I just got my first pair of Sonos units - two Play:3's for the kitchen and bedroom and I absolutely love them. I'm not a huge audiophile, but the convenience and total plug 'n play nature of Sonos is what attracted me to it.
Of course the next thing that occured to me was how to get this connected up to my stereo.
What I don't understand is why the basic Connect is $349 while the Play:3 units are $299 each. I mean if anything it seems like a Connect is just a Play:3 without the speakers and amp? Why does it cost so much more for fewer features? Seems like the guts of the connect should be a $99 unit - I meant he appleTV is $99, and it does way more (At least in terms of technological capability - video/etc) than the connect.
To be honest I've been drooling over Sonos for years - and I know the quality is very high, but the expense of the units has always put me off. It wasn't until the Play:3 that I felt like there was enough bang-for-the-buck to justify diving in... I'm probably going to get at least 2 or 3 more Play:3's for elsewhere in the house, but it's going to be hard to justify the Connect until the price comes down further. It's still cheaper to just put a Play:3 in the same room as my stereo - it's small and powerful enough to just sit near my existing speakers.
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Userlevel 2
I'm also getting frustrated with the price of the Connect.
I've recently purchased a 5 and am thinking about 1-2 3's for the rest of the house.
If I was Sonos I would use the Connect as the marketing push as most people have a stereo or home cinema type system in the house and it would get them into using the software.
I wish the price was 50% of what it is currently. It's paining me as I would love the Connect for my lounge but really can't see how I would ever justify £280 for basically nothing.
Its little more than a wireless access point :S (I understand it's slightly more than that but not really!)
I know I will eventually buy one but not before finding the absolute lowest price or way more likely a 2nd hand unit. If it was cheaper I would buy one direct from Sonos tonight.
I've recently purchased a 5 and am thinking about 1-2 3's for the rest of the house.
If I was Sonos I would use the Connect as the marketing push as most people have a stereo or home cinema type system in the house and it would get them into using the software.
I wish the price was 50% of what it is currently. It's paining me as I would love the Connect for my lounge but really can't see how I would ever justify £280 for basically nothing.
Its little more than a wireless access point :S (I understand it's slightly more than that but not really!)
I know I will eventually buy one but not before finding the absolute lowest price or way more likely a 2nd hand unit. If it was cheaper I would buy one direct from Sonos tonight.
Welcome to the forums.
Actually the Play:3 is pretty much the Sonos market penetration vehicle. It's in all kinds of retail outlets, many of whom would see the Connect as being for audiophiles and wouldn't carry it.
If you were thinking of looking for a Connect/ZP90 on eBay you'll find the price holds up (supported undoubtedly by the standard retail price) and you won't get much change from £220.
Actually the Play:3 is pretty much the Sonos market penetration vehicle. It's in all kinds of retail outlets, many of whom would see the Connect as being for audiophiles and wouldn't carry it.
If you were thinking of looking for a Connect/ZP90 on eBay you'll find the price holds up (supported undoubtedly by the standard retail price) and you won't get much change from £220.
Userlevel 1
Its little more than a wireless access point :S (I understand it's slightly more than that but not really!)
No, it IS distinctly more than that, the Bridge is basically nothing more than a WAP, which is why it's £39 or free with a Play:3, the Connect is a fully functioning zone player.
I think what people forget is that with one sonos device - including the connect - you get all of the streaming capabilities. You could take a decades old setup and instantly have access to a whole world of music. It's changed the way I listen to music. I went from from the 70's to 2012 instantly.
I have a modest library of music (20 gb) on my iPad. I NEVER use it. With a $10/month subscription to RDIO I can listen to just about anything I want. Plus, I discover new music every day through Sonos.
To use Sonos to just listen to your old library of music through a Connect would seem like a $400 remote control. To use Sonos as a gateway to the world of music AND have access to your old system is worth way more than $400, in my opinion.
I have a modest library of music (20 gb) on my iPad. I NEVER use it. With a $10/month subscription to RDIO I can listen to just about anything I want. Plus, I discover new music every day through Sonos.
To use Sonos to just listen to your old library of music through a Connect would seem like a $400 remote control. To use Sonos as a gateway to the world of music AND have access to your old system is worth way more than $400, in my opinion.
The connect used to be priced highly, but at least delivered on its promises as part of the overall Sonos setup.
It's not anymore the case.
