Before you buy any SONOS equipment to achieve a 5.1 setup please consider this: a Denon AVRX2400 AV Amp, Elac CINEMA 5.1 speaker system, all cables professionally installed behind the walls gives you true home cinema with all the surround sound codecs you could ever want with no cables showing for way less than £1000 (see Richer Sound web site for prices). Or spend £1700 on a SONOS setup and get stereo or Dolby Digital only plus you may have to buy a new DVD player to play your UHD DVD’s, a HDMI Switch then deal with lip sync issues etc, etc.
SONOS do speakers, great speakers, but only for music. They are stealing money from people wanting 5.1 for their TV. The system I suggest costs at least £700 less, hides all the wires (what we all want) and sounds much, much better. Go mad, stick a couple of speakers in the ceiling and get real Dolby Atmos for £150 more and still save yourself £550. I have begged SONOS to tell me if they are developing a surround sound product with HDMI and more choice of listening eg DTS, Dolby X etc but they point blank refuse to discuss future products stating they are catering for the “modern listener”. That put me in my place. SONOS remind me of great companies who made world class products like Blackberry, Blockbuster, Compaq and SAAB, just a minute, they all went out of business because they didn’t produce what their customers wanted at a competitive price (no pedants please, I know there were other factors which meant these companies went bust, I am just illustrating a point). Are SONOS going down the same route? Think about it while you are watching your new laser disc.
I would be interested to hear any arguments against my proposed SONOS alternative system.
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Wow, such vitriol. You know this is just a discussion yes? Over 30 interesting posts and you think the title is the important point? I did warn about pedants but if you want to play that game ok.
Please don’t get distracted by posts like this and continue with what is a really interesting conversation by some intelligent users (and me). Such a disappointment Big Daddy, you had kept the passive aggressive stuff down to a minimum up until now.
When you have nothing left, attack the messenger. Talk about passive aggressive. :8
Someone just gave me a row for calling people names. That must be you they are talking about Big Daddy! I think I was deferring to your massive number of posts which I miss-quoted by a good few thousand. If you have been emotionally affected by any of the content of my posts I am very sorry :8 Somehow I think you got the joke however.
So do the trash tabloids, every day, using trashy titles. For much the same reasons.
This thread has disappointingly started to detract from the original point. That's a great pity because there is some brilliant comments that will help potential buyers make a more informed decision before spending £1700. Why is that important? £1700 for a 5.1 system is a major investment for some people, a lot of people actually. In the real world people don't have the luxury of having separate Home Theatre Rooms, or can afford a SONOS Playbar/Base/Beam just for the kitchen or bedroom (you shouldn't have a TV in the bedroom anyway, my wife would have a fit :)) If you have all those things then that is terrific, hopefully you realise how lucky you are but you are not really representative of "normal" people. Don't take offence, I am not calling you weird, you are not like engineering students or anything.
SONOS fans, of which I am one (I am getting fed up typing that), please stop being so defensive. We get it, you love SONOS, who wouldn't? they are a phenomenal company making astonishingly good speakers for music. They do not however walk on water, get every product correct (how many software updates do we all go through?), they can defend themselves, they are a company with a market valuation which may be around $2.5 to $3 billion* not some plucky start-up and subsequently their bottom line is profit not listening to customers.
I am not in charge of this discussion but I did start it and I would either like to knock it on the head or start over.
- Please read my initial post;
- Please just comment on what I actually wrote;
- I am asking for opinions and debate, not a comment on SONOS as a company, other SONOS products or what you think of the title;
- I am not claiming to be correct, I have written and written and rewritten that the SONOS 5.1 system is good for some people, of course it is, I argue that it is not good as a 5.1 system. That does not mean any of the individual speakers are bad but I think when you put them all together they make a poor 5.1 system for the money.
Please keep personal references out of your posts unless they are obviously meant to be humorous.
* Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17282522/sonos-ipo-initial-public-offering-sec-filing-june-2018
SONOS fans, of which I am one (I am getting fed up typing that), please stop being so defensive. We get it, you love SONOS, who wouldn't? they are a phenomenal company making astonishingly good speakers for music. They do not however walk on water, get every product correct (how many software updates do we all go through?), they can defend themselves, they are a company with a market valuation which may be around $2.5 to $3 billion* not some plucky start-up and subsequently their bottom line is profit not listening to customers.
