5.1 With Sonos Play:5 Left/Rigth

You bought a soundbar. A soundbar is defined as containing a left, center, and right speaker in one enclosure.. Show me one other soundbar on the market that also doubles as a single channel center speaker and I may consider your expectations justified. Good luck finding one.

No, I won't. you provide an example of a Sonos product that can be used as a center speaker?

You have 18,617 replies - I wonder how many of them are useful instead of hurting the Sonos brand.

The vast majority are useful. And just how am I hurting the brand by telling the truth? A soundbar never doubles as a center speaker and you bought a soundbar. If you wanted a center speaker, Sonos doesn't sell one, Sonos sells soundbars. That's your fault for not doing the research.

"Bad research" - more like a bad assumption, that Sonos would provide the basic 5.1 speaker support that has existed in the industry since before Sonos ever existed.


Yes, it was a bad assumption. And yes, the 5.1 setup with separated L+R+C speakers has been around a long time, and Sonos decided not to support such a setup...I would guess because the didn't think it would sell well enough in the market. There isn't any rule saying that a company has to do this setup, clearly. And that doesn't really explain why you bought a soundbar and expected it to behave as a center channel.


And yes, I'm entitled - to my opinion, my frustration, my opportunity to give honest feedback... Who are you people? The Sonos thought police? I guess when the Sonos team leaves a vacuum to fill, with their non answers, the trolls come out to play.

Well sure, you're entitled to opinions and all that, but you did it on a public forum, where other are free to comment on it. And as I stated before, I agree with your opinion that separated left and right speakers in a HT Sonos setup would be great. I don't agree that Sonos is letting customers down in any way by not creating this. I do think they've made mistakes with other decisions though, absolutely.

And yes, I'm entitled - to my opinion, my frustration, my opportunity to give honest feedback... Who are you people? The Sonos thought police? I guess when the Sonos team leaves a vacuum to fill, with their non answers, the trolls come out to play.
I think I stated quite clearly that I appreciate your opinion and feature requests. My issue was with your tone, sounding like you're Sonos' CEO, adressing the R&D department and asking for timelines as if Sonos only has to answer to you - they do not.

To be clear, me reply was meant for the other 2 people. You feedback in appreciated. I considered most of what you highlight when I wrote my original messages and still think that leveraging existing hardware by adding new configurations creates marketing opportunities to existing customers and future ones. The downside risk is limited to R&D costs and the opportunity for sales is large - which would allow for the finite R&D costs to be amortized over sales going forward essentially forever.
Of course leveraging existing hardware by adding new configurations creates marketing opportunities, but, as Danny already said, how do you know the hardware is capable of what you're asking? Second, who says this is a huge opportunity for sales, do you have the numbers to back that up? Keep in mind that communities like these are not an accurate representation of the user base. Again, my issue here is not your argument, but your tone, as if you're speaking absolute truths.

No, I won't. you provide an example of a Sonos product that can be used as a center speaker?
You made the assumption that Sonos should support this, as you claim this is "normal" for such a setup. If you claim this about a soundbar-centered setup, then you are the one that will need to substantiate that claim.

That said, let me repeat that I appreciate your feature request, even if they are features that I don't really need. It would be great if Sonos could support this, just like it would be great for the hardware to be able to decode or downmix any audio (DTS, Atmos, you name it) on its own, without deferring to a TV, so it just works out of the box like a layperson would expect. However, I also think that there's a limit to how far Sonos should go to cater to HT enthousiasts, something I also said in this thread (with some great points by Danny, too).

You're all correct, I never should have purchased Sonos products. It was a mistake, and I plan to share that with everyone I can, on any platform I can, at every opportunity. Good job at being the Sonos "White Knights" - I've seen the light and it points me in a direction away from Sonos.

Sonos: If you are reading this, please fill the information void in the community, because you'll do it better than your users - who are all just speculating. Up to a week ago I had nothing but praise for your products, now I feel like your representative don't care about our investment in, and commitment to, your products. In the absence of good information, your more pedantic and condescending users are eager for a chance to speculate, all the while making others feels bad. Is this Twitter? Where the platform is attitude and culture agnostic? Or do you plan to lead and grow the community in a way that creates pride in ownership and loyalty? I understand that I'm now and active and willing participant to this negative discussion, but it would not be this way had your representative acted more like a stakeholder in the success of the Sonos community, rather than a politician giving non answers and letting the users fight it out amongst themselves. If you're going to get it wrong, do it by trying to provide the best and most useful information - don't be afraid to talk about what Sonos would like to do, what it can't do, and when it might happen. Giving a non-answer, to a valid request, is just as bad as giving an honest answer that changes over time.

When you're done condescending Sonos, their employees and us again, take some time to actually read this community. Sonos has a policy not to share any details on R&D roadmaps and timelines and their employees on here reflect that. If you had informed yourself, you wouldn't have been disappointed with the answers you got, similar to when you bought something you thought was something else.
You'll be hard pressed to find any tech company (Google, Apple, Samsung) that openly shares its roadmaps on user forums, so feel free to join one of their boards and act like you know how the company should be run, what features they need and how they should communicate.

As for white knighting: most of us are here because we love these products and the brand, so we will occasionally defend them. I have no issue with criticism of Sonos, also yours, but for the third time, I take issue with your tone.

I'm sure Sonos will add this feature request right next to the one for DTS support.

It's borderline criminal that they advertise a 5.1 solution. They don't truly have one.

When you're done condescending Sonos, their employees and us again, take some time to actually read this community. Sonos has a policy not to share any details on R&D roadmaps and timelines and their employees on here reflect that. If you had informed yourself, you wouldn't have been disappointed with the answers you got, similar to when you bought something you thought was something else.
You'll be hard pressed to find any tech company (Google, Apple, Samsung) that openly shares its roadmaps on user forums, so feel free to join one of their boards and act like you know how the company should be run, what features they need and how they should communicate.

You need the last word? And to be right? Well you can't have it and you are wrong.

And just because it's policy, or common practice, it does not mean I agree with it - or that it's in fact right.

I'm sure Sonos will add this feature request right next to the one for DTS support.

It's borderline criminal that they advertise a 5.1 solution. They don't truly have one.

Agreed, my experience with the Sonos 5.1 offering is not good at all.

This thought process irks me a bit. Sonos does indeed have a 5.1 solution, they support Dolby Digital. What Sonos does not do, and has been requested at great length, is support other versions of 5.1, such as Dolby Digital +, DTS, and Atmos. Nor do they provide a way to have separate speakers in the front of your room. All of Sonos soundbars contain the front right, center and front left speakers in a single box. But they are separate speakers that handle each audio stream.

So, Sonos does support 5.1. Perhaps not in the form you wish. Which I can understand, I would like more variety myself, but it would be disingenuous of me to say that they didn't support 5.1