As reported in several threads, when you link the connect to any modern A/V receiver (which is exactly what is supposed to do), it messes up all the sync the Sonos system brags about.
That is, if your using the connect with an A/V receiver connected to speakers AND you are using Play 3/5 speakers, your music will simply be out of sync, because the A/V receiver introduces processing and the sonos system does not have a very simple feature such as establishing an x amount of delay before the music is sent to the Play speakers.
This ruins the whole Sonos promise of everything your system in perfect sync, and suddenly makes Airplay solutions a ton more appealing and cheaper.
It's not anymore the case.
As reported in several threads, when you link the connect to any modern A/V receiver (which is exactly what is supposed to do), it messes up all the sync the Sonos system brags about.
That is, if your using the connect with an A/V receiver connected to speakers AND you are using Play 3/5 speakers, your music will simply be out of sync, because the A/V receiver introduces processing and the sonos system does not have a very simple feature such as establishing an x amount of delay before the music is sent to the Play speakers.
This ruins the whole Sonos promise of everything your system in perfect sync, and suddenly makes Airplay solutions a ton more appealing and cheaper.
Not all A/V receivers have a delay, and on those that do introduce a delay, very many have a "Direct" mode which bypasses any DSP. To post as if a delay is unavoidable in every A/V receiver is incorrect and misleading.
Userlevel 1
It's not anymore the case.
As reported in several threads, when you link the connect to any modern A/V receiver (which is exactly what is supposed to do), it messes up all the sync the Sonos system brags about.
That's the fault of the AV receiver, not Sonos.
This ruins the whole Sonos promise of everything your system in perfect sync, and suddenly makes Airplay solutions a ton more appealing and cheaper.
Except Airplay doesn't sync at all and will still have a delay if using an AV receiver.
If you're lucky maybe the lack of sync exactly compensates for the delay in the AVR. 😉
No, 90% of 2012/2013 receivers, including ALL most popular (Yamaha, Onkyo, etc.) and high-end receivers, have a delay which is simply driven by the processing happening inside the receiver. And this will be more and more true as time goes by.
Secondly, the "direct" mode simply reduces the delay, while having the "little" drawback that you seem to forget that if you have, say a 5.1 or 7.1 system connected to your A/V receiver with the direct mode on you are left with a pure 2.0 speaker set. Wow, what a party.
Simple truth is that at the moment the Sonos system is not usable if you are planning to listen to music from both your expensive latest gen A/V via Sonos connect AND a Play speaker at the same time.
If Sonos is able to introduce a programmable delay to be placed before the Plays start playing it will still be an expensive but worthwile system, if not it will have forever lost one of the very single point of differences vs. the infinitely cheaper airplay solution (that is, perfect sync).
Except Airplay doesn't sync at all and will still have a delay if using an AV receiver.
Sonos then better wake up and improve its software, because it looks like all A/V receivers are being built this way. As times goes by, it will look more and more like "hey, it's not my fault, it's all these other people who are driving in the wrong direction".
Regarding Airplay of course is not in sync neither it promises to be, but it's free, while Sonos is not in sync as well now and it costs 50x more. So why pay for it?
At the moment i'm stuck with an overpriced connect and two Play5 speakers which costs more than 1k$ and are utterly useless.
Userlevel 1
So you perfectly happy not to have syncing at all, if you're not paying for it (you are paying for btw...) but you're going to ***** like crazy because you can't do something that apparently you're not that fussed about? Make your mind up, either you want syncing or you don't.
At the moment i'm stuck with an overpriced connect and two Play5 speakers which costs more than 1k$ and are utterly useless.
And now you're just talking ****e, are you saying you have two Play 5s AND a connect all in the same room and all playing at the same time, ALL the time?
And now you're just talking ****e, are you saying you have two Play 5s AND a connect all in the same room and all playing at the same time, ALL the time?
My reasoning is pretty straightforward.
Yes i want the syncing, and this is why i paid a whole loads of money into a Sonos system, because accordingly to Sonos its system is able to play in perfect sync.
As a matter of fact, this is simply not true. Because if you use the Sonos Connect, something that THEY sell for the exact purpose to be connected to an existing A/V receiver, the audio is not in sync. Plain and simple.
Now, what Sonos can do is either one of the two:
A) Specify this and list the "compatible" A/V receivers that allow the user not to suffer from this issue (which is basically "any A/V receiver produced before 2011")
😎 Specify that if a user is willing to have music played in sync across Sonos own Play speakers and Sonos own Connect device, this won't work.