I am not in charge of this discussion but I did start it and I would either like to knock it on the head or start over.
- Please read my initial post;
- Please just comment on what I actually wrote;
- I am asking for opinions and debate, not a comment on SONOS as a company, other SONOS products or what you think of the title;
- I am not claiming to be correct, I have written and written and rewritten that the SONOS 5.1 system is good for some people, of course it is, I argue that it is not good as a 5.1 system. That does not mean any of the individual speakers are bad but I think when you put them all together they make a poor 5.1 system for the money.
Please keep personal references out of your posts unless they are obviously meant to be humorous.
* Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17282522/sonos-ipo-initial-public-offering-sec-filing-june-2018
Userlevel 7
+20
Hi folks,
I wanted to jump in here and remind everyone to keep things on topic. It's okay to debate the features of the Sonos home theater system, but not okay to make the discussion about the number of posts our commenters have. Please refer to our community guidelines if you're not sure. As always, feel free to reach out to any Sonos employee through direct messages if you have any concerns.
I wanted to jump in here and remind everyone to keep things on topic. It's okay to debate the features of the Sonos home theater system, but not okay to make the discussion about the number of posts our commenters have. Please refer to our community guidelines if you're not sure. As always, feel free to reach out to any Sonos employee through direct messages if you have any concerns.
Just to break down a few more of the bombs thrown in this thread:
"They are late to the market with Alexa, Siri etc"
They were the first 3rd party multi-room speaker to use Alexa, and the first to use Airplay 2 (which can be activated by Siri).
"no HDMI"
The Beam not only has HDMI, it has HDMI-ARC and CEC.
"They are late to the market with Alexa, Siri etc"
They were the first 3rd party multi-room speaker to use Alexa, and the first to use Airplay 2 (which can be activated by Siri).
"no HDMI"
The Beam not only has HDMI, it has HDMI-ARC and CEC.
blah, blah, blah...
It is odd that you think people here are not aware that AV receivers and all the associated cables etc exist. Alot of people here have had that mess and know the pros and cons. Even odder you felt it necessary to post this.
Thanks Captain Obvious.
Let’s look at the argument another way: Can anyone please tell me why SONOS providing a soundbar/base with a HDMI that has the ability to reproduce DTS is a bad thing? I am not a lone voice on these forums asking for this.
Here are two reasons. First, the licensing and support costs might significantly raise the price of the products. Obviously, customers don't want that. You could argue that Sonos could be 'less greedy' eat those costs themselves, but without knowing the costs or the current profit margin, it's a mute point. Who are we to say what a fair profit margin is anyway? As well, if you're invested in Sonos, either by stocks or product purchases, it's in your best interest for Sonos to be profitable so that they can continue to support existing products as well as develop new products. Even if you don't have many Sonos products, they clearly are a good competitor in the market, which pushes the whole market forward.
The second would be that standards are most beneficial when there is only one or few standards out there. Limiting standards means customers have to worry less about whether product X works with product Y. It means manufacturers can keep costs lower if they don't need to have products handle a high volume of standards to be compatible with. As an example consider other standards like USB or Bluetooth. If there were multiple standards out there that did the same thing, this would raise the cost of any product using these standards as well as making life more complicated for the consumer. And yes, competing standard would bring innovation, but these 2 standards seem to be improving without the presence of competition.
Admittedly these aren't terribly strong reasons, particularly the last one. They are reasons though. And of course, Sonos is allowed to have their own reasons that don't have to do with customer satisfaction. There are in business for a reason after all.
If you want to stay in the Sonos eco-system, and are very disappointed about your DTS only Blu-Rays and don't want a "proper" AV wired setup, then there are players that will transcode on the fly and give you a near-similar experience (I assume there is a minor quality drop when the DTS is transacoded into DD5.1).
There is also the option of pairing a Connect with an AV receiver that does DTS.
Userlevel 3
+3
There is also the option of pairing a Connect with an AV receiver that does DTS.
