3 ms·

What's odd to me is wireless and self-contained/smart as a selling feature. I know there's some appeal in some of the integration and multi-room features, but

by hakfoo 6y ago

What's odd to me is wireless and self-contained/smart as a selling feature. I know there's some appeal in some of the integration and multi-room features, but there are plenty of platforms offering those features in a wired format with far more flexibility and choice. I feel like even if I had an infinite budget, something like Sonos doesn't feel like a great solution. The higher-end you're going on audio, the more static things become. Yeah, you might take your iPhone dock or Bluetooth speaker and move it around, but if you spend $1000 on speakers (or 10k on building a listening room), you're gonna want the speakers in the sweet spot and left there. If I'm working with that constraints, why is having a wireless smart speaker I have to tether to a phone or hub any better than if I had just ran speaker wire to a receiver? Especially since it still has to be wired for power. At least I know my amplifier isn't spying on me or monetizing my endless appetite for Rise Against. Because it was built in 1980 but still sounds as good as anything in the same price class today.

rtsil 6y ago
Sonos packages practicality, ease of use and WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). They're not the best in pure sound quality, flexibility or, it appears, privacy.
crooked-v 6y ago
One of the big factors with Sonos that you won't get out of receiver setups is the ability to mix-and-match inputs and outputs over a whole house: having one speaker by itself playing the news in the morning, having everything in the house playing synced music on low in the afternoon, and having the home theater set playing a movie in the evening. Not needing speaker wire adds to that convenience: you can then stick a speaker in the garage or the bathroom in the future without laying more wire, as long as you have an outlet. Of course, all of this isn't exclusive to Sonos, but from what I understand none of the copycat competitors have matched their ease of use so far.

by hakfoo 6y ago

rtsil 6y ago

Sonos packages practicality, ease of use and WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). They're not the best in pure sound quality, flexibility or, it appears, privacy.

crooked-v 6y ago

One of the big factors with Sonos that you won't get out of receiver setups is the ability to mix-and-match inputs and outputs over a whole house: having one speaker by itself playing the news in the morning, having everything in the house playing synced music on low in the afternoon, and having the home theater set playing a movie in the evening. Not needing speaker wire adds to that convenience: you can then stick a speaker in the garage or the bathroom in the future without laying more wire, as long as you have an outlet. Of course, all of this isn't exclusive to Sonos, but from what I understand none of the copycat competitors have matched their ease of use so far.