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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T

train_nerd

Trending Lyricist I

Progress (not) on Echo Input wired to AUX analog input to A/V receiver (rather than Line-In) on ZP90. Unsure how this reconciles with known low input of Sonos devices described earlier; had planned to trial Echo Input wired to Line-In on Connect AMP linked to A/V receiver also wired with Echo Input device.

Posted to Amazon Forum:

“….Obvious design problem when using 3.5 mm jack to RCA phono input AUX input to A/V receiver. Not apparent that the device output is at typical required Line-In level. Experimenting here as alternative to Sonos components which will be used on legacy devices by Sonos, particularly Play 5, ZP-90, Connect Amp using Line-In input.

Sonos aside, the input signal is waaay too weak to point of device being a "fail" because of this fault. Amazon support not aware of impedance rating/spec for device nor recommended pre-amp for device. Gotta experiement wih pre-amp at my (and your) own risk. FWIW, they offered new device, but no reason to believe that would solve this significant problem for A/V system AUX input users, or others. Disappointed, urgently needs a fix since it really limits adopting Alexa ecosystem in my case.”

Feels like making it work is getting too messy.

Not 100 percent clear on what you are describing. But if you are saying you are trying to put an amazon echo device to av receiver you would go line out on the echo to one of the line ins on the av receiver. Any line in other than one marked phono as that would be used only for turntables. I have done this before. I may be misunderstanding as my echo dots only have line outs but I believe the higher up echo devices have both line in and line out.

Used Echo Input device 3.5 mm output (only one) to female 3.5/RCA male phono adapter to A/V receiver AUX input on Anthem MRX710. Volume setting on Echo Input set at maximum, still waaay weak FWIW. Hope that clarifies.

BTW, turns out multiple reports of this on Amazon forum for this device. Not clear my post yet went thru on their site….in review queue or speculate (premature?) omitted on merit poor report; unknown.

M

MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

Progress (not) on Echo Input wired to AUX analog input to A/V receiver (rather than Line-In) on ZP90. Unsure how this reconciles with known low input of Sonos devices described earlier; had planned to trial Echo Input wired to Line-In on Connect AMP linked to A/V receiver also wired with Echo Input device.

Posted to Amazon Forum:

“….Obvious design problem when using 3.5 mm jack to RCA phono input AUX input to A/V receiver. Not apparent that the device output is at typical required Line-In level. Experimenting here as alternative to Sonos components which will be used on legacy devices by Sonos, particularly Play 5, ZP-90, Connect Amp using Line-In input.

Sonos aside, the input signal is waaay too weak to point of device being a "fail" because of this fault. Amazon support not aware of impedance rating/spec for device nor recommended pre-amp for device. Gotta experiement wih pre-amp at my (and your) own risk. FWIW, they offered new device, but no reason to believe that would solve this significant problem for A/V system AUX input users, or others. Disappointed, urgently needs a fix since it really limits adopting Alexa ecosystem in my case.”

Feels like making it work is getting too messy.

Not 100 percent clear on what you are describing. But if you are saying you are trying to put an amazon echo device to av receiver you would go line out on the echo to one of the line ins on the av receiver. Any line in other than one marked phono as that would be used only for turntables. I have done this before. I may be misunderstanding as my echo dots only have line outs but I believe the higher up echo devices have both line in and line out.

Used Echo Input device 3.5 mm output (only one) to female 3.5/RCA male phono adapter to A/V receiver AUX input on Anthem MRX710. Volume setting on Echo Input set at maximum, still waaay weak FWIW. Hope that clarifies.

BTW, turns out multiple reports of this on Amazon forum for this device. Not clear my post yet went thru on their site….in review queue or speculate (premature?) omitted on merit poor report; unknown.

Ok. Makes sense now and sounds correct. Any possibility that an additional volume control in play ie. Playback software or Alexa app. Also is the sound just quiet or distorted as well.

T

train_nerd

Trending Lyricist I

So far, quiet only. Other inputs typically need 20% total volume (linear) for casual listening. Echo Input device needed 60% scale to be marginally acceptable audible (Low). No known other options to increase output other than volume setting in Echo app, which was only one offered by Amazon support. Pre-amp? I don’t know. Makes me wonder about impedance issues. Did not detect distortion at moderate audible levels.

Thinking that I observed some reports that Echo Dot was okay, so I’d welcome actual experience reports using similar set-up with Echo Dot; cheaper than pre-amp addition?

M

MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

So far, quiet only. Other inputs typically need 20% total volume (linear) for casual listening. Echo Input device needed 60% scale to be marginally acceptable audible (Low). No known other options to increase output other than volume setting in Echo app, which was only one offered by Amazon support. Pre-amp? I don’t know. Makes me wonder about impedance issues. Did not detect distortion at moderate audible levels.

