Amazon Echo is better than Sonos

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.

The Apple hate is beyond HomePods, is almost pathological, and extends to the Apple philosophy. But the same obsessed fan will not see the irony in his professed Sonos adoration; it must have been embarrassing to even Sonos the way that worthy was defending the Sonos bricking decision right till the day Sonos made a complete about face and left him red-faced and thankfully silent for some time.

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.

A word to the wise: don’t do that unless you are ok with not ever going back to a clunky android. Once you get used to the business class experience of an iPhone in comparison, android will feel like economy.

I was a long time Android hold out, till my son handed down to me his 7, the model that can be held and used in one hand. It still works in the latest iOS environment and is a joy to use. Now my only concern is that it lasts for another three years even with a stalled iOS, till I get handed down his 13!

The other challenge is to not needlessly do Trueplay on Sonos, now that an iPhone is at hand all the time.

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. 

Exactly. The point about Echo is that since it was introduced, it has offered a viable alternative to Sonos beyond just cheap. Till then, an expensive Sonos was the only robust solution available that did not take a geek to operate.

By the way, Echo now have their own expensive all in one solutions like Echo Studio, but I have not bothered to take that even for a test drive. Sonos to Studio would be just a lateral move that makes no sense to me.

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

Indeed. But this remains a civilised thread for obvious reasons😂

There is one thing where Echo may actually be better, but this is speculation on my part; I find that it isn't as vulnerable to network issues as Sonos can be. Even in my four Echo grouped play set up, things  seem to work themselves out quite well through updates and the like. So do they for my Sonos units, but that took IP reservation and some amount of tweaking early on to get things to that state. I did not bother with reservations for any of the Echo units.

And this is even more speculation because I still have my home WiFi served up by a 2011 vintage Apple TC + wired extenders that needs no messing with. And because that is so stable, I see no need for any fancy mesh WiFi when the TC dies - it will just be replaced with a plain vanilla unit because range is no longer a requirement since wired extenders were installed. But I wonder if Echo will move more seamlessly into those powerful whole home wireless mesh systems that are the norm now, than Sonos will.

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. 

I’ve had iphones before and both kids have them.  I’m not all that unfamiliar.  I don’t dislike my androids at all as far as functionality goes. It comes down to picking which company I’d prefer to send money at, to be honest.  I would really prefer that there was a realistic 3rd option.