The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 23, 2020
570 replies
22878 views

I will start this thread with a few caveats:

First, this thread is not for rants. There are plenty here for those, and there is no bar on opening new ones.

Second, the thread is directed for the subset of users that have a large investment in legacy products, and are content to see their Sonos systems as music systems that offer stable streamed music from either a NAS or from the net, and have no expectation of more bells and whistles - just that things continue to work as they are working today. I happen to be in this boat as well, as someone that has three out of six zones running very well on legacy products that I simply cannot afford to jettison until the hardware dies.

Third, this thread is based on facts, some of which have been coming to light only over the last 48 or so hours. It is therefore incomplete to an extent, and may even be wrong in places. Feel free therefore to clarify/correct/add as necessary - and I specifically invite @Ryan S to do so. But, no rants please - they have a place, but this is not it.

All that said, this is the solution I intend to proceed with and recommend here:

Opt for a legacy system operation in May, that will run legacy and modern products, exactly as these run today; no faffing around with two networks. No more enhancements, but expecting Sonos to honestly fulfil their recent promise of all bug fixes that the legacy products can accommodate. Ditto for what needs to be done to accommodate changes driven by at least the mainstream service providers.

By a happy coincidence, all legacy products have line in jacks. So if something even happens at the streaming service end that cannot be accommodated in legacy products, I am confident of finding some device that can be wired to the line in jacks of these, that will still allow streaming from the culprit service to work including in grouped mode with all other products in the system.

The streaming from the local NAS will not have any issues in this mode, other than hardware failures including that of the NAS, and a key assumption here is that NAS changes will not need a Sonos software update.

Although Sonos has said that new products can be added to such a system, I do not see how this is possible once new products come installed with versions that are beyond the frozen legacy system one. Unless Sonos is not going to sell any new products in future with versions beyond the 2020 legacy one - I doubt that. And once a product comes with the latest version, adding it to a legacy system without rendering legacy products inoperable is going to be tricky because it will involve first separating the one system into two; I also admit to being a little fuzzy with this bit. In my case, this is all moot; I have no need for another zone. As an aside, I am someone therefore that is not of much interest to Sonos!

I also assume that if anyone at any time in the future wanted to jettison legacy products for any reason, all they will need to do is leave all such products powered off, invoke updates and the result will be a Sonos system updated to the day they do the invocation. The concern here for me is different - I need to have an ironclad way of NOT updating my system before I am ready to separate or jettison legacy products, and this needs more insights into how things will work on this front in future.

I am pretty sure that this way ahead will work in my use case and I suggest it will also work for many that are heavily invested in Sonos legacy products, that do not want to write it off or to trade up to new products just to retain all existing functionality.

Yes, it involves losing future enhancements/features, but once we accept that these essentially are music boxes that will keep doing all they do today, that should be an acceptable trade off, I suggest. It is to me, for sure.

So this way, this event will be just a minor inconvenience, and I expect to be able to use all my existing products till the hardware fails.

What this event has convince me though is to now look at/recommend smart systems that are truly modular in the sense that the smart bits can be periodically replaced at low cost, while the core “dumb” electronic hardware can be of such build/after sales support, that it justifies the higher investment in the consequent price, if better sound quality is also needed than what the smart front ends can alone provide. But that's for the future.

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A

andy_120

Enthusiast II

I posted this in the other thread but came across this one so would post hear

the sonos decision has far more reaching consequences than a product brand dying. Sonos has highlighted to me that this can happen to any of these type of systems and many alternatives have been suggested. Sonos should really get together with all the major streaming services and devise a standard where software updates would only be needed to fix system bugs and stop playing catchup with the streaming services. It's in the intrest of these services as well because if the buying public sees the pitfalls of buying such devices to stream there music and that device becomes obsolete and does not run that streaming service again, the streaming service revenue will fall and the whole industry will most likely fail because the paying public will see the whole streaming concept as a flawed concept. Even before this has happened vynal is making a come back as well as cassette tape even. I'm sure the record industry would be affected as well as lost revenue in record sale as someone streaming will be more likely to listen to something different as opposed to actually taking a risk to buy the physical one.

I just personally see things differently ...and to standstill too long now would mean to stifle any technological innovation… we would still be using vhs video tapes if we all adopted a legacy system. I’m sorry, but you can keep your vinyl and audio cassette tapes.. I’m well past those things. At least let those that want to, race ahead. Thinking about it, Sonos is providing us here with the opportunity to standstill or innovate. So it’s perhaps the best announcement we ALL could have wished for anyway.🤔

I'm not against progress, all I'm trying to say if I buy any particular system to stream that all these systems are open to the same issue sonos has just created. Until such time that the streaming services work more closely with the hardware manufacturers then this situation will keep coming up again and again. I want sonos to succeed but fear they won't be able to unless there is a dramatic change in there current direction, and what a great way to promote a longevity of a product that they could say they work in partnership with a 3rd party company.

Ken_Griffiths

Does anyone know if Roon could be used as a server to send simultaneously to the legacy and modern networks? I asked this on the main thread but it got lost in the widespread venting. The Roon support site seems to think it can,

If roon currently supports streaming to two or more devices now, then I would have thought so, but only time will confirm if that is indeed the case.

K

KumarAuthor

Until such time that the streaming services work more closely with the hardware manufacturers then this situation will keep coming up again and again.

