Releasing updated speakers with new functionality to replace the old ones will always be a difficult balance. One of the reasons why the resale value of Sonos is so good is that they keep their products alive and relevant as long as possible.
If they had released a new Playbar with DTS support just a few years after releasing the first Playbar, the community would have gone crazy.
Just look at the companies who push new versions of their products with new functionality each year. Sure, they stay relevant - if you keep upgrading every year and accept that your old products are being pushed into obsolescence too early with little to no user base supporting the older products. No user base will grow for products which are replaced every year or every second year for that matter.
So in a way, I am happy with Sonos not releasing new and better hardware all the time. It makes it a bit more “safe” to buy Sonos you could say. The longer a product is on the market, the bigger the user base will be and that will help find solutions to whatever issues that arise in the lifetime of the products
Of course, now that the Playbar is 8 years old soon and the Beam is clearly a more advanced product in many ways, the time for an updated Playbar seems near
But if the Playbar v2 comes with Atmos, DTS and what have you - and the same functionality doesn’t arrive for at least the Beam and the AMP which are both fairly new products - we should all put on our helmets and goggles because there will be a mayhem in the forums!
Since you are in the Sonos-forum, I am quite confident that must users will prefer Sonos to other brands.
Sonos has been making multiroom, smart speakers for a seriously long time.
People call Sonos lazy, slow, ignorant...but I guess that is because they have gotten used to the fantastic development that has always been a guarantee with Sonos.
They support almost any music service you can think of (for instance, they were the first manufacturer other than Apple that supported Apple Music).
They are to date the only manufacturer that supports all three of Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri with built in mics.
They offer such a wide range of speakers plus the AMP and the port, if you prefer passive speakers or require an advanced surround receiver for surround etc.
Sure, Bluesound has some advantages, but they don’t support Atmos etc. either. I don’t think any of their products support voice commands via build-in mics yet (although it should be coming) so for now you need additional devices to enable voice control. They don’t support Apple Music (in fact they are telling customers that Apple does not allow third-parties like Sonos to add their service, despite Sonos having some just that...) and I am sure there are many other shortcomings.
Denon is clearly better in terms of supported file formats and supports DTS, Atmos etc., but they have other shortcomings. Limited support of music services is one. In my opinion their app is less than elegant. Built in support for voice control is also said to be enabled in 2020, but still hasn’t arrived as far as I know. So not exactly front runners either.
Generally, I just believe I am better prepared for the future with Sonos. More than 10 years in and they haven’t disappointed yet. Oh - and their speakers look pretty great :)
Sure.. it’s the best looking wireless speaker. I agree with that
Releasing updated speakers with new functionality to replace the old ones will always be a difficult balance. One of the reasons why the resale value of Sonos is so good is that they keep their products alive and relevant as long as possible.
If they had released a new Playbar with DTS support just a few years after releasing the first Playbar, the community would have gone crazy.
Just look at the companies who push new versions of their products with new functionality each year. Sure, they stay relevant - if you keep upgrading every year and accept that your old products are being pushed into obsolescence too early with little to no user base supporting the older products. No user base will grow for products which are replaced every year or every second year for that matter.
So in a way, I am happy with Sonos not releasing new and better hardware all the time. It makes it a bit more “safe” to buy Sonos you could say. The longer a product is on the market, the bigger the user base will be and that will help find solutions to whatever issues that arise in the lifetime of the products
Of course, now that the Playbar is 8 years old soon and the Beam is clearly a more advanced product in many ways, the time for an updated Playbar seems near
But if the Playbar v2 comes with Atmos, DTS and what have you - and the same functionality doesn’t arrive for at least the Beam and the AMP which are both fairly new products - we should all put on our helmets and goggles because there will be a mayhem in the forums!
Outstanding spin - you must be on the Sonos payroll!
Sonos has repeatedly said that all Sonos employees in this forum are marked as such. Since Tejs Dyrvig Ernst is not marked as such, he must not be an employee, no matter how much his perspective is different than yours.
Sonos has repeatedly said that all Sonos employees in this forum are marked as such. Since Tejs Dyrvig Ernst is not marked as such, he must not be an employee, no matter how much his perspective is different than yours.
You are quite right. I should have said “friend”! 
@Beagle
I assure you that I am not on Sonos’ payroll and if you scavenge the forum, you will find my fair share of complaining - in particular on the stubbornness in terms of limiting surround to DD 5.1 which has been around since the time when non-HD DVDs were a thing.
In my view, it was a huge letdown to release the Playbar as a premium product in 2012 without DTS support. Surely, people (like me) who would spent the kind of money on a soundbar as the Playbar costs would also likely have invested in a Blu-ray player (as I had..).
But despite this issue, I still can’t point to any valid alternative. I recently sold my Playbar and a couple of other speakers (3x Play:3s and a 1st gen Play:5) because I have temporarily moved to a smaller flat while we are having a new house build. So my current setup fully supports Airplay 2 and I am in a situation where I could relatively smoothly transition to another brand.
Consequently, I have looked into the competition but I honestly can’t find any preferable alternative.
