The Now Playing widget shows Album, Artist and track title. It doesn't show the Composer name, even though Sonos has this information in its indices. Many classical albums are a composite program of works by various composers. When a track is queued, or playing, there is no way whatsoever to discover who the composer is. The titles given to classical works often give little clue; eg. "String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op 59.2: I. Allegro" ... pick the composer? It is very disappointing that this feature hasn't been implemented after 5+ years of requests from customers who enjoy classical music. I can't see why it isn't self evident that feature is required. In most instances a Sonos improves upon playing music from a physical cd; ie. I don't have to find it, and then put it away. This is an instance where the use of a Sonos degrades the experience; ie. I am listening to something, but I can't tell what it is, as I have no longer have access to the cover.
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Thanks for sharing, we appreciate the feedback.
The message sent by BarryM explains very clearly the problems I, too, have with finding the composers on the albums. I am disappointed that there is still no solution offered, although it must be a piece of cake for the technicians. Do I have to go back to my old system of playing my cd's on a cd player? When replying to this message, please explain why there is not yet a solution offered and please tell us when we can expect an impovement!
I'am fully supporting this request as I can see it missing every day while enjoying classical music on my Sonos system. It is an obvious need from classical music fans.
+1 for this. The tricky part would be to determine when a piece is not classical music, in which case you don't want to see the composer.
see also https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/support_classical_music_show_the_composer_tag
Hi, No need to try to do too much on the user's behalf. If someone cares to fill in the composer tag, it is wise to assume that he'd be happy to see this information somehow, be it classical music or some other genre. IMHO, being pragmatic and showing the info is more than enough.
I have the same problem. I don't see why there is an issue with classical or non-classical music. If the composer tag has been set, show it. If not, don't! It should be trivial for Sonos programmers to implement this. Alternatively why not give the user the option to select what information is shown and what isn't through an options facility?
Well, this is still a feature that I'am eagerly expecting.
I just sent a note to support asking about this feature, and they suggested I add my name to this thread. I see that according to BarryM (at the start of this thread) that people have been asking for it for 5 years! I hope that Sonos can get to it sometime in my lifetime -- but their track record on software updates seems pretty poor.
This really needs to be added. For classical music it's essential!
If we could get a few more people to post it might speed things along...... 🙂
It's not only the composer who's missing - it's the composition, too if more than one are on one album and you don't want to repeat the name (e.g. of a symphony) in the name-string of the track, making it unnecessary long.
Come on Sonos guys - there's more than rock and pop and jazz etc out there.
Come on Sonos guys - there's more than rock and pop and jazz etc out there.
I cannot believe that a premium product like Sonos does not offer the option to see who the composer is - and it seems that customers have been asking for this for years! I would have thought that Itunes must set a benchmark of some pretty much minimal requirements for what information can be displayed. If Sonos can't (or won't) get this sorted out soon, then I will not expand my Sonos system any further and will simply revert to pushing music from my Ipod through my existing stereo system.
It seems like our requests are being ignored despite confirmation from tech support to the contrary. A real dissapointment.
I am reluctant to add composer to every track as will hit Sonos' limitation on tags.
This is a real mystery, why Sonos can't communicate to their most loyal customers, those who really want to company to succeed (maybe just to justify how much they've spent on Sonos gear. I have many ideas that would help their products, particularly in software functionality, but feel I would be wasting my time. Is anybody home?
Thanks for your reply. Can you explain this for me? I add composer info to every track.....
I didn't realise there was a limitation on tags. I have long since lost track (excuse the pun) of the hundreds of gigabytes of classical music I have on my system, and each track is fully tagged and indexed.
There are several threads here somewhere on tag limitations. As I understand it, Sonos has a hard limit of 65,000 tracks (songs, movements, etc.) in its database, but this limit is lowered by how much information it needs to keep for tags. Furthermore, this is affected by file format (!) - apparently FLAC files have more tag fields, causing the track limit to be reduced further. I only have 15,000 tracks so far, so will probably add an abbreviated composer name to my classical tracks. On some long rainy day. Sonos' long silence on this matter, and other shortcomings of their design, make me think they will not be upgrading their basic underlying technology, ever. Tweaking the controller UI with cosmetic changes and NO functional improvements is just not enough to keep me using their products. Much as I would love to have more units around the property, I can't justify living with the limitations. I acknowledge that Sonos met a real need with SonosNet a few years ago when WiFi wasn't up to the task of streaming audio, but now there are many alternatives. Their product is limited by the hardware in the players and connection devices, particularly memory, and I doubt they have a strategy for customer upgrades. So we are stuck with what we have. Enough ranting.....
I fear that Brault is right. Sonos' days are drawing to a close. I will probably switch to B&O -- not cheap, but I already own their speakers and they are clearly in this for the long-haul.
Gosh, I didn't realise that this has been an issue of long standing! Like others on this page, knowing the composer is very important. I'm getting tired of accessing this info through iTunes. I'm not at all heartened by what I've read...
Do sonos support read these forums? I sent them a link once via email but they didn't respond.....
I too wish Sonos would show the Composer on the Info and Now Playing displays. Sonos does a great job in indexing - it derives well from the iTunes library where I have now stored hundreds of (mostly classical) CDs to play through Sonos. You have the info - now let us see it!
I wonder how many posts we will have to make before someone from Sonos chimes in?
It must be a trivial bit of programming to do this. It is not asking much. Alternatively, it should be relatively straightforward to allow the user to configure and customise which tags they want to show and where (like foobar which is what I use on my PC to interface with my classical music database). In response to the last post, does anybody at SONOS actually read these posts?
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