Hi-Res Audio for Play Bar PLEASE!

Don't expect this to be coming.  If the hardware could support it, it would have been enabled when it was released on the newer products.

If the old gen Beam supports it, hard to see how the playbar doesn’t. 

And if that was the case then it should have come with a big red warning on it to advise buyers it would be limited compared to their other cheap products. Bought the playbar months before the Arc was available and it already now feels dated and limited in function but the cost of purchase did not reflect that. 

Feel very let down. 

Playbar release - February 12, 2013

Beam Gen 1 release - July 17, 2018

Playbar release - February 12, 2013

Arc release - June 8, 2020

7+ years between products. If the Playbar was purchased in early 2020 it’s just an unfortunate luck of the draw. It would however qualify for 15% discount on any new product or set.

I perhaps wouldn’t feel too let down, as it’s still a great Soundbar. I suspect very few folk would be able to hear a difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio anyway. I know I can’t.

I think the moral of the story is, never assume the product you’re buying is the most modern hardware.  Always check the release date.

Second moral, do not expect a product to eventually have features it doesn’t currently have.   Yes, Sonos and others will add new features from time to time, but consider it a bonus, not a guarantee.

Me neither. Not even on a pretty good hifi system. Not on my Arc, either. To suggest this is an issue on a soundbar is unreasonable.

If they are willing to support the current and last gen of the Beam there is no reason they shouldn’t continue to support the sound bar unless they are trying to push sales of the Arc or Beam.

Unless there is a physical reason it cannot be supported it is poor customer service. 

No, it’s called the advance of technology. As already pointed out, Playbar is more than 5 years older than Beam/gen1.

I never understand this comment, and have seen it a few times when people want old kit to handle new features.  I can see absolutely, and especially from a business perspective, no reason why Sonos would not enable it if it were technically possible.  Look at the recent addition of DTS to the Playbase and Playbar, both long since discontinued, but still given the enhancement.  

So if they don’t do it it’s either because they can’t or it would cost more to do that is worth it for their business.

I just think it’s rather interesting that people now expect that features that didn’t exist when they bought the product should be added to the product.  If a company chooses to do this, it certainly can create some goodwill with the customer, but the view on this has now seemed to shift towards an expectation than a free bonus to the customer.  That certainly was not the case until recently.

You lot are mad and doesn’t feel like your comments are from a genuine place. 

It’s just good customer service and as I keep pointing out if it’s being done for the old gen beam it makes sense to for the playbar, highly doubt sonos are so strapped for cash they can’t afford to include the playbar. 

It’s an expensive wireless system that receives updates to ensure it’s the best experience for the customer, which is one of the main reasons people are willing to pay so much for this system over others, if you are not getting the ‘new features’ it looses a massive selling point to buy sonos. 

By doing it this way customers will not want to continue buying into a system that doesn’t consider the customers.

It’s not a sustainable business model but hey hoy I’ve learnt and will be moving on to something else, leave you to enjoy buying new speakers every few years. 

So, what other brand are you going to purchase? (Be careful with your answer!)

And as we keep pointing out, the Playbar is a very much older design. By the time you bought one it had been on the market for seven years.

What on earth do you mean. We’re just customers too, many of whom have had Sonos kit for years and been through the S1/S2 fudged launch.  Sonos have made some mistakes and we have all had our share of annoyances over some decisions that have been made but this just makes no sense for them to not include it for older kit if technically feasible.  

Mad as in angry, or crazy?  Your the one who is complaining that your playbar doesn’t have a feature it didn’t have when you bought it.

If the playbar and old gen beam had identical hardware, that would be a good argument.  But they do not.

I purchase Sonos speakers, or anything for that matter,  based on the features they have.  I’ve never purchased based on features it doesn’t have, particularly when they don’t make any sort o commitment to bring that feature to that specific speaker.  I get that Sonos has given old speakers new features in the past, but I never considered that to be an expectation, especially knowing that hardware has limits, and development and support aren’t free.

Strange, giving new features away for free seems like a bit of a risky business strategy to me.  I get it though, Sonos has somewhat set expectation by giving away features in the past, I just don’t see it as a reasonable expectation though, particularly when the feature has hardware requirements.

Sorry to say, but this sounds rather like a simple case of buyer’s remorse.

You want to see buyer’s remorse I’ll send you a picture of me when I saw the price Denon was charging for a software update for my AVR.

Only good part of that mess was it ticked me off and I bought my first Sonos speakers to add to my Connects.