Why can't I just use you like any other speakers?

and breathe...

Another un-happy sonos soundbar customer. However you cut it, that is bad news for sonos, probably put him off, he sells, puts off anybody he knows, even shop sales staff don't understand limitations.
It does seem an unfair mess to me. Buyer beware!! is no way to sustain a good name.
Glad I went for a proper a/v surround amp and hifi speakers first.

Will play music, will play stereo from your 5.1 television, will not play from most other components without audio drop outs that includes but not limited to dvd players, many cable companies 5.1, direct tv sat top boxes, dish sat top boxes many assorted audio receivers and a lot of other video components. Google this subject.

I know I shouldn't wade into this battle, but surely when are people going to realise the basic facts here:

AirPlay over wireless and compressed ’limited-distance audio' over Bluetooth, are each designed for single speaker use only... Yes there are workarounds for multi-room/speaker setup for AirPlay, but both technologies are now somewhat dated and not really practical for use all around the family home, or office.

And syncing video to go with this type of audio is another thing entirely.

You will NEVER, for example, find a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound system made up of Bluetooth or AirPlay speakers... and that's a fact!

Sonos on the other hand, are utterly and completely different. They are a wireless multi-room, multi-speaker company. You can have upto 32 speakers controlled by a single central controller, that can all play the same audio, or different audio (at the same time), on every single (or group(s)) of speakers ... and they each can operate in perfect sync without any user intervention.

The Sonos speakers can be set up to work individually (like Bluetooth or AirPlay) or two of the speakers can be put together into a separated stereo pair ... That's something you cannot do with Bluetooth or AirPlay. I tend to think of the latter therefore as listening to things in the old 'mono' format.

Sonos devices can also be put together to create 5.1 channel separated sound .. Let's just take the .1 (point 1) side of that setup, which is the bass or LFE (low frequency effects) channel... Sonos produce a mighty fine sub to deal with that channel. So what is out there on the market from Airpmay or Bluetooth to compete with that ?.. The simple answer is nothing!

Sonos has its niche in the market place and AirPlay and Bluetooth each have theirs ... and never the twain shall meet.

Google and its Chromecast technology is attempting to 'fit in-between' these technologies by allowing some apps to 'cast' or stream sound DIRECT to one or more speakers from remote sources, but that too (at the moment) does not provide 2ch stereo or 5.1 DD channel separation.

Sound quality and separation is also developing and improving alongside all the hardware.

As it stands now, a lot of people show up here in the community forum and shout and bang their drum and complain that their Sonos product doesn't do what their cheaper rechargeable Bluetooth speaker can do ... And the answer to that is simple... Of course it can't, their products were never designed to do that!

If your personal 'needs' are what Bluetooth/AirPlay or Chromecast 'mono' speakers were designed to do.. Then go out and buy those.

However if you want a multi-room, multi-speaker wireless system (including 2ch stereo or 5.1 sound surround) then Sonos is possibly the product for you.

Finally ... The thing that is evident on this forum, is that today's audio/video customer-needs are evolving and evolving fast. We all want the hardware to do all things for all men (er... and women), but the truth is that no single company, or manufacturer can provide that to us at this moment in time.

I'm sure that Sonos research labs and those at Bose, Apple, Google, Sony, Samsung etc.. are all very hard at work, as we speak, to address our future needs and demands.

I reckon the race is on and we should be patient and see what happens next. Meanwhile I see no harm in mixing and matching the Sonos products with AirPlay Bluetooth and Chromecast products.

All I can say is thank goodness for product interim 'workarounds' until the next generation of things arrives in the marketplace.

I'm sure if people understood these things a bit better and where we are in terms of development, they might consider the things that they say about the Sonos product.

"Methinks thou dost protest too much" ... William Shakespeare.

Ken Griffiths

Thanks, Ken...completely agree.

Ken have 5 sonos speakers do not ever use anything but soundbar and woofer for television because of the delay problem, I just want television audio without sound drop outs, to many components are not able to do this, sonos has been blameing everybody else. PCM is not an option for $1500 out the door for a woofer and soundbar. I hardly think the top 3 television companies whose televisions output 5.1 dolby and almost all the cable companies set top boxes and the 2 primary satellite companies are all wrong which are dish and direct tv. Sonos has no solution because the claim all their signals are not up to spec. Time for a solution its ben at least 2 years. Thanks for your concern.

