I'm a new audio enthusiast and after months of research and looking for an amp to power my Totem Acoustic 2.1 system, I pulled the trigger on the Sonos amp.
In all honesty I tried to avoid buying the Sonos amp as I am wary of getting locked into an ecosystem, but in the end it simply offered the best combination of features and price. I wanted to share this feedback with Sonos and the community.
Here's what I discovered while looking for an amp/receiver. Generally these products are divided into two categories: the first is hi-fi amps for stereo enthusiasts to power 2.1 systems. Usually these have limited digital inputs and since the focus is on classic audio inputs very few have HDMI (although this is changing). It's also difficult to find home theatre settings such as sub cross over. Then you have AV receivers that give you everything but are MASSIVE. I thought these might have slimmed down since the 90s when my dad's pioneer gobbled up an entire stereo shelf, but no, and while these do give you more options than amps, the software and UI tends to be clunky and overwhelming.
What I love about the Sonos Amp is that you get the best of both worlds: compact size like an amp, an RCA input for a classic audio input and with HDMI and settings found on AV receivers. I love being able to adjust the sub level and crossover from the app instead of having to do this on the sub itself like I would have had to do with every other amp I saw (granted my budget was less than $1k).
Now I get the best of both worlds: the speakers I wanted with Sonos tech. So Sonos, bravo, you have a new convert, as long as you don't try to subtly disincentivize using my third party 2.1 speaker system (by dropping support etc).
I'd like to suggest a few improvements: please allow my third party sub to work in a 4.1 setting! I've heard third party subs deactivate while using 4.1. I won't be buying a pair of Sonos ones for 4.1 until I see this is fixed.
Of course if tuning could be done that would be great too.
Thanks for reading!