Best sonos alternatives. What's everyone moving to?

You’re right.  The line in approach is the way I should go for now.  I already have a Wiim Pro Plus which has a good DAC and supports Tidal FLAC so it should exceed the hardware in the Sonos.

Again: I doubt it will audibly exceed the sound heard from the DAC in the 5. In any case, for line in use the final DAC that will be used is the one in the 5. Wiim will have to give an analog signal for which the 5 will do ADC and DAC. But if you have spent on the Wiim, there is no need for the Dot experiment except just as one.

The Five takes an analog signal through an ADC then DAC?  Yuch.  I guess they do that to support trueplay?

A general comment on alternatives to Sonos: as one that has used very high end kit at home for a decade or so before Sonos, I have much respect for Sonos sound engineering and hardware. They botched up some TV bar sometime ago, but that was another software thing that they corrected after some months. But the sound from play 1/One/3/5 has been better than their price points, for those that want their audio kit to sound natural. This HiFi class sound quality isn’t by accident, there is a lot of advanced tech in those Sonos boxes, and clever audio engineering. Looks are good as well, and kit is built to last.

So any alternative needs to first see how to use existing Sonos kit and the open sesame to that is the Sonos line in jack. And obviously the problem there is that units like play 1/One do not have these jacks as the 5 does. There is a workaround for this lack by interposing a Connect/Port for its line in jacks between the alternative source to the Sonos app, but this isn't needed for the 5. Or for the line in jack equipped Sonos Amp.

Any first alternative to Sonos therefore has to be on replacing just the control end - that Sonos has buggered up just now - but keep the excellent Sonos hardware.

All this is elaborated in my first post above on this thread.

All line in jacks on any audio kit take only analog signals, and are therefore agnostic as to what kit is at either end. In case for Sonos, there is no Yuch as an audible effect of the ADC/DAC process. Even the 70 ms delay is not caused by this, but by the need for all Sonos players in a group to be in perfect sync.

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.