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alecf
Contributor I
April 28, 2012

Why is Connect more expensive than Play?

  • April 28, 2012
  • 179 replies
  • 75917 views
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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      BCM
      BCM
      January 7, 2013
      I wasn't thrilled with the price, but that the time I purchased (years ago), I didn't care. Still think they are kind of high, but as someone early on mentioned, they are the only game in town.

      Plus, Sonos was able to give me what I'd wanted at the time for years... a way to play my extensive music collection throughout my entire house. For that, Sonos is priceless.
      BarryM
      BarryM
      January 7, 2013
      AV amps or stereo amps? If it's the latter you aren't likely to have any issues.

      As I said it has been a while since I shopped for these, so up until now I didn't really know there was a difference. I will pay a lot of attention if I need to replace anything.
      vannibombonato
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      As I said it has been a while since I shopped for these, so up until now I didn't really know there was a difference. I will pay a lot of attention if I need to replace anything.

      It's pretty straightforward, if you bring in virtually any modern A/V multichannel receiver, delay will be added and sync with the Plays will be lost. A "typical" amp is used for hi-fi reproduction and typically is used to power two high quality and powerful speakers, left and right. It's "classic hi-fi" stereo. A/V receivers are the typical home theater hub which can power 5.1, 7.1, 9.1 speakers and can be used not only as a "classic" amp but as an hub for different sources (i.e. you connect to it the cable TV receiver, you Sonos, your BRay, etc., and for each of the sources you choose which sound program to go: for instance, for the Sonos i have it set-up so it plays the music -which is stereo- across all five channels + the sub).

      It's just maths, if the A/V has processing going in, delay is unavoidable.
      If you use it in "straight" mode it will be using "only" the 2 L/R speakers in "true hi-fi mode" (forget about subs and all the rest), but delay gets greatly reduced, depending on the various amps.

      Again, you could be perfectly fine with it as well as being totally bummed with it.

      I am bummed as i moved from having 500W of speaker power + Sub to 200W of speakers and no sub - if i want to use the Play as well, which i stopped doing.
      vannibombonato
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      What has Apple added to Airplay audio tech in the last 2 years? Nothing that I know of.

      Your other points are well taken, although I don't see how you see it to be enormously less expensive. The play units aren't a lot more expensive than airplay enabled units of similar sound quality.

      By Apple adding i mean that Airplay is developing more and more and becoming a standard across virtually all music and video related devices. It's the "App Store" effect. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and progressively achieving what before was an exclusive of Sonos and the likes users. Think at what happened with the Sonos controller and the iPad with the Sonos -wonderful- app and talk me about value for money.

      A quality A/V receiver which powers 5.1 speakers, has HDMI inputs, etc. etc. etc. can cost around 400$ and is Airplay enabled. That is, you stream your music to it for 400$.

      If you want to stream your music to the same receiver with Sonos you need to add 350$ for the Connect.

      That's almost double the money, i call it a pretty significant difference.
      Kumar
      January 7, 2013

      If you want to stream your music to the same receiver with Sonos you need to add 350$ for the Connect.

      That's almost double the money, i call it a pretty significant difference.

      Seen that way, I'd have to agree.

      But the Connect does allow you to create a system that can stream different music from the same source, at the same time, to different rooms over a more robust Sonosnet, neither of which AirPlay can do. And of course for now both have the problem with the delay you refer to.

      I also believe that Sonos lacks and therefore needs serious competition to keep them honest. At the moment, AirPlay doesn't fit that bill.
      the_lhc
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      A quality A/V receiver ... can cost around 400$

      We clearly have different standards of "quality"...
      vannibombonato
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      We clearly have different standards of "quality"...

      Clearly if you are part of the guys that think that an amplifier needs to cost 3k+ to be a quality one, you should avoid using Sonos components: the quality of an audio signal is equal to the quality achieved in the worst component in the signal chain. Or perhaps you want to tell me that Sonos components are up-to-par with the so-called hi-fi standards of people spending 100$ a meter for a cable?

      But that's another story.
      ratty
      ratty
      January 7, 2013
      Since Sonos digital output is, with Fixed Volume, bit perfect to the source a Sonos Connect is quite the equal of top notch DACs and amplification. In fact with a secure rip to lossless it's most probably better than any CD player, which by definition must do error correction in real time.
      vannibombonato
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      Since Sonos digital output is, with Fixed Volume, bit perfect to the source a Sonos Connect is quite the equal of top notch DACs and amplification. In fact with a secure rip to lossless it's most probably better than any CD player, which by definition must do error correction in real time.

      Ratty...i totally agree, i was just pointing out that saying that a $400 amplifier is by definition not a quality amplifier implies loads of assumptions which are very 1980s and proven irrelevant for 99,9% of the population who does not have Mozart's ear and properly acoustic treated listening rooms (alongside with 10ks of hi-fi equipment).

      Apologize for the off topic in this sense, to me Sonos audio and component quality are more than fine to be clear.
      wijo
      Avid Contributor I
      January 7, 2013
      @mods
      isn't time to make a new thread of this? The opening post was about the pricing of the connect
      versus the play, but soon it changed into a discussion about the sync issue.
      Both legitimate discussions, but for clarity I prefer two threads for this.
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