Omnidirectional

  • 6 November 2017
  • 6 replies
  • 1410 views

Sonos One has terrific sound. It would be great if one day Sonos put out a 360° omnidirectional speaker.

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6 replies

Interesting thought. I suppose the speaker would need to be much larger to fit all of the various speakers pointed in different directions. Would you think a 4 direction speaker (90 degrees) would be good enough, or do you envision more speakers pointing in different directions?
There are omnidirectional speakers e.g.

https://smile.amazon.com/Samsung-Radiant360-Wi-Fi-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B016DG1YKO/ref=pd_sbs_23_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K0EJ8RAFZF89XJ471QQ6

I have one and it does sound terrific...but is saddled with Samsung's mediocre software.

There are many floor plans where omnidirectional speakers are better than a speaker pair.

The technology might also be married to internet telephony, for the corporate world, with conference calls.
Omnidirectional speaker pairs will never produce a believable stereo image. Hopefully Sonos will never build such a beast.
Hi, I am sure you are correct about the believable stereo image. There are use cases where omnidirectional speakers have value. I have mostly 2 channel and 5 channel setups, but there are some places where omnidirectional is desirable. Ultimately, Sonos, I am sure, will decide whether there is a market for it. To date, they have not, and given that I am sure that they have thought about this, may not pursue this in the future. No one knows the future, though, especially when an omnidirectional speaker like the Echo has done pretty well.
I doubt we'll see that made since the speakers will need to be plugged in, which almost always means it's near the wall. As well, an omindirectional speaker probably doesn't encourage you to buy a 2nd one for a stereo pair.

The speaker design does make sense when tied in with microphones since it's better for those to be centered in a room as oppossed to on the edges. Hence echo, google home, and homepod are designed that way. So I guess it could make sense for Sonos in some way. Personally, I'd rather see a separate mic and speaker setup than a all-in-one omnidirectional sonos speaker.
All good points! Will be interesting to follow over the next few months/years.