Amazon Echo is better than Sonos

Agree with all this the thinking; this is exactly what I have done, to the extent of using Connect Amps as just amps now with an Echo front end because where that is a Show 5/8, I get voice control otherwise not available in India, with album art as well.

I am not sure I would invest in an Echo link; I have never understood the point of it when even the Dot is a perfectly good source, with sound quality completely dependent on the downstream kit that it is wired into.

Why the reference here to Sonos ditching streaming? No reason for them to do that, it is now their mainstay.

Does Alexa even have a control app? I haven’t found one, but have never felt the need for one, being able to use voice control and Spotify casting depending on what is convenient at the time.

This is a perfectly fine solution for a lot of people.  However, you’re limiting yourself to the streaming services Amazon offers, while Sonos offers quite a bit more.  To my knowledge, no airplay option.  You can play audio from an aux input or TV. You can’t play a bluetooth  or local music file source.  You could bypass your echo and play directly on the amp for some of these, but you can’t play that audio in any other room in your home.  You cannot change the rooms you’re playing audio in midstream.  You can’t do anything without an active internet connection. You can’t use any voice control but Alexa.

Again, it’s a good option for a lot of people, particularly if you just want easy streaming music for cheap.  I’ve got my mother setup with echos, as it meets her needs better than Sonos.  She doesn’t even connect them to a better amp/speakers.  But I certainly would not say that Echos are better than Sonos.

That is one part of the rationale. The other part is that new features to existing Echos are available immediately - while the Sonos Alexa integration involves a wait for these, and some may not even make it to there. With SVC this delay may no longer be there, I don’t know SVC - the new Sonos voice control feature - but I suspect the same may apply.

Then there is the case where Amazon releases a brand new front end, loaded with the latest in smarts, and it will still make financial sense to just replace the older front end without letting the downstream audio components go to a landfill, especially if these are quality components.

Not to forget the opportunity today to use even the humble Dot to drive audio components that are better than the best of Sonos to get sound quality that is correspondingly superior, knowing too that these can survive the Dot being superseded, and therefore justify a higher spend on them.

Now it is understandable that financial investment translates to emotional attachment, and for people with such an attachment to not accept that Echos could be better than Sonos, except as a cheap solution. 

Having used/using both, I will just say that Echos now offer a very viable option to Sonos, for those that want cheap and cheerful all the way to those that want high end audiophile set ups. In the latter case, they just need to get over a hang up for Dot as a source in such a set up. But they also have to make the same mental leap to use the Connect/Port in a like manner. 

There is also the opportunity to use the Dot to drive active speakers of excellent quality and value, if sourced from the pro audio maker product lines whose target customers refuse to pay for frills like veneered carpentry. From a vast range of price points - USD 100 to maybe USD 2000 a pair.

PS: I have always found it ironic that a lot of Sonos fans are also Apple haters - Apple and Sonos basically treat their customers in a like manner via bundled hardware. Sonos has even copied Apple extensively in product and package design. Which is all fine of course, but the Apple hate in Sonos fans is amusing.

The link is for firetv devices only, and I’m not sure you can assume a similar schedule for echo devices, I could be wrong, but I think all devices are still supported and can connect with all other echos.  Regardless, the point still stands that a more component based setup, where a single device performs are granular function in your system, will tend to have lower replacement costs.

This is an argument for Alexa via echos though, not necessary using echos as music speakers or physically connecting them to an amp.  You can easily setup a room with echo connected to Sonos  speakers via Alexa groups to get all the advantages of Alexa voice without losing the capabilities of Sonos and SVC.  I have it setup this way in about 4 rooms.

Will the echo deliver the same digital to analog audio quality through the RCA cables?  I have not kept up with what echos are capable of.

As I said earlier, it depends on your needs.  There are lots of things you can’t do with Echos that you can with Sonos.  And I don’t know that you’re in the best position to be a judge of Sonos from an experience standpoint, since you are on the older S1 system and do not own any of the products Sonos currently sells.

I do not like when company’s produce products and services in multiple markets and then try and leverage their presents in all these markets to an unfair competitive advantage.  Most of the Apple hate’ I’ve seen here has been in response to praise of homepods, which is usually not grounded in facts, or the belief that product or protocol should just blindly follow Apple’s lead.  On the last part, that applies to Google as well.  Don’t see that quite as much with Amazon for some reason.

Eh, there’s a decent chance my next phone maybe a switch from android to iOS...don’t know.

Which leads me to another advantage of using Dot as source and high quality downstream kit, that you buy if you like the way it sounds, preferably after a listening test in the home. 

That kit, till there is a hardware defect, will not suddenly sound different because the maker sent down an update that you unwittingly let in, and that is irreversible by you. As a music lover, I prefer that stability to any such gyrations that would destroy the listening experience. Yes, if the change was minor, in a few weeks, I would probably get used to it, but why make minor changes at all is then the question.

Sonos’ original design was essentially a ZP80 + HiFi, or ZP100 + passive speakers, in every room.  That is how I first experienced Sonos - at the home of a very wealthy friend!  Of course, Echo Dots are cheap, and I get the arguments for @Kumar ‘s approach.  There is a place for that.  But it was the introduction of compact, all-in-one speakers that brought me to Sonos, and keeps me there.  Each to their own. 

Clearly the OP lit the fuse and retired back to his cave 😄

To be fair, @Kumar, surely your original Sonos gear was using older technology than that available when the Echo came out? I do recall a Sonos staff member saying, quite recently in a thread, that reserving ip addresses should not make a difference nowadays. (I may be mis-paraphrasing him, but that’s my recollection.) Mind you, my Sonos system is nice and stable, so I’m not going to change anything unnecessarily, just to see what happens. 

For me, it was the ability to use your phone as a controller.  I could stomach paying $400 for a ZP, but not an additional $400 for the CR100.  Including music service was also a big plus, but I would got it just for access to local library.

You are correct; on the other hand the well known gurus here continue to advise reservations.

For me it was that and the possibility to use Plex and, though I do not use it as much as I thought I would, Airplay. The remote made Sonos too expensive for me for a long time. I tried a cheaper alternative (Squeezebox), but that never worked well, especially when grouping devices.