I mean, sure that is an option, but not particularly realistic or cost-effective IMO.
I'm of mixed views. I just purchased a Playbar with sub and two One's for surrounds. When I'm sourcing DD 5.1 from my BD player, the sound is fantastic, and I love being able to integrate the media room sound with the other rooms equipped with Sonos. Love my Sonos speakers, which is why I splurged on the Playbar.
That said, I've spent the better part of the last 3 days trying to get the Playbar to play 5.1 and have only managed to get that done if I'm using my BD player to play certain discs or the limited 5.1 content available to stream through it from Prime.
My Roku UItra? Absolutely useless with the Playbar as far as I've been able to tell, unless I want to listen to simulated surround. My DTS discs? Same thing. I'm not sure that I'd have opted for a different system if I'd have known a week ago what I know now (probably couldn't have convinced me NOT to go with Sonos since I was so utterly enamored with it), but I wish I'd have understood better the limitations. That's on me and a lack of research, I guess.
If Sonos comes out with a Playbar that can manage true surround signals other than DD5.1, I'll really be miffed that I didn't wait. Anyhow. A certain amount of buyer remorse coupled with tech hookup fatigue speaking here.
Apple TV works much better than Roku or just about anything else with Sonos. Roku is as ad delivery machine that sells your usage patterns to advertisers and has inferior video quality.
Sonos came about for those who wanted multi-room audio without the wires and with the use of online music services.
Sonos products will never truly replace a full separates system for surround sound. They never set about doing this anyway.
However, their products are great as they provide a solution for those (like me with a wife who doesn't like the look or size of traditional speakers nor all the cables). I use to have a £5000 system for movies and a £3000 system for music. I met the wife and my mistresses had to pack their bags. The cost of these systems would never be matched unless replicated like for like. I knew this.
This led to me looking for a solution, which saw me buying a Yamaha soundbar, I forget the model but it was vastly more expensive than a Sonos setup. This sounded very poor for music and led me to purchase a Sonos Play:5. I had this for almost 4 years and was impressed by music playback and then punt I took a punt with the Beam.
Over time my needs have changed. I have 3 lovely kids who would only trash a high-end system and for the convenience and sound quality I have expanded the Beam with 2 SL's.
I subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime and a few more and so far all films I have watched have been in DD5.1, so the Sonos experience fits the bill extremely well with only a few minor issues which aren't worth typing about.
I have also experienced Sonos's customer service first hand which saw my Beam get replaced under warranty due to a bizarre issue. From telling them about the issue I was contacted by a senior person within 30 mins and advised I'd get a warranty replacement.
I have never experienced this level of fine service before and has made the Sonos experience even more sweeter.
I am yet to Trueplay my setup as I am a Android user at heart and will need to borrow or acquire a iOS device but currently as things sounds I get a good sound for music and films and I am sure things will sound even better when Trueplayed.
Oh! Sonos, longer power cables for Sonos One SL's would be a bonus as the ones supplied are rather short.
There were no online music services when Sonos came out.
I'm of mixed views. I just purchased a Playbar with sub and two One's for surrounds. When I'm sourcing DD 5.1 from my BD player, the sound is fantastic, and I love being able to integrate the media room sound with the other rooms equipped with Sonos. Love my Sonos speakers, which is why I splurged on the Playbar.
That said, I've spent the better part of the last 3 days trying to get the Playbar to play 5.1 and have only managed to get that done if I'm using my BD player to play certain discs or the limited 5.1 content available to stream through it from Prime.
My Roku UItra? Absolutely useless with the Playbar as far as I've been able to tell, unless I want to listen to simulated surround. My DTS discs? Same thing. I'm not sure that I'd have opted for a different system if I'd have known a week ago what I know now (probably couldn't have convinced me NOT to go with Sonos since I was so utterly enamored with it), but I wish I'd have understood better the limitations. That's on me and a lack of research, I guess.
If Sonos comes out with a Playbar that can manage true surround signals other than DD5.1, I'll really be miffed that I didn't wait. Anyhow. A certain amount of buyer remorse coupled with tech hookup fatigue speaking here.
