With the new announcement of Sonos Radio HD, just checking in on people’s thoughts. Did you sign up for the trial? Will you keep it? How does it compare to others like Amazon, Tidal and Qobuzz? Is it in addition to? How to improve? Share please. Thanks in advance.
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Free Sonos radio has been a major bust in my house so not that excited. It’s free so no shade on sonos just not to my taste.
$7.99 is more than double what I would pay.
I’ve generally been happy with Sonos radio, and I haven’t found the ads to be too annoying. I don’t know that the HD quality, and the hours I listen each month, is going to justify $8 a month.
If the content is good I would pay for human curated content. But this is competing with several on demand services, nuggs.net, sirius and my own music so for me to buy in it would need to be very good and cheap. But I probably can’t have both.
For the monthly fee I would expect mobile and web apps. I do more listening on my phone/car/laptop than sonos.
Yes, the ability to use the service while not at home would make a big difference for me.
What’s the HD content here? Reading the release I see CD quality, not HD. I don’t think I am being pedantic by bringing this up.
HD isn’t a definite term that corresponds to any specific audio quality. Sonos HD is actually the same exact quality as Amazon’s HD. You’re correct though that others will assume HD means 24 bit.
https://www.amazon.com/music/unlimited/why-hd?ref=dmm_LP_WHYHD
Finally, this is pure speculation but with Sonos moving to optional (for now) monthly service fees and adding newer speakers to upgrade program they are signalling some future changes that make me nervous.
I hope I am wrong but past behavior doesn’t make me confident. I am definitely rethinking purchases for family christmas. Kids will get cheaper small Homepods and I won’t replace my Raspberry Pi players.
I do think that the upgrade program could be an indication of future system features to come, but I can’t imagine it’s going to mean a repeat of the S1/S2 split. It obviously couldn’t be about HD quality audio, but it could be a feature that only works on the more modern speakers...that I can’t really imagine right now.
It could also be just a customer loyalty program, perhaps trying to fix some bad relationships. And other thought I had, is that perhaps Sonos isn’t getting sales from existing customers like they want, and this just boosts the numbers.
I have signed up to the free trial, but am unlikely to renew for these reasons:
- Half my listening is to classical, but only two classical stations available,
- Sonos HD is not HD but lossless CD quality (which is what I had assumed the free Sonos radio to be anyway, disappointing),
- Too expensive for what it is, unless Sonos significantly increase the content, especially classical,
- Sonos are ripping-off the British consumer: $8.00 in the US, $10.50 in Britain.
Userlevel 6
+13
Free Sonos radio has been a major bust in my house so not that excited. It’s free so no shade on sonos just not to my taste.
$7.99 is more than double what I would pay.
If the content is good I would pay for human curated content. But this is competing with several on demand services, nuggs.net, sirius and my own music so for me to buy in it would need to be very good and cheap. But I probably can’t have both.
For the monthly fee I would expect mobile and web apps. I do more listening on my phone/car/laptop than sonos.
What’s the HD content here? Reading the release I see CD quality, not HD. I don’t think I am being pedantic by bringing this up.
Finally, this is pure speculation but with Sonos moving to optional (for now) monthly service fees and adding newer speakers to upgrade program they are signalling some future changes that make me nervous.
I hope I am wrong but past behavior doesn’t make me confident. I am definitely rethinking purchases for family christmas. Kids will get cheaper small Homepods and I won’t replace my Raspberry Pi players.
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