who are sonos competitors i can change to

 I think I missed the objective of this topic.  I have no intent to replace my Sonos speakers with something else.  For Atmos playback the Arc-Sub3-300s sounds great.  The Move stereo pair is perfect for listening on the deck.  The Port digitally connected to the KEF LS50 WII speakers gives me excellent sound from a system with the largest number of services available.  
 
 The purpose of the Echo / WiiM grouping is whole house music where it’s likely sound quality is not necessarily the number one goal.  Not that it doesn’t sound good but usually it’s during a party where serious listening ain’t possible.  To do whole house with Sonos was going to cost me more than I want to spend where SQ is not a big concern.

 When we eat dinner a pair of Echo Gen 4 are shuffling a Jazz playlist I created on Spotify.  Sounds better than your average restaurant.

What does compatibility mean? Can both be grouped together to play in sync, and if so via what app?

A problem I will face when even one of my downstream Sonos units dies, is that replacing that with one from another make will mean that all zones won’t sync as they do today when driven by line in wired Echos - the Sonos 70 millisecond delay is uniform enough across all Sonos units to permit in sync play. Will cross that bridge when it comes.

 I use the Alexa app to group the Echo speakers with the WiiM devices.  The top three are WiiM.

Nice! Does the group survive power cycling of any or all units? And presumably, all units in the group will play in perfect sync, which would mean that none need to resort to the delay that Sonos needs, to achieve such sync?

They play in sync.  Even the one connected to the DAC in the KEF speakers is in sync.  Never had a technical reason to power cycle any, except during a storm I unplug the speakers.  Never lost the group doing that.

One more data point that suggests the obsolete state of core Sonos tech today. Not a surprise, because that horse has been flogged for two decades, in a rapidly evolving domain.

Also a reason for all the Spence thrashing around - there has to be a reason for the madness. The problem was with the execution of his solution to the strategic dilemma Sonos has been facing for some years now. Only when the execution is sorted out can one decide if at least the solution was sound.

Thank you. I hadn’t realized a cross-product solution like yours could play in sync.  Perhaps I should invest in more Wiims.  Sounds like a good hedge against Sonos ceasing to be a going concern.

Another check to run is to see if the speakers - or speaker groups - can be seen as target speakers on an app like Spotify such that by choosing the target, music playing on the phone app can be made to start playing on the target, taking the phone out of the music play loop. 

Once that is the case, the app by the speaker maker becomes largely irrelevant. It is then just needed for initial set up or for set up changes.

In my experience, having been a die hard high end audio guy for many years, many folks don’t realize how good they have it with the current Sonos product line capabilities!

Sure, there have been problems along the way. The new app has many folks upset, including my good pal who got me into Sonos a few years ago and owns 12 of their speakers. Lost his play list and has had some drop outs.  

Me? I lost Amazon Music for “one day”. That was it!

The thing is, a carefully thought out Sonos set up is actually amazing. From my old hi-fi days, there were continuous issues as time went by. Heat, cables, multiple manufactures to deal with and if something went wrong, have fun shipping a nice/heavy amp out! Then, there was figuring out what component had the issue.

Just my opinion but, Sonos seems to really care! Maybe I’ll get flamed here. These are fabulous products. They ‘work”. The work for a long time too!

I go to Princeton NJ often with my family. I used to collect LP’s at the Princeton record Exchange.

Now I just hit a button and can get almost anything i want in a moment’s notice.

Btw, there is a consignment store in Princeton, that has had a set of original Play 1 speakers going since day one…..Playing 6 days a week, for about 10 hours a day.

The speakers still “work” great and sound darn good. 

Appreciate the tech available from companies like this. 

Just my two cents. -:)

As I was recently out and about, discussing audio in general terms, I met a fellow who volunteered that he likes the new SONOS controller.