Best sonos alternatives. What's everyone moving to?

Some interesting colour to this thread, that I give much credit to Sonos for letting stand. After all, this is a Sonos managed and funded place, where we are discussing alternatives to Sonos.

I have had running battles on this site with Sonos worshippers since 2020 when I stopped being one after the S1/S2 debacle, and I remember one of them being very hot and bothered about how I am able to propose/discuss alternatives to his favourite fix on “his” site.

That spat ended in moderator intervention when I was told that I could continue doing what I was doing, but I should not post hyper links here to alternative products. Which seemed fair enough.

In an earlier post here I have provided such a link that seems to have been overlooked by mods; so if they still come around and delete the link, that would also be fair enough.

Any sensible moderator with a customer service focus would be reporting all back to the people who have influence to make changes to keep customers happy. Sometimes companies that lead the field make decisions that end up costing them their business. There are many examples of global companies making technological changes with an attempt to steer their customer community down that path only to find their customer base abandon ship because they don’t like the changes. There are some very good products out there which can easily replace what sonos provides. If they start charging a subscription for the service then I will definitely be switching out the Sonos speakers for something else and just keep subscription to Spotify or Amazon. They would have to be offering something exceptional to outperform any existing streaming service provider. 

oh yes, of course.  They need to keep in sync with a group.  I also just realized that ithe device wirelessly transmits the signal if it’s paired to a sub or stereo.

Excellent, it seems to work - and shows, at a first glance, both S1 and S2 units. Looking forward to try out that app. Thanks!

It's wild that Sony or another hifi maker hasn't replicated Sonos functionality yet. Sony are kind of close but just don't have the flexible multi room functionality settled. 

Sonos have dropped so far down the list of quality products to buy, they will soon begin to fade from major retailers for fear of consumer backlash

I have always wondered why people don’t realise that Echo has done this? And the output from the Echo output jacks, fed to a HiFi amp is HiFi, out of the speakers attached to the amp.

What Echo cannot do is local NAS play, but at this point neither can Sonos?!

Same.  That app works on both iPhone and iPad (or there’s an iPad version too if you want full screen). I think this is the easiest intermediate and immediately available step to moving away from Sonos while also getting most features of the system back.

I saw an AV thread recommending Roon also.  Upside there is it sees many types of audio devices as targets including Sonos. So you can have a mixed system that operates as one.  The downside is monthly or yearly Roon subscription and a Roon server.  But that may not be bad in a transition with the goal of getting off Sonos and then off Roon.

A lot to consider here.  We have so much Sonos product, there’s not much else I’d add.  I might have considered another Roam or portable or whatever this “most awaited product” is, but not now.  No more Sonos products for me unless they quickly exhibit contrition over this app debacle.  The S1/S2 thing was bad enough, but this hubris and greed takes the cake.

One thing to be careful of with Roon is they were only recently bought by Samsung/Harmon and I still haven’t seen any announcements about Samsung/Harmons intentions for its future, so it may end up a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I have been looking to reduce my reliance on Sonos and exit from the eco system over the past 6-9 months, due to my multiroom music becoming an eggs in one basket situation. Where you can go to depends what you need though.

I have a mix of Amps, a Port and then Ikea Symphonisk (for background noise). I have 3 rooms I often group for playback and the Ikea smart home integration gives me physical volume/play/pause controls that just work. I have a local library of music, so local playback and global search are things I want, even though a large part of my daily listening is from Qobuz and international radio streams while I work.

For what I want, there are a couple of potentials depending on their software progression, but nothing that just works out the box, so I will need to run additional services and glue code to replicate what comes out the box with Sonos & Ikea smart home.

While I had been waiting and watching for the right time to move away, the handling of the new app roll out is enough of a push for me to actually sort out the different pieces I need to put together and replace things. I don’t have any confidence in Sonos and their app development process that I willing to bet my whole home audio future on them anymore.

I have no problem with Sonos wanting to change their app or direction, but a go/no-go decision had to be made internally about the state of the app and whether it was fit to release knowing features were still missing. With apps needing submission to the relevant app stores for Google/Apple approval, I’d estimate that decision was made 2-4 weeks before the go live date, but rather than being transparent and letting users know what wouldn’t work or delaying it, a decision must have been made to keep quiet and hope nobody noticed or that the fall-out will be unimportant long term.

If I can get a UPnP/dlna server working nicely with my main Yamaha AVR then I could replace the Sonos Amps with them for my needs. It means bigger boxes but also get room correction and more input options. I’m also keeping an eye on WiiM as they look the most likely competitor to me in terms of a port/amp replacement with their new ultra/amp pro announcements.

like many others, I’m now “looking for alternatives” not the least (reason) being ‘loss’ of MY music. With this in mind, I came across an article of interest;

“So these are all reasons to build your own music library, storing it on a laptop or external NAS drive, either by downloading tracks or buying and ripping vinyl or CDs to digital files. Sure it requires a a bigger initial spend to get you up and running than simply paying a monthly streaming subscription, but if you can put the time, effort and money into it, you’ll be rewarded with ownership, permanence and that warm fuzzy feeling of backing your favourite artists. Music streamers tend to support DLNA or UPnP (or both), meaning they can easily access music stored on the same network” see https://www.whathifi.com/advice/buying-a-music-streamer-avoid-these-10-easy-mistakes  

I just emailed ceo@sonos.com to express my opinion on Sonos dumping MY playlists. I suggest everyone else who is pissed off by this does the same.