Ken have 5 sonos speakers do not ever use anything but soundbar and woofer for television because of the delay problem, I just want television audio without sound drop outs, to many components are not able to do this, sonos has been blameing everybody else. PCM is not an option for $1500 out the door for a woofer and soundbar. I hardly think the top 3 television companies whose televisions output 5.1 dolby and almost all the cable companies set top boxes and the 2 primary satellite companies are all wrong which are dish and direct tv. Sonos has no solution because the claim all their signals are not up to spec. Time for a solution its ben at least 2 years. Thanks for your concern.

Have had a Playbar since it's release. Never had a dropout. Which is logical, because the decoder chips used for DD 5.1 are a throwaway commodity these days; as such they are as simple and reliable as a concrete doorstop and not very prone to failure. Plus, if there were a widespread problem, the hundred of thousands of Playbar owners would have brought this site to a standstill. Which leaves a few possibilities:

Your Playbar is defective. If you think this is so, you should be contacting Sonos directly and asking for a replacement.
Your source is defective.
Your setup and/or interconnects are to blame.

None of these point to an inherent or widespread defect in the Sonos Playbar. Nor do they require a thread pointing to a widespread defect in the Sonos Playbar, which would have organically spread like wildfire a long time ago, if there were widespread defects. Instead, you had to piggyback onto another unrelated rant to even be close to on-topic.

Beetle777...

The Sonos Playbar, via the toslink input, will accept DD 5.1 or 2ch stereo PCM. That is quite simply a fact and many here have successfully implemented their PlayBar with both protocols to prove that is the case.

I'm sure you understand the differences in the audio separation to the centre, front, rear speakers and sub, provided by each of the protocols.

It is also true though, that some older TV's cannot pass 5.1 audio out, it is model dependent. Most often, the 5.1 information is downmixed to 2.0 (two point zero). That is particularly the case where an older TV takes the audio from connected HDMI sources and passes it out to connected audio systems via ARC or its toslink output port.

Modern TV's however now handle and output of DD 5.1 much better and the issues you raise, are becoming a thing of the past.

Sonos were ahead of the game initially, in many respects, though it was a pity there were not more 5.1 input ports, but these things come at a cost, I guess.

If you personally are getting audio/video delay and/or experiencing PCM audio-out only from your TV, then I suspect you may have a TV either dated pre 2007 (when certain audio restrictions were in place) or the TV ARC implementation and toslink output connections are at fault and below the standard you require, or you may have not set things up correctly (which I doubt).

The evidence here then, seems to point towards output issues from your TV. That's from the things I have read here across the forum posts.

In any event, there are links on the forum (and elsewhere) to lists of TV's that do/don't work with the PlayBar and/or successfully output the DD 5.1 protocol and it may well have paid you, to do a lot more research prior to purchase of your TV, or Sonos products.

You could have easily returned the latter-purchased products in the usual specified period, if it/they proved to be not suitable for the purpose intended and you could have claimed a full refund of your money.

Manufacturers' Customer Satisfaction Policies and The Consumer Protection Laws are in place for that very purpose.

Ken Griffiths

Ken have 5 sonos speakers do not ever use anything but soundbar and woofer for television because of the delay problem, I just want television audio without sound drop outs, to many components are not able to do this, sonos has been blameing everybody else. PCM is not an option for $1500 out the door for a woofer and soundbar. I hardly think the top 3 television companies whose televisions output 5.1 dolby and almost all the cable companies set top boxes and the 2 primary satellite companies are all wrong which are dish and direct tv. Sonos has no solution because the claim all their signals are not up to spec. Time for a solution its ben at least 2 years. Thanks for your concern.

I think we've gotten quite off topic in this thread, but I took a look at your past ticket with our support team and noticed that you stopped responding there and it was closed just a week or so ago. I saw you're having audio cutouts with your Dish sending Dolby Digital to your TV, but I didn't notice if you have trouble with Dolby Digital from any other source through the TV. Do you have any other device capable of outputting Dolby Digital to the PLAYBAR? If so, give that a test and see how it goes.

We'd be happy to work with you more to get you just as happy with your PLAYBAR as so many other owners are. I'd encourage you to reply back to that incident, which will reopen it, and check in with the technician. If you haven't yet spoken with your Dish provider, that'd be a really good step too.

I understand it's frustrating when things don't work right or any issues develop, but we're here to help with that and are happy to keep working with you.

Ken google sonos player drop outs!