The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 23, 2020
570 replies
22879 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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K

KumarAuthor

@chickentender janky will work:-)

K

KumarAuthor

John MacFarlane led Sonos to its present position in the market from day 1 till retiring a couple of years ago.

A paraphrase of his very recent tweet on the subject that should encourage all here to keep going in the direction we are planning:

“Most of his 14 player system is impacted other than a few new items. He intends doing nothing until Sonos has something in an update which makes him want it.”

Obviously then, he also did not fall for the Trade Up trap.

chickentender

John MacFarlane led Sonos to its present position in the market from day 1 till retiring a couple of years ago.

A paraphrase of his very recent tweet on the subject that should encourage all here to keep going in the direction we are planning:

“Most of his 14 player system is impacted other than a few new items. He intends doing nothing until Sonos has something in an update which makes him want it.”

Obviously then, he also did not fall for the Trade Up trap.

I’ve thought about MacFarlane a number of times in the past few days, wondering what his thoughts on all this were. I’d be interested to hear a few more, but that small bit is telling… and encouraging. :)

K

KumarAuthor

@chickentender Here is more - he appended a crying face emoji when referring to the Connect Amps in the legacy side of his system.

That puts me in august company.

I don't know about encouraging, most US companies tend to treat former CEOs even worse than they treat customers. But telling, 100%.

Poor Spence.

K

KumarAuthor

And here is a copy paste of another tweet from him, that does not take us forward, so I had not posted it.

But, since you ask: The parade of people that just can't be bothered to read/think just continues for Sonos. Sonos started this dumpster fire with poor customer empathy and coms, but the meme just lives on.

chickentender

@Kumar … here you are, in all it’s janky and hurried glory. :joy:

My simple new Bluesound/Sonos hybrid. (I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but this is my “simple” setup.)

T

train_nerd

Trending Lyricist I

Here's the detail.

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

Review here..

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

The review is from 2014, and has been obsoleted by Echo. For a lot less money, get a Echo Dot or Input, and wire it to your line in jacks. In addition to voice, Echo devices can also receive bluetooth music streams from paired devices. You can even leave the mic permanently off and use it this way. I have used mine to convert my desktop Sonos to a computer speaker, connected to my Mac via bluetooth. Via Sonos line in jacks.

Intend stay in Legacy until more facts come to table: PlayBase, Play Bar, Sonos1s

Amazon Echo Inputs on the way. One for A/V system, short term in addition to/alternative to ZP-90; one for Connect Amp using line-in. If works well will consider for Play5s. Worth a try at modest price. WTH.

Kilpsch has a wireless system, obviously not as, shall I say, experienced as Sonos. Planning to explore it, but it’s a cost, of course. Seems to be more modular design but gotta go learn.

Not an engineer or designer, but it sure seems like the old units could go “dumb” with a $35 add-on device that talks to old-unit via ethernet port, with add-on device handling processing and be upgradeable. Someone will do this if Sonos does not.

chickentender

When I want to include the wireless sonos environment, I group the speakers as I want in the Sonos app and play the Connect Line-in as source. I switch my receiver from AUX to TAPE-IN (effectively just an AUX-2 in this setup) so that what comes out the passive wired speakers in perfect Sonos-sync with the audio going out to the wireless ONE and Play1s. It’s as quick as that. The audio source is still the Bluesound Node 2i, but routed through the Connect. If I don't need whole-house (which is 80% of the time) I just use the Node 2i alone via AUX on the receiver.

Incidentally, as another level of complexity, but future stability, my wife’s iPhone/Macbook can send to both the Node 2i and the Sonos ONE via Airplay-2 simultaneously with perfect sync, even while the non-airplay Play:1 speakers are grouped with the ONE. That impressed me. (Hats off to Sonos on that count for magically shoe-horning the older players in with the Airplay-2 compatibles ones without any added delay.)

K

KumarAuthor

@chickentender the sketch is perfect. I will study and respond. Quick question, do the passive speakers and Sonos speakers play in sync? I think not.

@train_nerd sounds good, note though that Sonos Ethernet jacks take Sonos proprietary signals, and won't serve for third party. It has to be analog audio out to Sonos line in jacks

@chickentender hold that, I need to re read.

K

KumarAuthor

@train_nerd I know from mine that echo dot can receive Bluetooth. Not sure than input can, so do check. Voice controlled play from input wired to line in jacks on Sonos will work, no doubt on that bit.

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