Sonos: We have seen the future, and it isn't us

Yah… I meant the latter.

But… My friend with Sonos considers himself an “audiophile”, whether or not that fits the prevailing definition.

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Interesting, thanks. I was ‘corrected’ on the sonos board when I stated the API was closed. I then questioned why it seemed so difficult for other systems to connect to it if it was open. Anyway, thanks.

I have several Sonos speakers and use their software almost daily. That said, its about freakin time that Sonos got off their ridiculous closed-system high-horse. I’m just shocked it took them this long to realize the folly of their ways.

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When we remodeled, I put high end speakers in most of the rooms, wired in the ceiling. I added a couple Play:1s to fill in the gaps, but couldn’t get behind adding another set of speakers in the rooms, just to get that level or remote control.

What I ended up doing was getting a Connect:amp and running my speaker bus into that. So now I have control over the house speakers, although I cannot break them out by room. For the vast majority of time, this works just fine. Usually, if I want music, it’s throughout the house, such as when I arrive home. But I use the Play:1 in the bathroom at night and in the morning, and as an alarm clock, so I don’t want the whole house full of music at that point. Same with the garage, the Play:1 works great when I’m out there tinkering, but mama can be inside listening to music throughout the house…or not.

Anyway, in that regard, the Connect:amp has worked well for us.

The genius in the Sonos system is the tight integration of all the music sources I care about into one place, so I can have a playlist that pulls from a several different streaming services. Sonos flattens the somewhat haphazard landscape of streaming services that I use and presents it all in one nice mobile app, and then makes it easy to send that to devices around my house.

There is nothing else quite like it on the market. It’s overpriced, it’s irritatingly hard to integrate, and their home theater solutions are hilariously lacking in advanced audio features. Still, the user experience just cannot be touched, particularly if your audio comes from more than just one service.

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Echo could do most of that and more with a software push if that’s what Amazon wants the product to become. I wonder is that is part of their plans.

Not sure it’s that easy … The Echo speakers are still a consider drop in quality and Sonos also has a proprietary audio sync technology (over private network…).

But… Yes, it’s far past time Sonos got a substantial competitor, and it’s an interesting surprise that it’s coming from Amazon in the form of… Echo & family.

I think that it is certainly a possibility, which makes it much tougher to justify spending the money on something else as I continue to collects echos

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Have you had a chance to test plugging the Dot into your Play:5? I’m curious if there’s any kind of issue with having it permanently plugged in… Does it mess up playing music through the Sonos app when you try to engage Alexa (as I think Sonos auto-switches inputs in this case)?

I already have Dot & Play:1, and am considering either expanding my Sonos collection via Sonos connect(s)/etc to the rest of the house or hacking together a whole house system as others have done and selling my Play:1.

Yes a while ago. I haven’t heard if anyone has has better results since:

And it’s official: Sonos will have an echo integration in 2017.

Actually all Sonos devices have mics, and they use them for the room calibration and syncing feature for stereo pair joining and surround sound simulation.

.40 off of its year high and 3 bucks off its 1 year low is crashing?

Control4 and Sonos announced a partnership to natively integrate. Sonos and Amazon announce a partnership to voice control sonos.

These are huge moves.

For those audiphiles (myself included) its time to realize the rest of the world doesn’t care about uncompressed tube amped analog ogg vorbis files mastered from original analog multitrack recordings…

It’s a digital world, where every song, every broadcast, anything is available at the user’s request. The real battle now is making it seamless, easy and affordable for all.

Putting 1 or 2 sonos play 1’s in as a stereo pair is more sound than most people can even handle in a single room.

Sonos can also do full surround, a decent soundbar, and even a wireless subwoofer. Sure, they aren’t the best speakers in the world, but it “Just Works” and passes my parent and guest needs.

The days of dropping a needle are over. Integrated, easy to use whole home audio is the goal, adding alexa and automation to this is already possible and it will only get better.

By the way, the big rumor was that Sonos was being acquired by Savant, no doubt that deal fell through, and I assume there are no other players (or we are in the cooling off, NDA phase pre acquisition…)

Anything can be used via the Sonos connect as well, I have my dot running through my entire house via a sonos connect.

There are even some really cool in wall and in ceiling options for using Sonos that way, even some cool ways to power them, shown at CEDIA this year.

$11.80 now vs $27.80 in 2014. That’s a plummet.

yeah, but that was cashing out from IPO, nothing to do with the tech. Control4 is up from a year low of 8 to 11, that’s a pretty good year for them these days.

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Noooooooooooooooo!!! :cry:

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We’ve gone from dropping the needle, to dropping the bass :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Yup. Dropping the highs is next, but with my current hearing, that was gone some time ago :disappointed:

I have a friend that controls their Control 4 with echo. It started very limited but has expanded quickly and is now pretty useful I’’ not sure if the interface is by Control 4 or a 3rd party affiliate. You’re right though. Proprietary systems that don’t play well with others is a dead end.

Here endth the lesson

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@Ben or @Slagle is there any comment on continued ST and Sonos integration? I’ve been trying to solve some Sonos integration problems and can’t find any recent communications. Or is it shelved because of Samsung’s Radiant hardware?