Until then, there is Line In - a physical bridge from smart, rapid obsolescence, cheap streaming modules, to robust audio system components that are built to last, preferably with replaceable parts and after sales service post warranty.

If at all any thing is required to work more closely, it would be something like the old iPod docks, where the iPod slotted neatly into a jack on the dock.

Come to think of it, even Sonos could invent such a product, that will allow their more expensive audio hardware to work for decades, being built for such service life, with a cheap throw away every three years smart module that slots into it. And please, Sonos, with album art, which is such a cool feature that has always been missing on Sonos.

Where is a patent lawyer when I need one?:-).

C

castalla

Local Superstar

Thread title: The Sonos Brexit and a pragmatic way past it

Solution: buy a Raspberry Pi and install LMS + upnpbridge plugin

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

K

KumarAuthor

@castalla : I have no clue what that jargon means, and I have no desire to know. I am not a techie and I get nervous just looking at the exposed circuitry in the raspberry. I reckon that a large number of recent additions to the user base are like me.

For those that are not, I am sure this is an excellent option that merits discussions here.

A

andyd1302

Enthusiast II

Just chanced on this add-on which might be of interest to those looking for a solution to attach to their existing amp & utilising a hard wired Zone 2/3.

It has a great review & an add-on like this might be worth considering.

Bluetooth is incorporated into most devices & I think will outlive most of the multi-room options for a fraction of the price & this one seems to have decent connectivity & components.

With the current Sonos debacle I'm now giving this serious consideration to work with Plex which is primarily what I'm using the current Sonos system for anyway.

Volume control & sound tweaking for piped music would be handled directly from my amp manufacturers app, in my case Yamaha with Spotify Connect built in.

Heck, you could even feed it to a line-in legacy Sonos!

The other options in scope if Sonos doesn't come through are Nvidia Shield Pro/Plex via HDMI to amp, or Bluesound Node 2i to amp, but I'm a bit wary of the second option given recent events.

The Bluetooth option not for everyone I'd imagine, but perhaps helpful to some if not built-in to an AV receiver already.

Here's the detail.

https://audioengineusa.com/shop/adapters/b1-bluetooth-music-receiver/

Review here..

https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/audioengine/b1.htm

Ken_Griffiths

@castalla : I have no clue what that jargon means, and I have no desire to know. I am not a techie and I get nervous just looking at the exposed circuitry in the raspberry. I reckon that a large number of recent additions to the user base are like me.

For those that are not, I am sure this is an excellent option that merits discussions here.

It’s a piece of obsolete/unsupported media server software.

Twonky is a better supported piece of software IMHO, which will transcode 'on the fly’ or 'in advance' virtually any A/V source to any A/V source. Guess you might say it’s similar to using Plex or Windows Media Server.

S

Sparkyboots

Enthusiast I

Does anyone know if Roon could be used as a server to send simultaneously to the legacy and modern networks? I asked this on the main thread but it got lost in the widespread venting. The Roon support site seems to think it can,

The way I understand it at the moment Roon can do this but I’ve read so much over the past few days I’ve confused myself lol so please don’t take it as gospel from me. I’m interested in Roon because many of the big players Linn, Naim, B&W etc support it so it’s not as standalone as Sonos. I came very close over the weekend to taking the plunge with B&W formation kit because

A it sounds absolutely stunning in a demo I had with just Bluetooth from my phone

B because of Bluetooth, Roon etc it would “hopefully” be more future proof

C my experience of B&W customer support with obsolescence has been excellent in the past with 75% offered off the newer Zeppelin

unfortunately I was caught by my wife drooling over the formation duo like a schoolboy with a found mucky magazine or I fear they’d be getting delivered this week lol. Like many others here I’m in a holding pattern on Audio gear until things are clearer but this has been a massive wake up call that will shape my future purchases to be more along dumb equipment with a cheaply replaced streamer/encoder rather than reliance on 1 companies whim as I’ve become with Sonos. I’ve also contemplated picking up a cheap gen1 play 5 to stereo pair with another one and worst case just use the line in for the foreseeable.

C

castalla

Local Superstar

@castalla : I have no clue what that jargon means, and I have no desire to know. I am not a techie and I get nervous just looking at the exposed circuitry in the raspberry. I reckon that a large number of recent additions to the user base are like me.

For those that are not, I am sure this is an excellent option that merits discussions here.

It’s a piece of obsolete/unsupported media server software.

Twonky is a better supported piece of software IMHO, which will transcode 'on the fly’ or 'in advance' virtually any A/V source to any A/V source. Guess you might say it’s similar to using Plex or Windows Media Server.

Utter rubbish!

Supported by an active user community (who don’t attack anyone who steps ‘out-of-line’)

Obsolete? Nonsense again - how obsolete is this then - http://downloads.slimdevices.com/nightly/?ver=7.9

Exposed circuitry? Just buy a 10 USD case.

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

J

John76

Prominent Collaborator I

After I wrote the first post I discovered that my remaining 3 zones served by play 1 units aren't going to remain modern for much longer, with the play 1 containing a mere 64 mb of memory, just marginally better than the 32 in the units jettisoned at this time. And as opposed to the 1024 mb contained in the One units, so the temptation for Sonos to use this idling hardware by jettisoning the play 1s shortly after May or in the next “news” cycle must be strong.

All the more reason then for me to successfully pursue the approach I have set out in this thread.

This is the first time I’ve seen memory specs for various Sonos bits. Where did you get this info and any idea how much memory in a 2017 Play 3?

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