...but I don't want a smaller soundbar

Well that settles it, selling the playbar, My house is littered with Sonos, like others I was hoping for an Atmos version playbar. I'll keep my 14 other sonos speakers in the house, but with home theatre I have been patient with this announcement. It really wan't much of one. I mean nothing that could not have been rolled out.

So, here where Im going. Either going with the Sony ST500 atmos sound bar or the Samsung Atmos K950 with the upward firing rear surround speakers. I have invested a lot in a new TV and found only a handful of times that i used the playbar for music. I'll keep the sub and learn to "group" it somehow with my main floor sonos 1,and 3, and 5

This was the last straw for me. I'm not only selling my Sonos 5.1 system, but all of my Sonos gear. I'm moving on.

I listened to the Sony HT5000 at Bestbuy yesterday and for not having any rear speakers it sounded pretty good. I really like how Sony has configured the HT5000 to support so many codecs (Atmos, DTS:X, Dolby True HD, DD+) and it passes both HDR and Dolby Vision. This is the type of compatibility that I wish Sonos would use with the Playbar. The HT5000 would be the perfect system - if it had rear speakers. D'oh!

I'm going to wait for the Samsung N950 to come out and see how it stands up.
The Nakamichi Shockwafe 7.1/9.2 system looks good also.
Most UHD blu-ray discs are coming in Atmos now. Whatever I end up getting, it's going to have Atmos that's for sure.

The n950 is coming soon so sit for it don’t go with k950, the n950 adds the two side channels and does 7.1.4 and also adds dtsx the n950 supports basically every sound format out there and has the most Atmos speakers

The n950 soundbar has 17 speakers and the wireless rears have 6 speakers and the sub has the single driver so that’s 24 speakers in total in that package compared to the 14 you get with Sonos 5.1

If your cabinet has panels on the side of the shelf then the left and right wide channel sounds will be blocked

Sonos aims for Quantity not quality imho. To bad, no new sonos for me.
Playbar 2 with hdmi and atmos and i would have ordered a complete home theater system....

I've always been an avid Sonos promoter but i feel that we've been let down yet again by Sonos not listening and taking note of its loyal, committed user base. I can't describe the feeling of sheer dejection that i'm feeling at the minute. It just proves without doubt that they don't give a rats arse about us and the vast amounts of hard earned cash that we've all spent.
I never expected to say this but i'm definitely going to look at other alternatives for my TV and Home Theatre listening. Goodbye Sonos!!!!

Depends on what a person wants. If person wants more feature. This wasn’t the big announcement for them. If someone wanted a low cost alternative to playbar etc. great alternative. I mean it’s priced to sell a lot (with Alexa included). May not be what each of you personally may want but I’m willing to bet they will sell triple the amount of those as playbar and playbase combined this year. Fail for Sonos ??? Don’t think so.

From a general sales perspective I suspect you are right. What is disappointing for those qanting to soend more, rather than less is that sonos don’t seem to have a roadmap for that part of the market. Yes they have the 5s and the sub, but the brains and the front and centre are severly dumbed down when you look at the competition.

I think had Sonos presented the Beam, along with a higher end centre speaker with hdmi audio and ability to use 5s as L/R there would have been only a small fraction of the frustration and disappointment being vented.

Commercially however it seems that Sonos have taken the decision that catering for the ceap and cheerful is their future and where they’re targetting sales. I’m sure this will drive sales (whether that translate to aubsrantial profits remains to be seen).

I suspect that many of us venting today are heavily invested and feel let down in general terms, maybe not by this specific launch, but by general lack of upgrades available. The kit we’ve invested in has hit the ceiling in terms of HT. no pun intended before the atmos dude gets excited.

I bought a playbar and all the rest not 3 months ago. Never expected a new one so soon, and never expected the old one to be updated in any way. It is what it is. I bought knowing the limitations at the time. BUT i did have high hopes - whether justified or not - maybe driven by discussion on this forum - or simply looking at what pratcially everyone else in the industry is doing - that there would some day be an upgrade path. and I fully expectsd to have to oay for it.... yes take my money!!! But that seems not to be the case at least for a great deal longer. Ffs, lots of more modern kit does not even come with a toslink any more!!!’

I hope the Beam does well though. So well that maybe sonos can reinvest some cash to develop a grown up version rather than a fisher price version.

I’m evaluating options for the future. Honestly I’m very happy with Sonus. For those who are moving on, what are you moving too? I don’t see any viable options that do what I want better than what Sonus currently offers. I love Sonus but I will change in a heartbeat if I see a better value. Currently I do not.