Thinking that I observed some reports that Echo Dot was okay, so I’d welcome actual experience reports using similar set-up with Echo Dot; cheaper than pre-amp addition?

I did this prior to buying my sonos connect and it worked fine for me. Echo dot out via 3.5 to stereo RCA cable to aux input on my integrated amplifier. Worked well but I wanted sonos integration so I bought the sonos connect. Also did this in the bathroom outputting to a tivoli pal radio via 3.5 to 3.5 cable and this worked fine. Could be the Amazon input is defective, could also be a defective cable. Or perhaps the Amazon input is different from the dot but I can't see why they would design it differently.

K

KumarAuthor

@train_nerd : Is the echo dot volume set to full, to start with? So that the only thing that varies the sound levels in the room are is the Anthem volume slider.

The echo dot output is a standard line level one that works with a range of external speakers so you should not have issues except with sophisticated kit like Sonos and some amps that have adjustable line in sensitivity. In Sonos, this often needs the line in level to be set to maximum, 10.

Line in level signal exchanges do not have impedance issues.

The other possibilities: defective Echo, defect in the line in jack on the Anthem - try another -, defective cable. Eliminate possibilities one at a time is the way to address defects.

All my Echo devices have worked flawlessly with a wide range of external speakers/devices like JBL Flip, Minirig portable speakers, and of course, Connect and Connect Amp. Sound levels are not an issue.

And re the pre amp - these are needed only to boost signals from turntable to line level for amps that do not have phono sockets that have a preamp downstream of the socket. Do NOT feed the Echo output to a preamp; the latter will probably be damaged.

K

KumarAuthor

I know I would feel much better about Sonos going forward if they created a reasonably cheap bridge device to do this.

@MikeOinToronto

This echoes what someone in the vent thread has suggested as well:

The “box” attaches to both the legacy network and the update capable network. Call it “Bridge 2”

What this box has to do - since legacy products are allegedly not capable of doing - is to receive music streams from one system and hand it off to the other. That’s it - a little WiFi dongle that is version less and therefore never to be upgraded; ideally it should go directly into a main socket. And Sonos should give it away free to any account that has a split system registered to it.

And instead of coming out and giving “n” number of reasons why this cannot be done, the direction should be towards making it happen.

But the “can do” attitude seems to be missing from Sonos these days; but I have a solution that also gives me album art, so I really don't care any more.

M

MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

I know I would feel much better about Sonos going forward if they created a reasonably cheap bridge device to do this.

@MikeOinToronto

This echoes what someone in the vent thread has suggested as well:

The “box” attaches to both the legacy network and the update capable network. Call it “Bridge 2”

What this box has to do - since legacy products are allegedly not capable of doing - is to receive music streams from one system and hand it off to the other. That’s it - a little WiFi dongle that is version less and therefore never to be upgraded; ideally it should go directly into a main socket. And Sonos should give it away free to any account that has a split system registered to it.

And instead of coming out and giving “n” number of reasons why this cannot be done, the direction should be towards making it happen.

But the “can do” attitude seems to be missing from Sonos these days; but I have a solution that also gives me album art, so I really don't care any more.

I don't even expect it to be free, just low cost. If a 200 dollar box would keep legacy products viable I would be good with that. I don't see it as a dongle but more along the lines of a box that does the processing for legacy devices, essentially turning them into dumb speakers that just play the music stream.

K

KumarAuthor

@MikeOinToronto : I say free because this functionality should have been in the other paid for boxes in the first place. Free also to rebuild the trust and the reputation built over 15 years, that has been destroyed in a month.

And you would be surprised at how much can be packed into a dongle these days - far more than could be in a Connect in 2010.

The thinking is for the legacy speakers to retain existing smart functions and not be just dumb speakers, in either stand alone mode, or when playing as a group of legacy system zones. Making them dumb would enrage another set of users. The dongle is needed only for combined in sync music play across both systems.

K

KumarAuthor

These discussions are moot though, since Sonos won't do squat on either of the two lines, so, leaving this bridging to Amazon/Google/Others via Sonos Line In, moving on...

K

KumarAuthor

Progress (not) on Echo Input wired to AUX analog input

Feels like making it work is getting too messy.

In summary, and for others contemplating this use with Sonos Line In:

Keep at it, in my case it worked out of the box every time I did this, with the time it took to connect the stereo cable at both ends being the only extra time required, once Sonos unit line in settings had been set. There is something you are doing wrong, or there is a defective Echo, cable, cable connection, input jack or setting somewhere. If you follow a logical step by step fault finding process, you will know exactly where the issue is.

One caveat, just for the record: I have not used the Echo Input - my Dots, Spot, and Show 5 have worked equally well in the manner I have described..

Although unlikely, there may be something in the lowest priced product in the line up, the Input, that is responsible for what you are seeing. But this is the least likely possibility.

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