When Sonos announced the S2 one of the draws for switching over was the support for Hi Res audio due to “increased audio bandwidth.” I can’t be the only one who assumed that this additional bandwidth would allow use of Hi Res streaming services, but apparently this is not the case. The Hi Res support is for local files only. Wondering how others are feeling about this.
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If the S1 and S2 capabilities were hugely different today, I suspect the “legacy” kit owners would feel very disappointed. I think it’s clever of Sonos in keeping the differences small to start. My suspicion is that we’ll see the next S2 release in 6 weeks or so, so will hold out until that next version is available.
I was not expecting any major changes in S2 the day it arrived. 3 new products and the switch over itself was a lot for support to handle in the same week.
Like nik9669a, I expect to see new features in the next few releases.
As far as forced upgrade 2 years from now, the current upgrade was not forced, and there’s no way Sonos is going to want to redo all of this as soon as 2 years from now.
I too am thinking (and hoping) that this initial release is just a base release to use as a solid platform for the future development of the S2 software. I didn’t expect many changes at this stage except perhaps a reskin and a few minor tweaks so I am quite relaxed about it at the moment.
Obviously I do want to see a better app going forwards though!
Also, given the late-in-the-cycle change of heart about the support level given to S1, I’m sure they had to divert some man hours away from S2 features in order to accommodate the decision to continue support for the S1 software
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Thanks all. I’ll hope for greater functionality in the future. That said, to go to S2 I have to dump my Connect:Amp, which either means investing in an AMP, reverting to S1, or just living without my Connect:Amp for the future, which I can do as I am up to my eyeballs in Sonos speakers (2 Gen 2 Play 5s, 2 Play 3s, 2 Gen 1 Play 5s, 1 Connect Amp, Gen 2 Sub), but was really looking forward to the sonic improvements S2 seems to promise.
To be honest what work was required on the S1 app? It's just the old app with a different colour and writing on the front of it . The S2 app is no different really either except its got a mustard colour on it ! A lot of us have had to spend some serious cash at a difficult time to stay up to date and future proof our systems, and for that Sonos really haven't given us much in return, sure they had given us the chance to go out and spend more money on new equipment, but they could have given us all something back in the way we interact with our systems in giving us some of the things we are looking for in the app . If only Sonos had upgraded Dolby on the beam for example, it would have shown that they listen and maybe care a little bit but no. Even the higher resolution sound that was promised came with a sting in the tail ! As it only applies to locally stored music , Sonos buyers have had a rough time since all the changes have been announced it would have been nice is Sonos had given something instead of taking .
lonestay wrote:
To be honest what work was required on the S1 app? It's just the old app with a different colour and writing on the front of it .
They had to fork the app and set up a code, maintain, test, release, and update infrastructure that could handle two codebases/apps instead of one. If you aren’t familiar with software engineering, trust me, that is a huge undertaking.
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lonestay wrote:
To be honest what work was required on the S1 app? It's just the old app with a different colour and writing on the front of it . The S2 app is no different really either except its got a mustard colour on it !
They surely had to spend a lot of effort making the transition as seamless as possible for a customer base who likely doesn’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. I don’t consider that to be a small effort, in terms of development and testing, in a matter of months.
lonestay wrote:
A lot of us have had to spend some serious cash at a difficult time to stay up to date and future proof our systems, and for that Sonos really haven't given us much in return, sure they had given us the chance to go out and spend more money on new equipment, but they could have given us all something back in the way we interact with our systems in giving us some of the things we are looking for in the app .
No one has had to spend any money, since staying entirely on an S1 system or going with a split system were 2 of the 3 available options. Sure, they could have given us something new that wasn’t fully developed and tested, which would likely have not gone over very well. I am actually glad that they didn’t try and bite off more than can reasonably be accomplished with this release in a short time period.
lonestay wrote:
If only Sonos had upgraded Dolby on the beam for example, it would have shown that they listen and maybe care a little bit but no. Even the higher resolution sound that was promised came with a sting in the tail ! As it only applies to locally stored music , Sonos buyers have had a rough time since all the changes have been announced it would have been nice is Sonos had given something instead of taking .
Again, these features don’t just happen over night, and Sonos never promised any new features on day one. The only thing they’ve hinted at is hi res to come at some point, which I seriously doubt the current addition is all that it’s going to be in the long run.
Danny
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Seems to me that Sonos have done a pretty good job. I am totally with
And from a personal perspective, as someone who has the most expensive quarter of their system as legacy, not cheesed me off by immediately delivering stuff that I would have wanted in my S1 world.
I have no doubt that changes will come in future.
I agree that it is very disappointing that the high res streaming is limited to locally stored files when the steaming services that Sonos integrates offer much higher quality files for streaming. For the prices that Sonos charges and the fact that it has asked us to upgrade our equipment, I would have expected high resolution streaming to be available. Roon is able to do this, so I do not understand why Sonos cannot.
I also believe it would be a good idea for Sonos in the future to have upgradeable electronics in its pricier speaker, such as the 5. The speaker and amps can last a long time and for $500 the customer should be able to upgrade the DAC and the memory without having to purchase a whole new speaker.
+4folks need to keep in mind Sonos can only control, and announce features for, its own services, platform, and hardware. as such, they have announced support for increased hi-res for those portions it can control directly.
that functionality provides a base for all of the streaming services in the Sonos ecosystem to leverage but those streaming services. unfortunately, all of those companies also have infrastructure and associated apps, library content, licensing, and, last but not least, business plans that all may be impacted in bringing hi-res streams to the Sonos platform.
so, generally your options are:
- be patient and wait for them to arrive in good time
- call your favorite service(s) and request, demand, or dramatically flounce about until they make it available
- or, since there are so many experts here and it is evidently Very Easy™, start your own speaker company and/or streaming service company to compete with Sonos; profits will roll in
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