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I am sincerely curious and maybe a Sonos owner can offer some feedback. what does Sonos offer me now that a streaming music provider, a smart phone and a portab

I am sincerely curious and maybe a Sonos owner can offer some feedback. what does Sonos offer me now that a streaming music provider, a smart phone and a portable bluetooth speaker doesn't? I understand that Sonos can stream to multiple "zones" simultaneously but besides the occasion of a house party how often is this necessary? This news to me is just another reason for me to never buy one.

pantsofhonking 9y ago
Sonos keeps playing if your phone moves which is a pretty huge plus, especially if you know people and don't lead a life of solitude. Their hardware also has a wealth of hardware features like analog and digital inputs, zero-delay input monitoring which makes them suitable as TV or computer speakers, the ability to monitor those inputs from any zone, even if you aren't listening to them on the physically attached player, phase-locked multichannel playback, a zero-config self-extending wireless network, multiuser queue management, and twelve years of flawless software support (so far). The idea that you get the same thing from a raspberry pi, an android, and some hacks is strictly for those valuing their own time at zero.
rconti 9y ago
So, even in a 1100sqft house, I consider the multiple-zone streaming to be of great utility. In fact, I almost NEVER use my Sonos setup without all 5 speakers going. Yes, you can always blast the audio in one room in order to hear it well in others, but it's quite nice to be able to listen at a comfortable volume in all rooms. It allows one person in the house to call out to another and still be heard, for example. I have it set to wake me to the local streaming radio, so that's a nice feature, but of course it could be replicated. I can throw my phone into a passing cement mixer and the music keeps playing in the house, and then I can open the controller on my laptop and hit "next track". In this way it's fairly analogous to the Spotify controller where I can change the music from any device in the house, but the "playing" happens on the device itself; it's not actually streamed from my phone or computer. Also, until sometime in the past couple of years Bluetooth was godawful unusably unreliable. It's gotten REALLY good lately though, and suddenly I love it.
sgustard 9y ago
Top things for me are: Excellent sound quality. The fact that Sonos has its own network means I can queue up internet radio or a playlist and it no longer needs to communicate with the phone to continue streaming all day. I take advantage of the multi-room support daily outside the context of a house party, simply so my music follows me from room to room. I do agree the privacy policy is a downer but am pretty sure your smart phone is subject to the same risk.

pantsofhonking 9y ago

Sonos keeps playing if your phone moves which is a pretty huge plus, especially if you know people and don't lead a life of solitude. Their hardware also has a wealth of hardware features like analog and digital inputs, zero-delay input monitoring which makes them suitable as TV or computer speakers, the ability to monitor those inputs from any zone, even if you aren't listening to them on the physically attached player, phase-locked multichannel playback, a zero-config self-extending wireless network, multiuser queue management, and twelve years of flawless software support (so far). The idea that you get the same thing from a raspberry pi, an android, and some hacks is strictly for those valuing their own time at zero.

rconti 9y ago

So, even in a 1100sqft house, I consider the multiple-zone streaming to be of great utility. In fact, I almost NEVER use my Sonos setup without all 5 speakers going. Yes, you can always blast the audio in one room in order to hear it well in others, but it's quite nice to be able to listen at a comfortable volume in all rooms. It allows one person in the house to call out to another and still be heard, for example. I have it set to wake me to the local streaming radio, so that's a nice feature, but of course it could be replicated. I can throw my phone into a passing cement mixer and the music keeps playing in the house, and then I can open the controller on my laptop and hit "next track". In this way it's fairly analogous to the Spotify controller where I can change the music from any device in the house, but the "playing" happens on the device itself; it's not actually streamed from my phone or computer. Also, until sometime in the past couple of years Bluetooth was godawful unusably unreliable. It's gotten REALLY good lately though, and suddenly I love it.

sgustard 9y ago

Top things for me are: Excellent sound quality. The fact that Sonos has its own network means I can queue up internet radio or a playlist and it no longer needs to communicate with the phone to continue streaming all day. I take advantage of the multi-room support daily outside the context of a house party, simply so my music follows me from room to room. I do agree the privacy policy is a downer but am pretty sure your smart phone is subject to the same risk.