Playbar customer, baffled

The question is, what's the holdup? Customers seem to have been requesting this feature in 2014!

Feflicker, Sonos adds basically the bare minimum of features to their products. There are hundreds/thousands of basic feature request threads going back 11 years that are ignored - a very select few get added. .

IMO if this feature has a slim to none chance of being added.

It may be worth pointing out here that @Sonosssss is a permanent Sonos basher whio may or may not actually own a Sonos system.

Feflicker, Sonos adds basically the bare minimum of features to their products. There are hundreds/thousands of basic feature request threads going back 11 years that are ignored - a very select few get added. .

IMO if this feature has a slim to none chance of being added.

I noticed that there are basically no options in the app. The EQ doesn't even have mids 🙂 That said, it sounds GREAT so I figure I don't need all the options if it already sounds amazing.

But, not being able to assign a speaker to any audio stream you want? What is up with that!? When you add a speaker you should be able to assign it to whatever channel you prefer. It's that simple. And not being able to stereox2 at the push of a button is just silly. That's such an easy thing to add.

I'm hoping that since people have wanted this a long time they'll do it. But I'm not quite yet ready to return it just because of this feature.

Feflicker, Sonos adds basically the bare minimum of features to their products. There are hundreds/thousands of basic feature request threads going back 11 years that are ignored - a very select few get added. .

IMO if this feature has a slim to none chance of being added.

I noticed that there are basically no options in the app. The EQ doesn't even have mids 🙂 That said, it sounds GREAT so I figure I don't need all the options if it already sounds amazing.

But, not being able to assign a speaker to any audio stream you want? What is up with that!? When you add a speaker you should be able to assign it to whatever channel you prefer. It's that simple. And not being able to stereox2 at the push of a button is just silly. That's such an easy thing to add.

I'm hoping that since people have wanted this a long time they'll do it. But I'm not quite yet ready to return it just because of this feature.

Nobody has wanted this for a long time! This is the only thread in the subject, it's two years old and has almost no support in that time, it's not going to happen. I'm not aware that any av receiver would give this option either.

Most likely it's something that is important to a tiny fraction of users, and will complicate things for the vast majority of customers who couldn't care less about it.

Seems to be the case with most of these "must have" features, which really aren't needed at all by most users, and therefore won't be implemented, in order to keep the customer experience as simple as possible.

Featureitis can be a product killer. Anyone remember the "must have" programming features of VCRs? Pretty much everyone just left the stupid clock flashing 12:00...

Well, since I searched for this option, and found posts from years ago asking the same thing, I made the correlation "people have wanted this for a long time". Fair enough that it might not be a large group of people, but people still did ask for it.

Here is what I found in just the first few links I clicked...

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/two-play5-as-front-speakers-with-playbar-center-6733469

https://en.community.sonos.com/wireless-speakers-228992/new-play5-as-front-speakers-51-6732478

https://en.community.sonos.com/what-to-get-228989/new-to-sonos-would-like-to-add-2-front-speakers-to-my-existing-setup-6731779

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/sonos-playbar-with-extra-front-active-speakers-6229015

All 3 of my current surround sound receivers, (sony, samsung), allow the option to switch between doubling stereo to the rear speakers or surround sound, with the click of a button. Presumably for listening to music, but they do not block you from doing it while watching T.V.

That said, I don't even care if they make it that easy. I am even saying I would buy more speakers to accomplish the same thing, but they have to allow users to sync a speaker to front L/R if you have a playbar in your room. That seems completely reasonable, especially since the playbar isn't that powerful in the first place comparatively to the play3's or play5's.

Regardless, hopefully Sonos sees the post and considers adding an option. (After all, they did add the option to use the rear speakers for music playback, so all they have to do is not lock it to just music).

Ridiculous to list those threads as wanting the same feature as this thread. Those threads want to use Play units as right and left fronts with the Playbar as center. You for some unknown reason want to repeat the Playbar sounds in the speakers that are meant to be surrounds, thus ruining any surround or spatial effects and making the audio a muddy mess. Sure there is no accounting for taste, but that doesn't mean Sonos has to cater to it.

And the fact your fallback plan asks for the same feature as those threads means nothing compared to the fringe original request.

I guess I saw all these as related. Sure, they have different reasons behind them, but the same basic limitation in the product is the driver for the questions.

At the end of the day:

* If you have a Playbar, you cannot add an additional front L/R speaker to your configuration. For whatever reason, or purpose, you would like to do that. (And there are many valid reasons some of us would like to do that)

And if you are watching stereo TV (or surround for that matter), you cannot replicate the Front L/R signal to the rear speakers. (Again, not all shows are watched best in surround, there are many times that this would be a nice feature in my opinion).

If your opinion is that either of these features would cause a muddy mess, or "ruin" surround sound, that's ok too. To each their own.

Again, trust me, Sonos has considered each and every one of these requests. If they are of interest to only a fraction of a percent of customers, they probably don't even bother with cost/benefit analysis, nor would any successful company.