Given the situation, if someone is interested into the Sonos system because of its supposedly perfect sync feature, this feature does not exist anymore in the case you are using a setup composed of a Sonos Connect linked to a modern A/V receiver and any of own Sonos Play speakers.
As modern receivers are airplay enabled and there are plenty of speakers which are airplay enabled as well, you do the math: no reason to spend money on Sonos in this case.
That is, unless they are able to simply add a delay slider in their control app.
Then if you want me to tell that the solution is that we are not supposed to use any modern A/V receiver, or to use our 5.1 setups in a 2.0 setup, or to use either our A/V OR the Plays, be my guest, but Sonos is selling a system that is supposed -among other things- to do exactly this: play your music in sync across all devices. And it simply does not.
But hey, maybe we should call Yamaha, Pioneer, Onkyo, and all the other 10s of A/V receiver builders and explain them that their system suck because it does not work well with the Sonos Connect. My guess is that it should be Sonos to fix this.
So I understand: I assume that the above is when playing the AVR in source direct mode, and therefore in sync with other Sonos equipment.
While playing in this mode, does the AVR deliver sound to only 2 speakers, or to all connected ones? If the latter, I don't see that using source direct is bad because all but a few audio recordings are recorded in 2 channel anyway, so the loss of HT related multichannel effects shouldn't matter to the audio experience?
Or am I missing something?
I dare say that Sonos will have this matter somewhere on their to-do list, but I'd just make a couple of points:
The CONNECT (and its predecessor the ZP80) is not sold for the 'exact purpose' of connecting to an AVR. It's sold for those with existing -- often high quality -- amplification (and optionally outboard DAC) and speaker systems. Many are the contributors to these forums who run their CONNECT/ZP90/ZP80 into high-end HiFi setups. In such situations sync with Play:* units is probably very much secondary, and when sync is used the Play boxes are probably in a different room anyhow.
The audio IS in sync, at the outputs of the Sonos players. To say this is not the case is simply not true. Sonos have never claimed that at the end of whatever digital reproduction chain a user chooses to bolt on the end of the player the audio will still be in sync. How could they when it's outside their control.
So, a delay setting is a legitimate request and one I'd personally support. But don't let's get into distorting the truth to justify it.
Your initial post on this thread was titled "Connect is a device that does not work anymore". Well the last time I looked my four ZP80s were working just fine thank you.
While playing in this mode, does the AVR deliver sound to only 2 speakers, or to all connected ones? If the latter, I don't see that using source direct is bad because all but a few audio recordings are recorded in 2 channel anyway, so the loss of HT related multichannel effects shouldn't matter to the audio experience?
Or am I missing something?
When you use direct music is played only through 2 speakers, so you miss any other speaker you might have connected in your setup + the sub. In a typical scenario you have the speakers "multiplying" the 2ch, its just a matter of wattage (what Sonos calls party mode).
Regarding the other poster, sure the connect CAN work if setup in a particular hi-fi environment, but let's be honest with ourselves:
1- The overwhelming majority of users use "common" A/V receiver, which by the way can be of great sound quality and connected to great speakers (way above the Sonos Play line...).
2- Being unable to listen to your A/V speaker setup AND to a Sonos Play at the same time is a huge flaw, and a very big loss for Sonos when comparing to other multi-ambient solutions, which as in the airplay case are totally free!
The request thread for a delay feature has been in existence for 7.5 years. If Sonos saw this issue as a "huge flaw" they would have done something about it long ago.
As it happens the ask.sonos thread shows it as "under consideration", i.e. on their to-do list with uncertain timeframe.
As it happens the ask.sonos thread shows it as "under consideration", i.e. on their to-do list with uncertain timeframe.
Userlevel 1
2- Being unable to listen to your A/V speaker setup AND to a Sonos Play at the same time is a huge flaw, and a very big loss for Sonos when comparing to other multi-ambient solutions, which as in the airplay case are totally free!
You keep saying this, Airplay won't give you multi-room sync AT ALL, so it's no damn use to you for that purpose!
Userlevel 1
Yes i want the syncing, and this is why i paid a whole loads of money into a Sonos system, because accordingly to Sonos its system is able to play in perfect sync.
