Show the Composer tag on the Now Playing screen
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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The information can be read directly from the file. I suggest that the entire tagged info be made available as part of the menu. Who played the sax here? Who is the soprano? This information is often in my collection, and could be easily displayed. I just updated the tagging using Picard from MusicBrainz. To read it. I would have to log in to my computer and run a program there. Perhaps log into MusicBrainz.
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.
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?
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 ripped my CD collection and added the composer of every song. It would be great to see this information again. As it is now I can search the composer, but I can't easily see who composed the tune I am listening to.
Andreas - welcome to our sad bunch...
I went back to TS with this
Thanks for your reply. Could you pass this suggestion to the devs and highlight that we've been asking for this for 5 years?
and got
all requests are monitored by our developers, so no worries it is being looked at.
I think Charles is right. We need to bombard TS with this one......They're clearly NOT looking at it....
Thanks for your reply. Could you pass this suggestion to the devs and highlight that we've been asking for this for 5 years?
and got
all requests are monitored by our developers, so no worries it is being looked at.
I think Charles is right. We need to bombard TS with this one......They're clearly NOT looking at it....
I'll be contacting support to also raise this. Don't see any reason why composer can't be added. It's annoying and ugly to have to include compose within the (already long) titles of each track.
Just thought I'd bump this. Not really sure Sonos listen to user requests but worth a go.....:-)
Me too. I'm listening to something now (from Qobuz stream service) from a Glenn Gould album but have no idea which composer wrote it! Because composer is excluded from the now playing info. It seems selection of certain fields for now playing is an easy option to include in settings.
Give it up, guys. Sonos has made it clear that their focus is only on the streaming world. They've left us local library guys stranded with what we have.
I can't believe this has been requested for 5 years and Sonos are still ignoring it......"you asked . We listened", they say. Erm .....no ....we asked.....for five years......and you ignored us........
Another disappointed user who would like to see the composer. I don't understand why Sonos has been ignoring users for such a long time. Even if they don't want to display the composer directly on the "playing now" screen, there should be at least an option to show the content of all indexed fields, including composer, from the three-dots-menu (where users can also select, e.g., "show all titles of this album" etc.).
Sonos, please listen to your users and don't just listen, but also do something about it!
Sonos, please listen to your users and don't just listen, but also do something about it!
You're right that the data has to be available, either in a tagging database for fast access, or by going direct to the file system for tagging (or artwork file). I'm assuming that Sonos systems store the absolute minimum local library tagging necessary for navigation (to save memory). Whether it's even possible to get Sonos to read a local FLAC/MP3 file's tags is another question. And if different local/streaming libraries offer different tagging support, offering the minimum tags for consistency might be the smart move.
I can see a "composer" tag in my local library FLAC, would the average streaming service offer such a thing?
I can see a "composer" tag in my local library FLAC, would the average streaming service offer such a thing?
+18
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!
+1
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
+1
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?
+1
Well, this is still a feature that I'am eagerly expecting.
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