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

kumar

This

"Trueplay tuning customises the sound to better suit the room the speaker is placed in and this is something that is offered for all speakers made by Sonos in the past as well, going back to 2009. Quite innovative and a rare thing, that. "

has been available on AV receivers by a lot of manufacturers for quite some time.

Which is about as relevant as saying, "cars have had automatic transmissions for a long time". How many multi-room speaker systems have it to date? Let's see... one,...

Room equalisation has been around for some time, you can only do the room that the speaker is in, so the use of this feature is exactly the same as for the AV receivers, no innovation required.

Generally people do this by ear to their own tastes, which can't be done on a Sonos system as there is no user available EQ of any worth.

Why would any one want to do it themselves? surely the audio experts know what they are doing right!
Well maybe I have specific hearing loss, or sensitivity....they don't know my particular situation. Truplay is good for a starting point but let me have control after that please.

Sonos offers sound tuning to the extent it believes is asked for by its chosen market of interest for the speakers they make. A product management decision Sonos has made, and I assume they know their business better than anyone here probably does. I certainly don't claim to know better.

For those that do not find this adequate, Sonos also offers Connect that can be used with any active speaker out there which has the desired sound quality and features needed by those that aren't happy with what they can get from Sonos speakers.

Trueplay is used to compensate for the speaker placement within a room of a certain character to give, I suggest, a flat response. It is then left to the producer/artist of the music to colo(u)r that flatness with their art as they would like to hear it.

Sonos could probably get stats off the users equipment that allow it, so that they can also do some analysis and come up with some standard setting to get close to the general room size etc, but it would only be statistical mean. Thats why we have Trueplay to tune to the specific room. So I suppose your statement is somewhat true but isn't the whole story, the same as the speaker is only a part of the system that reproduces the audio.

It would then be nice for some listener input to complete the mix that he/she desires.

I'm out of here I have some important audio testing to do:)

I am not unconditionally defending Sonos. There are aspects of the product line and/or software that could use tweaking (shoot, I still can't get my iTunes playlists to properly sort). But some of the arguments for/against Sonos on this thread are really out of scope and context. Such as:

Comparing Sonos to stand-alone bluetooth speakers
Complaining that Sonos speakers can't be directly connected to a computer
Dismissing the innovations Sonos is implementing (and supporting on their older equipment)
Arguing that TruePlay is not a positive development because it has been available in AV receivers for years

In all seriousness, I would bet my bottom dollar that of all of the AV receivers out there in use, less than 5% of the owners have configured them using the built-in calibration software and provided microphone. Obviously that cannot be proven, it is just an opinion/estimate.

And besides, when comparing Sonos to an AV receiver, you are really comparing apples and oranges anyhow. Everyone recognizes that, right? Ask a novice to set up a multi-zone AVR, with wires running from the AVR location out to a different room, and then switch inputs and zones with the AV vendor's app or the IR remote that needs to be pointed at the AVR, and then trying to teach others in the house to use it............and let me know when that person is done pulling out his hair.

Sonos is by no means perfect. And the use case for Sonos (or really wifi systems in general) may not fit the needs/desires for some people. But really, focus on what the Sonos ecosystem does, and not on what it does not do.

EDIT: Disclosure: I have Sonos equipment in 4 rooms in my home. Further, I have a Denon AVR and 5.1 speaker system in my basement home theater, with wires running from that AVR out to my zone 2 patio for my outdoor enjoyment. I have experience in setting up both types of systems, and I would absolutely not have used an AVR or multi-zone amp to create a whole home system under any circumstances.

It would then be nice for some listener input to complete the mix that he/she desires.

At this time, the "some" you desire is via treble/bass shelving tone controls of the kind that many high end stereo amps don't have! If you want more, third party actives is the only option at this time. Or something else that will allow an external DSP box of tricks somewhere in the signal chain.

Sonos is by no means perfect. And the use case for Sonos (or really wifi systems in general) may not fit the needs/desires for some people. But really, focus on what the Sonos ecosystem does, and not on what it does not do.


Exactly.

I believe part of the problem here is that wireless streaming audio remains quite complicated, diverse and in flux. It's not a static, commodity-like sector where all products essentially do the same thing, which consumers are familiar with and know what they're getting. This is not always appreciated by purchasers who fail to do a little research first to see if the product matches their requirements. And as an emerging product sector, consumers may not even know their requirements until they begin to kick the tyres a little.

Consumers knew what to expect from traditional speakers, and many are now familiar with and know what to expect from Bluetooth speakers. They may then assume that Sonos devices should behave similarly to those and can become frustrated when they discover they don't...

For example, the OP wrote: "Why can't I just use you like any other speakers", assuming that because a Play:1 looks like a traditional speaker that it should be able to behave like one, whereas we know it doesn't. Instead, it's a wireless, multi-room, streaming audio player & speaker, with different and immensely greater functionality than a traditional speaker.

However, its functionality is not a superset of a traditional speaker's features. In choosing to make its products excel at specific things (which they do) Sonos chose not to implement some other things, and it's these "some other things" that seem to repeatedly trip up some people, bifurcating Sonos users into the majority who love them and a minority who seem to hate them. Of course, if people first did some initial research they could avoid disappointment if they find their specific requirements aren't met, but I suspect most people in this category simply don't realise that they need to do any initial research. That may seem crazy to the more thorough or technically-minded, but that's how most consumers probably behave.

I think the biggest headache for Sonos is that Bluetooth speakers have now set expectations that you can send to them the audio from any app. But this app-centric approach is different to the device-centric approach the Sonos app imposes, and which comes as a surprise (and disappointment) to some. It's why I believe Google's Cast API is a game-changer, since it retains the app-centricity that people have come to expect. I'm very interested to see the path things take as wireless streaming audio evolves.

I think most Sonos purchasers are informed, just a very few clueless folks out there. Glance at the reviews of the Play:1s on Best Buy, 99% would recommend the purchase to friends, vast majority give five star rating. But, there will always be the tiny minority of impulse buyers who assume they're buying Bluetooth or computer speakers, and whine.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sonos-play1-wireless-speaker-for-streaming-music-black/1648801.p?id=1219058144905&skuId=1648801

jdag , I was only comparing the connivence of the mobile aspect of the soulmate, which for its size and cost is very capable.

The feature of room equalisation,RE, was trumpeted as an innovation of Sonos which is not the case its been around for a while, nobody was comparing with AV receivers, just the feature of RE. Also RE can only work in the room where the speaker is, its of no use for multi room , each room has yo be done separately.

I have done lots of research on Sonos before purchase and am satisfied that the play5s I have fit the bill they were bought for, however there are other claims by Sonos that don't give me a solution that is, on the face of it, as appealing as other manufacturers. The 5.1 surround is a case in point, not supporting DTS and HDMI leaves them open to competition.

Its not difficult to addd Bluetooth and NFC to a product like Sonos, it would add a minor cost to the hardware.

I wonder if we can beat the longest thread, we probably have a few thousand to go, keep it up guys 🙂