Answer the question, are all your Zoneplayers in the same room? Because if they aren't you're probably not even going to hear the delay introduced by the AV receiver.
Userlevel 1
Can you send a single Airplay stream to multiple sources at the same time? Genuine question, I've no idea.
Secondly, the "direct" mode simply reduces the delay, while having the "little" drawback that you seem to forget that if you have, say a 5.1 or 7.1 system connected to your A/V receiver with the direct mode on you are left with a pure 2.0 speaker set. Wow, what a party.
Simple truth is that at the moment the Sonos system is not usable if you are planning to listen to music from both your expensive latest gen A/V via Sonos connect AND a Play speaker at the same time.
If Sonos is able to introduce a programmable delay to be placed before the Plays start playing it will still be an expensive but worthwile system, if not it will have forever lost one of the very single point of differences vs. the infinitely cheaper airplay solution (that is, perfect sync).
Ohhhh, so the fact that "90%" of the latest model year of receivers does this (an observation which more than likely was plucked out of thin air) justifies your statement and rebuts mine how?
One of them yes, the other one in the next one. And i have to choose between having those two playing and the A/V and its 5.1 system. The delay creates an echo which you can hear super clearly in any type of music, let alone the type of beat oriented music that you want to have in your typical "party-mode" setup.
Obviously that's not the point 'cause i think i'm allowed to have a big living room with a surround setup and a couple of other speakers...
Genuinely, do you have some problem?
I understand you have no issue with your Sonos setup and i'm happy for you, but can't you really see the issue for other users?
Is it so hard to imagine a big room where there it sits one of those immensely popular A/V receivers connected with Sonos to a big 5.1 or 7.1 system, and in the same ambient a couple of play speakers, and you can't use both?
Or, is it so hard to imagine a veranda with an A/V system in it, and a garden outside with some Play speakers?
How does the fact that you don't have a problem disable your mental capability to see the problem for other users?
It's like i'm saying "this car starts cracking when i pass 100mph, there's a problem", and you answer "idiot there's no problem, i travel at 90mph perfectly fine what are you complaining about".
No offense, but i had the sensation that you had no idea what you were talking about.
Yes, you can airplay to any number of airplay enabled speakers/appleTVs/devices.
Last time i tried, it wasn't in perfect sync and that's why i spent a whole lot of money into Sonos, and now i deeply regret it.
I understand you have no issue with your Sonos setup and i'm happy for you, but can't you really see the issue for other users?
Is it so hard to imagine a big room where there it sits one of those immensely popular A/V receivers connected with Sonos to a big 5.1 or 7.1 system, and in the same ambient a couple of play speakers, and you can't use both?
Or, is it so hard to imagine a veranda with an A/V system in it, and a garden outside with some Play speakers?
How does the fact that you don't have a problem disable your mental capability to see the problem for other users?
It's like i'm saying "this car starts cracking when i pass 100mph, there's a problem", and you answer "idiot there's no problem, i travel at 90mph perfectly fine what are you complaining about".
First of all, can the rudeness, unless you are 12. We can all be adults here. Second of all, you claimed the Connect "is a device that does not work anymore" and "if your using the connect with an A/V receiver connected to speakers AND you are using Play 3/5 speakers, your music will simply be out of sync." - Two definitve statements which are decidedly inaccurate and misleading to anyone looking to purchase a Connect for his system which does not add a delay (of which there are thousands . . . no millions . . . in use). I called you on your inaccurate and misleading statements, corrected them with the same qualifiiers you have since pasted on with your subsequent posts, and I'm the one with the "problem"???? Puh-leaze. :rolleyes:
Ok adult, let's play the nerd game.
Here-below are the features reported from the Sonos website under the Connect feature list.
CONNECTS TO A HOME THEATER SYSTEM OR EXTERNAL AMPLIFIER Seamlessly integrates your home theater system and other audio devices into your Sonos Multi-Room Music System.
LISTEN TO THE SAME SONG IN EVERY ROOM, IN PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION Play the same song in different rooms, simultaneously, without echoes or delays. Add or drop rooms from your rooms grouping and still be in sync.
Does it perform as advertised? NO.
On the contrary, it performs exactly as Sonos says it won't, with echoes, delays, etc. That's what happens if you connect your Sonos system to some strange A/V receiver from unknown brands like Pioneer, Yamaha, Onkyo and the likes.
End of story.
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