.

What most care about is being able to find and play the music they want. And if something breaks, they’ll want to buy a plug and play replacement. They do not want to fiddle with multiple apps or customized hardware.

You hit the nail squarely on the head.
The problem is that no-one has developed a truly acceptable and universal plug and play system. The cynics amongst us may think it is not to the maunfacturers' fiscal advantage to do so.

 

[Jls]

You hit the nail squarely on the head.
The problem is that no-one has developed a truly acceptable and universal plug and play system. The cynics amongst us may think it is not to the maunfacturers' fiscal advantage to do so.

The might think that , but patents expire, and rifts between Columbia and RCA get paved over by mutually lucrative sharing agreements. Look at how many different codecs are supported. How many WiFi connection protocols are supported simultaneously.

Did anybody notice that WIIM and SONOS are the same upside down?

Sonos patents will eventually expire, and if they aren’t stupid, they will license whatever is necessary to allow competitors to join the ecosystem. Then we can have boxes in every price range that work together.

We’ve had this with every other audio component for 70 years.

 

[slartibartfast]

I’ll just say that I’m rather old, and I’m putting together a system for people having no interest or aptitude for anything technical.

I will not be around to troubleshoot.

I’m old enough to remember when a Fisher console was considered good.

The digital era has made the storage and retrieval of music independent of cost, and no one seems to care anymore about finding the best amp or speaker. My family does notice that my vintage stuff sounds better than anything else they hear, but they don’t deeply care.

There are weird exceptions. I gave my daughter a vintage Thorens turntable, and she unexpectedly took it seriously. She has taught her children to respect it and use it carefully. But when the stylus needs replacing she’ll be lost. Maybe.

What most care about is being able to find and play the music they want. And if something breaks, they’ll want to buy a plug and play replacement. They do not want to fiddle with multiple apps or customized hardware.

Yup back in the 70s and 80s everyone had a Hifi. Now they have a smart speaker. Result is the few remaining manufacturers charge a fortune. Until companies like WiiM came along anyway.

 

[castalla]

The might think that , but patents expire, and rifts between Columbia and RCA get paved over by mutually lucrative sharing agreements. Look at how many different codecs are supported. How many WiFi connection protocols are supported simultaneously.

Did anybody notice that WIIM and SONOS are the same upside down?

Sonos patents will eventually expire, and if they aren’t stupid, they will license whatever is necessary to allow competitors to join the ecosystem. Then we can have boxes in every price range that work together.

We’ve had this with every other audio component for 70 years.

Roon (expensive) and Lyrion (free) use heterogeneous endpoints (there's a phrase you never thought you'd ever hear on an audio forum) successfully.
Sonos has made 2 major errors over the years - failing to offer Chromecast and Bluetooth connectivity.

 

[Jls]

Roon (expensive) and Lyrion (free) use heterogeneous endpoints (there's a phrase you never thought you'd ever hear on an audio forum) successfully.
Sonos has made 2 major errors over the years - failing to offer Chromecast and Bluetooth connectivity.

Only two? My prediction, which is near worthless, is that Sonos will license its connection technology, and eventually you will be able to buy gear with anything you want. It’s mostly software.

 

[jfbuk]

Sonos will license its connection technology,

There is already a licensable Sonos API and partner program which some OEMs use

Connected Home

If you don't own or serve content, but want to use your hardware or app to control Sonos speakers, follow the steps below to get started with the Sonos platform.PlanLook through our sound experience guidelines. We’ve spent years thinking about how people enjoy sound in the home. These guidelines...

docs.sonos.com

 

[castalla]

There is already a licensable Sonos API and partner program which some OEMs use

Connected Home

If you don't own or serve content, but want to use your hardware or app to control Sonos speakers, follow the steps below to get started with the Sonos platform.PlanLook through our sound experience guidelines. We’ve spent years thinking about how people enjoy sound in the home. These guidelines...

docs.sonos.com

Yes, and some implementations of services are horrendous - Spotify and BBC Sounds are awful - just one endless scrolling page.

 

[dtc]

Roon (expensive) and Lyrion (free) use heterogeneous endpoints (there's a phrase you never thought you'd ever hear on an audio forum) successfully.
Sonos has made 2 major errors over the years - failing to offer Chromecast and Bluetooth connectivity.

Sonos does not officially support DLNA, but I find that I can connect to their speakers with DLNA pretty well.

Adding Chromecast speakers to a Sonos system will break the synchronous playback.

 

[harkpabst]

I somehow lost track which direction this thread is going. And why ...

 

[simbun]

Sonos does not officially support DLNA, but I find that I can connect to their speakers with DLNA pretty well.

Pretty well! I've had Play 1s for over a decade and they've been faultless in a UPnP setup. They pass my 5 second gapless track test
A few weeks ago was that first time that I'd spent any amount of time in the Sonos app, and that was just to see the unmitigated disaster of the new app.

 

[Jls]

I somehow lost track which direction this thread is going. And why ...

I assume people like Sonos but have fallen out of love recently.

 

[Jls]

Sonos does not officially support DLNA, but I find that I can connect to their speakers with DLNA pretty well.

Adding Chromecast speakers to a Sonos system will break the synchronous playback.

Which is the only thing they do better than almost everybody. I’ve looked and looked, and even techies find it difficult to achieve multi room with an interface non techies can use.

 

[hoohoohoo]

I somehow lost track which direction this thread is going. And why ...

@Brantome

 

[pieterv1]

I can’t get Plex to work at all. It made a hash of my music. All my music was organized and tagged in iTunes, and Plex ignores my organization. I don’t know what it thinks it’s doing, but it’s unusable.

It’s not complicated. Album and track. Plex managed to ignore my album art, ignore album organization. Ad provide no access to folders.

I run the exact same setup: I use Apple Music on my Mac to store/organise all my local music. The library itself is stored on my NAS. The same NAS is also running Plex server, which indexes the Apple Music library and some other folders. All music from my Apple Music library shows up nicely in Plex & Plexamp. Even albums which are still incorrectly tagged in Apple Music, are indexed & matched correctly by Plex in most cases.

 

[Jls]

I run the exact same setup: I use Apple Music on my Mac to store/organise all my local music. The library itself is stored on my NAS. The same NAS is also running Plex server, which indexes the Apple Music library and some other folders. All music from my Apple Music library shows up nicely in Plex & Plexamp. Even albums which are still incorrectly tagged in Apple Music, are indexed & matched correctly by Plex in most cases.

I got the Plex server to index my files, but I had to turn off all the indexing defaults. I’m sure that Plex exists because 95 percent of people do not have classical music. Album/artist are not important. It’s composer/work. And, it mostly ignored my album art, even though I told it to use mine.

An LP or CD can have multiple composers and works. Or. A single work can span multiple Disks.

Organizing by CD/track number is okay, but the only way to make that work is to organize into folders. This is partly because there is no standardization for CD/album names. Some have non-English names, and some databases translate the names.

Many CD do not have short names. The name on the jacket is a list of works and conductors.

I hope this sheds some light on the problem.