who are sonos competitors i can change to

Which makes them a better solution for the many that have the savvy to wire WiiM/similar to active or passive speakers that can give sound quality that is largely determined by the business end of the solution, the speakers. Bundled solutions are the dumbed down versions of such solutions.

Totally agree, @Kumar: a WiiM Amo with a pair of 4” or 5” speakers delivers fabulous sound at a very attractive price!

So would an Echo Dot. The electronics at the front end such as DACs to deliver sound quality of the HiFi domain of two decades ago is perhaps even sold by weight these days, and can deliver perfectly adequate line level signals that needs the speaker end to just be able to process such signals, these being just voltages - no need for any software protocol translations. It is a far less complex thing to do than to set up a HiFi separates system from the old days when things like impedance matching/power delivery/clipping was a complex subject.

So Amazon/WiiM/any other is just a matter of user preference for the UI on offer. And therefore, plenty of alternatives to Sonos, many that arguably do WiFi more efficiently than the two decades old Sonos way of doing it.

Which state of affairs is the reason for Spence having his knickers in a twist, a misguided response to which has led to the current mess that Sonos is in today.

@press250 There is an analogy for this right now with smart TVs. My new Samsung 4K has bundled smarts that I know suck when compared to Amazon Fire Cube. I haven’t even bothered to explore that bundled offering; when I bought the TV, I just moved my Cube over to it from the departing TV, and I fully control the new Samsung via the Cube interfaced to HDMI Arc on the Samsung, using the Amazon UI. In his room, my son that is more Apple than I am, does the same via the Apple TV box. 

But Samsung can hold its own in the market by continuously pushing things forward on the video quality front, but I suspect they will soon face similar barriers that Sonos has reached a decade ago - beyond 4 and maybe 8K, improvements for video will be as less a perceived benefit, as HiRes in audio has been for a long time now.

Also, even today, smart TVs are not using their UI as a differentiator - they know that compared to Amazon/Apple, all TV makes suck on this front.

@Kumar While an echo dot works for you and your Sonos speakers, it is still just another alternative along with the others as long as it fits someone’s usage requirements.

For me Amazon devices are a non-starter because they don’t support my music streaming provider. I’m not interested in switching providers at the moment, which means I’d be tied to using Bluetooth from my tablet, which defeats the purpose of a streamer imo and I may as well airplay direct to the Sonos speakers if my tablet is going to need to be the always in use playback device.

Only 3 out of the 11 Sonos devices I used to have provided line in support, which messes up being able to play independently in multiple rooms.

Sonos provided a jack-of-all trades covering the most streaming sources offering handy for people who don’t know what they want.

For those of us who know what we want, whether it’s certain streaming providers, local music playback, ease of integration with smart home, multi-room flexibility, independence from brands so there is minimal lock-in there is no one product fits all solution.

To the first - of course. I merely spoke of the Echo solution because I know it best of the alternatives discussed here.

To the second, why does there have to be one product/make that does it all? Indeed, is it not risky to have all eggs in one basket?

Having reread, indeed that is an oxymoron and not what I meant as I wrote it. Minimal lock-in…one product 😂 One compatible standard it’s more what I meant.

I’d much prefer to pick and choose any brand that has a device which suits where I want to use it, with a common control interface and sources interface, not needing to worry about will it work with X or Y. The utopia upnp/dlna failed to deliver. I think it will mostly arrive eventually, but for now it’s still just a juggling act of what works best together with minimal extra glue services when mixing and matching different owner brands. 

almazri:

 I’m hanging on to the Sonos stuff.  The WiiM is connected to KEF LS50 WII speakers along with a Sonos Port also connected to KEF.  Both digital out.

 What I like about WiiM is the response to feature requests.  When the Ultra was released there was no option to turn off the display.  I, and probably others, requested a feature to be able to do so.  Next update it was done.

 That and the Echo compatibility sold me.

Library + Qobuz + RP + SomaFM →

Roon

→ Sonos (as renderers)

→ WiiM

→ Apple tablets, Android phones

Yeah I’m hanging on to my Sonos stuff as well. The hardware is still good and third party front ends make it way better. Big WiiM fan, also looking at Audirvana and Roon.