What to replace Sonos with


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I want to replace my Sonos system

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Glad to know some experts are in our midst

This probably is still the big Sonos differentiator.
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replace it with bluesound.

Really cheap alternative. lol
replace it with bluesound.

Really cheap alternative. lol
ha ha now that is ...

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Initial results seem to be positive. Just tried grouping - no problem.
Just tried playing from diskstation - no problem

thanks all, let you know tomorrow when I'm back online. Out now till 10pm.


All - especially @ratty, John B and Ken_Griffiths
THANK YOU!
This morning, for the first time in months and months, I went to the kitchen to make tea for the beloved OH and lo and behold, Sonos just fired up and worked immediately. No "searching for Sonos", no messing about. This is amazing. Also, there was a large dead spot for wifi / Sonos control in the dining room which has now vanished (due to proximity to the connect:amp's SonosNet, I assume) - again, a great result!

Kudos and thanks to you guys (how do you know so much?! - especially the matrix thingy).

I don't want to put a Play:1 on the half-landing by the router, so I shall fork out and get a Boost (expensive, aren't they!).

A couple of points to note:
- my router was pretending to be on channel 11 according to the manager (it's a vodafone router) but clearly was operating on channel 6. My wifi analyser is showing channel 6 as the home network and now channel 11 is carrying the SonosNet (I assume that's what the HHID_xfO ...... signals are (there are 5 showing). Maybe that's why sonos support told me to use channel 6, although they should have seen that from the diagnostics.
- I've tried to specify IP addresses for the individual Sonos devices but (a) I don't see them all and (b) the MAC addresses don't tally. The addresses that the router reports are usually one hex digit different to what the network matrix reported. Odd.

And another question: should my wife's android phone be able to connect to the SonosNet too? It doesn't see the HHID_55.... SSID so I typed it in manually - and then it asked for a password. That's normal, I understand, and I've enabled / disenabled / enabled but it didn't seem to pick up.

The powerlines, by the way, do have wifi but it's turned off except one in the attic for guests and that's on a guest network.

many, many thanks again - I thought Sonos Support was the place to go - how wrong I was. You guys in the Community are amazing.
(BTW, I have been a community member before, but pressures of time meant I couldn't participate much and I have also changed email, so re-joined. Are there ways I can contribute / learn more?)

THANK YOU ALL!
Good to hear.

(how do you know so much?! - especially the matrix thingy).Originally because of a need to understand why my system wasn't behaving right (we're talking 2007/08), then out of interest as to what other goodies the diagnostics offered. The user-visible bits used to be far more comprehensive, but are now hidden away by Sonos on grounds of security. (Foolish people were forwarding port 1400 through their router, and thousands of players were visible on teh interweb.)

I don't want to put a Play:1 on the half-landing by the router, so I shall fork out and get a Boost (expensive, aren't they!).
Cheap at the price of a modest night out, if you ask me.

My wifi analyser is showing channel 6 as the home network and now channel 11 is carrying the SonosNet (I assume that's what the HHID_xfO ...... signals are (there are 5 showing).
Those beacons are showing because you have Androids connecting to SonosNet.

I've tried to specify IP addresses for the individual Sonos devices but (a) I don't see them all and (b) the MAC addresses don't tally. The addresses that the router reports are usually one hex digit different to what the network matrix reported. Odd.
The MACs you should use for reservation are the ones you see in the router's DHCP table. These are the internal (bridge) MAC address. They also tally with the serial number.

Those in the matrix are the MACs for the wireless interfaces, which are +1 with respect to the internal MAC (and +2 for a home theatre speaker's 5GHz interface).

And another question: should my wife's android phone be able to connect to the SonosNet too?
Yes. Go into Advanced Settings on her phone's controller and enable it. The SSID will appear in the WiFi settings. You can't configure the SonosNet SSID manually.
Yes that is great news.

Much of what I know has been learned from @ratty! Although he remains in a league of his own, especially on more general networking matters.

Well done to you for being open to have another go. When Sonos doesn't work reliably, it is nearly always network-related, occasionally a Sonos hardware fault, and only once in a blue moon a genuine, generic bug in Sonos.

I hope you enjoy your Sonos system without problems for a long time to come - there is a very good chance you will.
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I want to replace my Sonos system

Not any more! Long may it continue to be as good as it is now! I have ordered a Boost and then the attic player can go back to its own place.

All is still good, and the other phone is now using SonosNet too - but not without difficulty! In the end I had to change channels from 11 to 1, then they both picked up, having dis-enabled and re-enabled SonosNet on both of them several times and restarted the phones, turned wifi off and on etc....

The great thing about using SonosNet for the phones is that the signal is so much stronger everywhere in the house. But you knew that anyway.

thanks again
It will depend on the phone, but typically when using a SonosNet connection it ought to roam between Sonos nodes. Sometimes however it may lazily stick with a distant one for a time before flipping over. Simply toggling WiFi off and on again should shake the phone out of its complacency.
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Well, thanks again to all who helped (despite my unhelpful start...)
Update:
Boost arrived Friday, got that plugged in and sorted, put attic Play:5 back up in the attic.
Everything is rock solid, wifi with our two android phones is full signal pretty much everywhere (being on SonosNet, rather than wifi from the router trying to penetrate 45cm stone walls) and there is no hanging, no failure to find music, no "unable to play...". Everything is behaving itself perfectly.

I attach a network matrix fyi.

many thanks again

Dick
The matrix looks okay. The orange connections of Bedroom and Dining Room are a bit borderline. However they aren't cause for concern as those nodes have alternative, 2-hop, connections available back to the root Boost if needed. In a few days time you might find that the matrix looks a bit different if the topology gets recomputed. Basically SonosNet will sort itself out either way.
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thanks ratty!
It's still difficult, though, to get the android phones both to hook to the sonosnet. Have to make them jump!
How do you mean? You'd typically need to manually select the SonosNet SSID anyway, unless of course the other WiFis were out of range or 'forgotten'.

If the phone's already on SonosNet but is reluctant to 'roam' onto a nearer, stronger, signal that's because of the phone.
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How do you mean? You'd typically need to manually select the SonosNet SSID anyway, unless of course the other WiFis were out of range or 'forgotten'.

If the phone's already on SonosNet but is reluctant to 'roam' onto a nearer, stronger, signal that's because of the phone.


When installing the Boost, it seemed that we needed to go back to router wifi to get things organised. One phone then hooked to SonosNet OK, but the other couldn't even see the SonosNet SSID until I changed SonosNet channel. Even then (if I remember correctly) I had to tell the phone not to use SonosNet and then to use it again. Then forget the local wifi to use the SonosNet. Having got there, tho' the signal is excellent, as I said.
Ah, yes, well, there could be circumstances when adding the wired Boost that you'd need an 'out of band' connection to the router. Depending on SonosNet at the point where you're actually replacing the foundation to SonosNet could be a bit precarious...

As for the phone's not seeing SonosNet initially, there could simply be something specific about the way that phone reacts to hidden SSIDs.