Now that he lawsuit is resolved, I think I will be sticking with Heos. They cater more to the high end audio market. The Heos 7 is hard to beat and the Heos Bar and Heos Subwoofer is a great combo.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio support...

4x HDMI inputs with HDR10 and Dolby Vision passthrough...

?

Count me among the disappointed. This is a huge misstep and missed opportunity. I'm on the lookout for viable alternatives for the first time in over a decade.

And today is June 6 so not sure what you heard on June 8th in your time machine. Maybe we can change the future.

I’m evaluating options for the future. Honestly I’m very happy with Sonus. For those who are moving on, what are you moving too? I don’t see any viable options that do what I want better than what Sonus currently offers. I love Sonus but I will change in a heartbeat if I see a better value. Currently I do not.

Now that he lawsuit is resolved, I think I will be sticking with Heos. They cater more to the high end audio market. The Heos 7 is hard to beat and the Heos Bar and Heos Subwoofer is a great combo.
I like the feature of a single HDMI connection from the Heos Bar to the TV. Avoids the external HDMI switch boxes.

I’m evaluating options for the future. Honestly I’m very happy with Sonus. For those who are moving on, what are you moving too? I don’t see any viable options that do what I want better than what Sonus currently offers. I love Sonus but I will change in a heartbeat if I see a better value. Currently I do not.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/13/creatives-x-fi-sonic-carrier-is-best-soundbar-from-5-years-in-the-future/

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/creative-x-fi-sonic-carrier

A poster had put this on the board after CES and it looks interesting but I’m not spending $3k or more on a sound bar. Apple, Bluesound, Denon, SVS and Paradigm were all on my initial list. Some have features I like better than others but we are a Apple household and Sonus works seamlessly. I’m looking to add home theater sound to our bedroom and have been patiently waiting. Still not ready to jump on a sound bar. I may wait until the fall and see what hardware Apple rolls out for it’s 2nd generation. In the mean time Sonus is sufficient.

When I saw they added an HDMI port I was very happy and placed a pre-order for the Beam. A few moments layer I saw they posted an FAQ for the Beam and I was shocked to discover that Sonos still has it head up it's a$$. They still only support Dolby Digital and Dolby 5.1. with the Beam. This is so unbelievably idiotic. Needless to say I quickly canceled my order.
I'm now wondering why I should stick with this company when it so obviously doesn't understand home theater.

I held out for 2 years, dealing with down-sampling Blu-ray audio codecs to DD 5.1 and waiting for the "PlayBar II" to arrive.

This is it? Really? They add an HDMI port and then cripple it.

Time to sell the PlayBar, Sub-woofer and the Play1's and get a real home theater setup.

My sentiments exactly! I’ll stick with it for whole home music, but the HT system is getting broken up and moved into other rooms for music. So I’ll not need to buy any more Sonos gear. Period. The whole lack of hdmi old optical issue will become a non issue. So long as the speakers work and I can stream Spotify I’m set. I’ll spend my remaining AV budget on a more future proof solution.

Going to have to go wired I think. But such is life.
Yea I did that quite awhile ago sold my playbar off and went wired its awesome and supports it all, my denon receiver even works with airplay so its super simple from right within spotify to send music to it, it turns it on and just starts playing. I was hoping this soundbar would have brought me back into the fold because I have atmos ability now but dont use it just want the modern codecs and thought it would be cool to be able to use play 1 or 5 for the L R speaker but I honestly should have known better lol sonos should completely bow out of home theater.

When I saw they added an HDMI port I was very happy and placed a pre-order for the Beam. A few moments layer I saw they posted an FAQ for the Beam and I was shocked to discover that Sonos still has it head up it's a$$. They still only support Dolby Digital and Dolby 5.1. with the Beam. This is so unbelievably idiotic. Needless to say I quickly canceled my order.
I'm now wondering why I should stick with this company when it so obviously doesn't understand home theater.

I held out for 2 years, dealing with down-sampling Blu-ray audio codecs to DD 5.1 and waiting for the "PlayBar II" to arrive.

This is it? Really? They add an HDMI port and then cripple it.

Time to sell the PlayBar, Sub-woofer and the Play1's and get a real home theater setup.

My sentiments exactly! I’ll stick with it for whole home music, but the HT system is getting broken up and moved into other rooms for music. So I’ll not need to buy any more Sonos gear. Period. The whole lack of hdmi old optical issue will become a non issue. So long as the speakers work and I can stream Spotify I’m set. I’ll spend my remaining AV budget on a more future proof solution.

Going to have to go wired I think. But such is life.