That said, I've spent the better part of the last 3 days trying to get the Playbar to play 5.1 and have only managed to get that done if I'm using my BD player to play certain discs or the limited 5.1 content available to stream through it from Prime.
My Roku UItra? Absolutely useless with the Playbar as far as I've been able to tell, unless I want to listen to simulated surround. My DTS discs? Same thing. I'm not sure that I'd have opted for a different system if I'd have known a week ago what I know now (probably couldn't have convinced me NOT to go with Sonos since I was so utterly enamored with it), but I wish I'd have understood better the limitations. That's on me and a lack of research, I guess.
If Sonos comes out with a Playbar that can manage true surround signals other than DD5.1, I'll really be miffed that I didn't wait. Anyhow. A certain amount of buyer remorse coupled with tech hookup fatigue speaking here.
SONOS do speakers, great speakers, but only for music. They are stealing money from people wanting 5.1 for their TV. The system I suggest costs at least £700 less, hides all the wires (what we all want) and sounds much, much better. Go mad, stick a couple of speakers in the ceiling and get real Dolby Atmos for £150 more and still save yourself £550. I have begged SONOS to tell me if they are developing a surround sound product with HDMI and more choice of listening eg DTS, Dolby X etc but they point blank refuse to discuss future products stating they are catering for the “modern listener”. That put me in my place. SONOS remind me of great companies who made world class products like Blackberry, Blockbuster, Compaq and SAAB, just a minute, they all went out of business because they didn’t produce what their customers wanted at a competitive price (no pedants please, I know there were other factors which meant these companies went bust, I am just illustrating a point). Are SONOS going down the same route? Think about it while you are watching your new laser disc.
I would be interested to hear any arguments against my proposed SONOS alternative system.
Found this out the hard way. I went nuts and bought everything Sonos, even a new TV. I bought Sonos strictly because of the 5.1 claim, but found myself scratching my head for weeks trying to get it to work, only to find out that I can't get it. Doesn't even work seamlessly with my PC.
Great sound, but I want my 5.1.
MY PC TO SONOS BEAM 5.1 IS WORKING NOW VIA
SOUND BLASTER PRO USB (DOLBY DIGITAL)
After much pain and weeks of trial and error I was was abe to get my 5.0 working (no woofer yet) . I should probably start a thread on what I did to help others. And it was really confusing to see if it worked because there is no proprietary Sonos 5.1 sound test. Since there's no test you can't troubleshoot effectively where the problem is.
I'm getting 5.0 from my PC to my Sonos Beam and surrounds. It wasn't working because of 3 things. *You may be able to get it working if you understand these.
1) Sonos can only translate Dolby Digital 5.1 .... but
2) Your Windows 10 may not output 5.1 out the box. Even if it says 5.1 it may only be doing DTS, not Dolby DIgital
3) Your video card outputs sound through the HDMI. In my case it's Nvidia 1050TI, and Nvidia it doesn't do 5.1. So when I was splitting my HDMI signal to accept the optical chord via Fosom splitter, it didn't matter, even though 5.1 was no lnger greyed out on my PC, I was still getting stereo. There is where I started to go mad.
4) BONUS: The main video tests you try from youtube or somewhere else aren't really Dolby Digital (even if they say they are), they're DTS that's why they don't translate. I also went mad here.
I was only able to tell my 5.0 was working by playing a movie and NOT hearing voices in both the surrounds and front speakers.
This is why it's important for Sonos to create a sound test on the Beam so you can see if it's your Sonos transmitting right, or if it's something else.
HOW I GOT IT TO WORK:
I bought a usb Dolby Digital - Sound Blaster Pro (Pro Studio) and bypassed my videocard's audio. The Beam is hooked to the SB Pro via the optical chord it came with.
*After you install the soundcard you still have to switch your default audio to SPDIF -Out (SB Pro), by default it won't be this.
I did all the annoying trial and error, I think I'll copy this and start a new thread for solutions. But I REALLY do Wish Sonos was PC friendly.
In my setup I only have the Sonos Beam, and perhaps my Blu-Ray Player or perhaps my TV I bought almost 4 years ago converts 7.1 DTS to 5.1 Dolby Digital, at least when I tested one Blu-Ray that only shows 7.1 DTS in the menu. When I look at my about Sonos it shows Audio in 5.1 Dolby. Perhaps I just got lucky and it seems to just work, though I haven't looked at movies I have bought in the recent past.
