Best sonos alternatives. What's everyone moving to?

I am doing my research. I'm just over it. Have things change without warning and no respect for customer base. All profit driven removing benefits that serve the community. Back to listen to records and CDs. At least I have some control.

Taking back control is key, but the quoted step is extreme and probably not needed. I was in the same “pissed off with Sonos” state as you are in just now, in 2020 at the S1/S2 stunt that Sonos pulled, and I discovered that all one needs to take back control is Sonos kit with line in jacks. Even if some of the units have these, that is enough to take back control.

What you need to do is to configure the line in jacks to autoplay, via a one time use of the Sonos app and hopefully the ability to do that is still there in this new release.

Thereafter the Sonos speaker and the group it is part of will play whenever it gets a signal at the line in jack from another streaming device like even an Echo Dot plugged in to that jack. With no need to invoke the Sonos app; it will do this even if you delete the Sonos app from your phone. And sound quality will be the same as hitherto.

Sonos hardware is then used as dumb electronics, something it does well, with all the smarts moved to the front end that is wired into the line in jack of the now dumb Sonos kit.

There is even a work around for Sonos kit that does not have line in jacks - get a used Port/Connect that works on your present Sonos app version, and configure its line in jacks to play on the Sonos speaker that does not have these jacks. A one time expense to get back control.

This configuration of the line in jacks stays as such even after mains power cycling. It changes only via a factory reset or via the Sonos control app.

In my case, I now use Echo Show devices as smart front ends relegating Sonos kit to dumb electronics role. I have used my 12 Sonos units in this way since 2020 and it all works like a charm with the added advantage of album art for music playing.

There are two issues here to be aware of.

One, to play from my NAS, I have to use my S1 controller for its smarts; Echo does not do NAS music. There is one solution for this I have used to check it out and that was using Raspberry as a NAS accessed by an app hosted on my Mac, that Echo could also access via voice commands. It worked well, but since S1 allows me NAS use in a slicker way, I use S1 when I want to play from my NAS on rare occasions.

Two, the latest versions of many Echo devices no longer have the analog audio out jack that is needed for Sonos kit with line in jacks to be used in dumb mode.

Of course if you have a turntable or a CD player, the same result is achieved by wiring the line level jacks on these to Sonos line in jacks. You do not need any Sonos app to play music from these devices either, once the Sonos line in jacks have been set to autoplay. You will however then not have a remote for volume level changes, and will have to use the buttons on the Sonos kit being used. But using something like Spotify casting to Echo, one has all the other convenience of streamed service delivered music, including full remote operation of the native Spotify app on the phone, or via voice commands to the Echo device upstream of Sonos.

The great thing about taking back control is not just that one is insulated from disasters like the present one, but one is also saved from the weekly updates that Sonos seems to make to the S2 app; the S1 app is largely ignored by Sonos developers, leaving S1 users in a contented state with no upheavals, large or small, caused by Sonos antics.

I also know of this device that can replace Sonos smarts when wired to line in jacks of Sonos Amp/speakers. 

Reviews of the UI speak highly of how slick it is to get music going with album art.

Downside is the expense, allied to the risk of handing over control from one entity to another.

https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/eversolo-dmp-a6

As I have written about, one can keep the excellent sounding Sonos speakers/amp and change the control system for another quite easily. Why waste what works well as you would if you moved to B&W or any other speaker maker?

This is awesome, I just went into the living room and realised this is how i have the system setup. Turntable, CD player, Tuner. All plugged in with jacks and play beautifully. Thank you.

Excellent, you can now do what the kit is supposed to let you, enjoy the music minus all this Sonos created chaos. 

There is one other issue to be aware of, the 70 millisecond delay in Sonos kit playing music via line in. As long as all the downstream kit is from Sonos, this does not surface, but if some are third party amps or powered speakers that usually do not have this delay, there will be an echo effect heard in group play because those speakers will not be in sync with Sonos. Obviously, this only comes to the fore if grouped play is in use, via grouped non Sonos front ends.

What third party apps can control Sonos speakers, if any? I know we can select music from the Spotify app to play on the speakers, but are there any other apps offering more control??

None can because Sonos speakers won’t talk to them wirelessly; hence the use of line in jacks that bypasses this barrier. The advantage of doing this is that it bypasses the Sonos control app which is what is giving users so much trouble just now. You then no longer need the Sonos app to play music on Sonos speakers.

I downloaded SonoPhone two days ago, after Sonos Version 80 bricked my system.  It was up and running in minutes and recognized all of my music services without me having to login in to each.  It may not be as sophisticated in some ways as the Sonos App.  But it works well and is easy to use at what it does.  I can manage zones quite easily and access my NAS, along with Spotify and Pandora.  Don’t need anything else.  I am quite pleased with this and am now researching my future move away from Sonos.

I came to post my own question about this but thought I’d search first.  No sense in starting a new post.  I am wondering the same thing.  I’m really tired of dealing with the crap from Sonos.  What are the best alternatives?