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Spot on take. Having a completely self-contained smart device has advantages in narrow cases, like portability. Otherwise, if you're doing home audio, there's n

Spot on take. Having a completely self-contained smart device has advantages in narrow cases, like portability. Otherwise, if you're doing home audio, there's no good reason to have in all in one box. Make the system modular and thus flexibily upgradable.

pwthornton 7y ago
This is just false. Any solution that requires receiver/amp/combo and wires is going to be limited where you can deploy it. Before wireless audio like Sonos, most people have a stereo in one room in the house. Now many people have speakers in almost every room in the house. I got rid of my Onkyo receiver and JBL studio series to go with Sonos because it is a better listening experience in the real-world. Audio being synced across your house is the real deal.
- hoistbypetard 7y ago
  Having scattered several of the ikea sonos-compatible speakers around my house, I appreciate that perspective. But I am a little concerned that when I move to the new iDroid Megapixel XXXL 3000 in late 2025, I'll have to replace them all if I want to be able to send audio from my phone to the speakers. When having the sync across the whole house is the main reason you like the setup, it's even more galling to need to replace them all. I wish (and will be watching to see if they do, before I add any more speakers to their system) they'd come up with an upgrade path. It'd seem like a smart thing for them to do. Surely they could come up with some kind of bridge gadget you could connect to your network between the old and new for the cost of about one speaker. That'd spare them having people angrily leave their ecosystem because, if you need to do 5 rooms at once anyway, you might as well shop around.
- lowbloodsugar 7y ago
  My dad had a stereo system to die for, but he also had Sonos, because he wanted to listen to music everywhere in the house. For a while Sonos was the only game in town. They are no longer. The iPhone makes a great controller. Spotify and Tidal mean we don't need a local file store. Speakers from Bluesound, Amazon, Google and Apple compete at various price points at the low end. If you do want to spend on a local controller, then Roon, a spin-off of ultra-audiophile Meridian, has a better experience than Sonos, and is supported by brands like Meridian, Naim, Nad, Trinnov and $100 hifiberries. I have Mission speakers in the bedroom. Meridian speakers and a hifiberry in the lounge. A 7.1 system with another hifiberry in the TV room. Bluesounds in the kitchen and dining room. And the bluesounds have battery packs, so I can carry them into the garden if it will ever stop raining. With Roon, they all play the same music in perfect sync. A new "remote" cost me $49 for a 7" Amazon tablet, but I can also use the phone in my pocket, or the iPad upstairs. So Sonos is competing with Echo Studios, Bluesounds, Apple and Google, at the low end, and it's being beaten by a pure software company who is integrating with audiophile kit at the high end. That software company charges a subscription. It's not relying on hardware sales, just as those sales are getting killed by cheap competitors. Meanwhile they've got legacy kit. IIRC the original stuff set up its own wifi network that it controlled in a proprietary fashion. Nowadays, competing devices just work on whatever you wifi you got, and I assume Sonos' newer devices do too. That can't be fun to sort out, hence the "two networks" solution. To be competitive, they have to cut the old stuff loose.
ryandrake 7y ago
Yup. A speaker should have exactly two interfaces to the outside world: the red wire and the black wire. Everything else is a separate component.
Slimbo 7y ago
We do (or did) have modular options. The Chromecast audio was almost perfect in this regard, a $25 dongle that could be added to any amp/speaker setup and do all the 'smart' you needed including multiroom. Google have pulled it though, presumably the margins aren't there for $25 dongles vs $150 integrated devices. Given nobody else has stepped in to fill the void left by chromecast audio, I'm guessing it just isn't commercially viable.
- mrobins 7y ago
  Same with Airport Express which had a killer side-feature of a AirPlay-able line out. When mine goes I’ll be searching eBay for another one.

pwthornton 7y ago

This is just false. Any solution that requires receiver/amp/combo and wires is going to be limited where you can deploy it. Before wireless audio like Sonos, most people have a stereo in one room in the house. Now many people have speakers in almost every room in the house. I got rid of my Onkyo receiver and JBL studio series to go with Sonos because it is a better listening experience in the real-world. Audio being synced across your house is the real deal.

hoistbypetard 7y ago
Having scattered several of the ikea sonos-compatible speakers around my house, I appreciate that perspective. But I am a little concerned that when I move to the new iDroid Megapixel XXXL 3000 in late 2025, I'll have to replace them all if I want to be able to send audio from my phone to the speakers. When having the sync across the whole house is the main reason you like the setup, it's even more galling to need to replace them all. I wish (and will be watching to see if they do, before I add any more speakers to their system) they'd come up with an upgrade path. It'd seem like a smart thing for them to do. Surely they could come up with some kind of bridge gadget you could connect to your network between the old and new for the cost of about one speaker. That'd spare them having people angrily leave their ecosystem because, if you need to do 5 rooms at once anyway, you might as well shop around.
lowbloodsugar 7y ago
My dad had a stereo system to die for, but he also had Sonos, because he wanted to listen to music everywhere in the house. For a while Sonos was the only game in town. They are no longer. The iPhone makes a great controller. Spotify and Tidal mean we don't need a local file store. Speakers from Bluesound, Amazon, Google and Apple compete at various price points at the low end. If you do want to spend on a local controller, then Roon, a spin-off of ultra-audiophile Meridian, has a better experience than Sonos, and is supported by brands like Meridian, Naim, Nad, Trinnov and $100 hifiberries. I have Mission speakers in the bedroom. Meridian speakers and a hifiberry in the lounge. A 7.1 system with another hifiberry in the TV room. Bluesounds in the kitchen and dining room. And the bluesounds have battery packs, so I can carry them into the garden if it will ever stop raining. With Roon, they all play the same music in perfect sync. A new "remote" cost me $49 for a 7" Amazon tablet, but I can also use the phone in my pocket, or the iPad upstairs. So Sonos is competing with Echo Studios, Bluesounds, Apple and Google, at the low end, and it's being beaten by a pure software company who is integrating with audiophile kit at the high end. That software company charges a subscription. It's not relying on hardware sales, just as those sales are getting killed by cheap competitors. Meanwhile they've got legacy kit. IIRC the original stuff set up its own wifi network that it controlled in a proprietary fashion. Nowadays, competing devices just work on whatever you wifi you got, and I assume Sonos' newer devices do too. That can't be fun to sort out, hence the "two networks" solution. To be competitive, they have to cut the old stuff loose.

ryandrake 7y ago

Yup. A speaker should have exactly two interfaces to the outside world: the red wire and the black wire. Everything else is a separate component.

Slimbo 7y ago

We do (or did) have modular options. The Chromecast audio was almost perfect in this regard, a $25 dongle that could be added to any amp/speaker setup and do all the 'smart' you needed including multiroom. Google have pulled it though, presumably the margins aren't there for $25 dongles vs $150 integrated devices. Given nobody else has stepped in to fill the void left by chromecast audio, I'm guessing it just isn't commercially viable.

mrobins 7y ago
Same with Airport Express which had a killer side-feature of a AirPlay-able line out. When mine goes I’ll be searching eBay for another one.