Yes there is always someone who decides none of us know about receivers or had them in the past and chose Sonos despite it's limitations with full knowledge of what we are and aren't getting. Thanks Captain Obvious.
That is correct, Sonos provides virtual Front L/R speaker channels. Just like some traditional system provide a phantom center speaker. Many users are ok with the 5.1 data from the source being turned into virtual front L/R sounds.
From my experience, when a Sub is added the virtual front L/R channels are not able to match the Sub's output. The Sub is a great product that fill the low frequency sound needs of a 5.1 setup. The only way to make the system work in a balanced way is to lower the Sub output - so why pay to add the sub in the first place? In my view, unless Sonos provides a way to include dedicated L/R front speakers, their 5.1 solution is entry level and should only be used in a small room. Don't waste your money on a Sub. Just go with virtual front L/R and virtual Sub and you'll save a lot of money and have a more balanced system.
From my experience, when a Sub is added the virtual front L/R channels are not able to match the Sub's output. The Sub is a great product that fill the low frequency sound needs of a 5.1 setup. The only way to make the system work in a balanced way is to lower the Sub output - so why pay to add the sub in the first place? In my view, unless Sonos provides a way to include dedicated L/R front speakers, their 5.1 solution is entry level and should only be used in a small room. Don't waste your money on a Sub. Just go with virtual front L/R and virtual Sub and you'll save a lot of money and have a more balanced system.
From my experience, when a Sub is added the virtual front L/R channels are not able to match the Sub's output. The Sub is a great product that fill the low frequency sound needs of a 5.1 setup. The only way to make the system work in a balanced way is to lower the Sub output - so why pay to add the sub in the first place? In my view, unless Sonos provides a way to include dedicated L/R front speakers, their 5.1 solution is entry level and should only be used in a small room. Don't waste your money on a Sub. Just go with virtual front L/R and virtual Sub and you'll save a lot of money and have a more balanced system.
They are most certainly not "virtual". There are physical speakers that correspond to the left and right in the Playbar/Playbase/Beam. As with the case with every soundbar sold, they are contained within the same enclosure, but there are actual L/R speakers. More research would help you to stop posting inaccurate nonsense like this and other posts.
It depends. Totally agree if you use a beam, player, etc, however, if you use the AMP to power front speakers for '5.1' then you do get a virtual centre as the amp does not support a wired centre speaker.
Userlevel 7
+17
It depends. Totally agree if you use a beam, player, etc, however, if you use the AMP to power front speakers for '5.1' then you do get a virtual centre as the amp does not support a wired centre speaker.
I was not talking about the Amp.
june 2019. I just bought Denon professional DN-500BD MKII disc player (at B&H Photo in NYC) and, out of the box, plays dvd dts 5.1 over my bravia/sonos sound bar with surround speakers listening now. easy! (couldnt really tell from the online research i did, so i just went for it and it works. about $400
Note: if it is playing on a Sonos soundbar of any type, the the receiver is altering the signal to Dolby Digital, and not sending a DTS signal.
Ah yes haha obvious when I reread the sentence! Skim read too quickly. Thanks 🙂
Still, the rest is relevant. We don't make much margin selling Sonos but we do it because of the value it provides our clients. One of the largest value components of any system is simplicity. Clients love it
Still, the rest is relevant. We don't make much margin selling Sonos but we do it because of the value it provides our clients. One of the largest value components of any system is simplicity. Clients love it
YES!!! thats what it does
In my opinion, without that amp the Sonos system is a 3.1. The playbar or beam are not (and I mean NOT) the same as having 3 individual speakers. They are a really good center speaker.
Since the Beam and the Playbar play front left, front right and centre when playing surround technically you have more than a cnter speaker. I would agree that, as with most soundbars, speaker separation is obviously better with separate speakers. Describing the Sonos soundbasr as “really good centers” is however, in my opinion, selling them short.
I would agree with that although I don’t think much of Soundbars in general including Sonos.
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