Sonos S14 thoughts and wishes

Hi. I actually enlisted all my Sonos for sale, as I think Sonos isn't up to date and actually doesn't have the visions to be (for us surround users) updated, only for multiroom purpose.

BUT, now s14 is in the horizon which is rumored to have hdmi. For at start I think its nice, since I will be able to control Sonos sound on my Apple TV remote app.

In this scenario, it would be nice and some kind of a must if this S14 has at least one hdmi input.I use all my hdmi inputs on my old b6 and would have to skip one unit in order to make place for at Sonos soundbar with hdmi. I think many Sonos users use all of their hdmi inputs on tv as its kind of the thoughts - the tv is the hub.

BUT isn't this against Sonos´s "bulletproof" philosophy?. im thinking on handshake issues, personally I could think Sonos only supports sound on hdmi, in order to avoid handshake issues.

Well it may have a hdmi 2.1 socket which have the capacity to potentially fix many of these hdmi issues.

Which brings me to my next thought - atmosphere is the shi... right now and is quite common, is it really realistic to think Sonos AND atmos.

Well hardwarewise I could think a Sonos connect for atmosphere or play one/1.

How about the design? The blueprints shows a square?

What are your thoughts and wishes for this new home theater unit?

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The Sonos CEO told someone on reddit last fall that they were actively looking to incorporate Atmos.

My wishes for the new system are Atmos support, 7.1 support, the ability to add separate speakers as discrete left and right channel speakers, and the ability to add more subs.

They do that and I will buy the new system, two new Play 5s as the left and right channel speakers, two new Play 1s for the rear channels, and a new sub.

Just wishful thinking

He first rumours we heard earlier this year was a mini soundbar with hdmi.(notes from a former Sonos employe)

More recent rumours says its a speaker and a center speaker.

As for now im putting my money on a center speaker Where you can assign play1 as front left, right and rears.

I just dont think atmos is in that soundbar. I cross my fingers, but i dont think so

It doesn't need to be in the soundbar if this new device is just a center channel 🙂 If you have a look some of the first atmos speakers on the market were from Klipsch and their atmos speakers are just small little drivers that fit on top of the left/right/rear channel speakers and fire upwards towards the roof

If this new device is a center channel only and you can pair some play 1's to make 5.1 or 7.1 as your choosing, all Sonos needs to be is release a new play 1 speakers and put an additional driver in the top of the speaker facing up for the upward channel OR alternatively Sonos just needs to release a mini atmos speaker that can fit on top of your existing play 1, that will work to like this: https://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-RP-140SA-Dolby-Atmos-Speaker/dp/B00ZIQZBTG

Here I've uploaded what it looks like: See this speaker just fits on top of the existing left/right/rear speaker and points upwards - sonos could do the same thing, sell a upward facing speaker that just fits on top of your play 1 or play 3

A guy on Reddit was emailing the Sonos CEO last fall and the CEO confirmed that they were actively looking into incorporating Atmos. Makes sense since now you can stream Atmos content.

It wouldn’t help projector people. But if the speaker could act as center only that would be impressive as well.

I have had my Playbar for 5 years now, Last week along with my new purchase of a samsung Q8 tv......I also saw and heard The samsung 950 sound bar ( 5.1.2) with atmos and wireless rear upward firing speakers, sounded awesome. I have sonos everywhere else in the home. Before I pull the trigger on the 950, Ill wait till the 6/6 press conference. What I want to hear is a new atmos playbar and google assistant integration. Alexa does too much listening and not enough acting on the commands given.

If it were just a box with HDMI pass through and optical/analog input that then sends signal to at least 7.1 wireless speakers independently = game changer!

Talk about some happy projector users!

SUPERCONNECT

Yeah the Samsung k950 is real nice, costs about half the price of a sonos 5.1 setup - it's probably the best atmos sound bar on the market as it has more upward firing speakers than other sound bars

The only thing I'm not so sure about is the sound quality, the quality may not be as good as the sonos - that especially applies for the sub, the sonos sub woofer is big and fantastic as putting out the power with no distortion, the other major brands like samsung/sony/lg etc ship their soundbars will small subs that may distort at higher volumes or just not be very powerful (I used to have a Philips soundbar which came with a 5 inch driver Sub rated at 150w - trust me, the Sonos sub blew that thing out of the water, it's not even a contest)

In the end, I think we can all agree that Sonos needs to bring up a Atmos soundbar, Atmos is the future of home theater and it sounds fantastic

I wish it wasn't a soundbar and was just a Connect with HDMI and then outputs Dolby Atmos to any combination of speakers.

Careful with that - I tried to post that picture earlier and a moderator removed it

Looks small compared to the Playbar if you take size of the buttons. Maybe it will just be a Center Channel.

TV's can only pass through limited formats, to get the good stuff (like dolby atmos or high res) your devices need to connect into the soundbar directly and there in is the problem - almost every bar on the market with HDMI inputs only has like 1 or 2 inputs - I have 4 devices, I need 4 inputs and I don't want to shuffle cables all the time

The fix to this is HDMI 2.1 TV's with eARC - once new TV's come out with these ports you just connect all your devices to your TV and your TV will pass-through just about any sound format into the soundbar

But key to this: both the soundbar and TV will need to have the HDMI 2.1 eARC port for the pass-through to work correctly

speakers would be facing the front if it has speakers.... like the playbase

Thinking about it more, I'd still bet against it coming to pass anytime soon, but not as strongly as originally thought.

I’ll bet you a nickel they have been looking at Soundify since the get go (I figured as much aloud here back then). Alexa probably won out because it was extremely well documented, Amazon made commitments, it looked easier, etc, etc. But, while it brings a lot of things, like AI and connectivity to devices, it brings a lot of limitations, too, like a very limited set of supported services, no support for local files, etc. Soundify would allow Sonos to voice-enable all services and local files, something the CEO has said is coming, possibly this year. Alexa isn’t going anywhere, Google is next, but Soundify may very well be in Sonos future, too. “Hey Sonos! Group Kitchen and Living Room!” “OK”. 😉

My personal tought:

IF, the new model will add HDMI support, maybe the new speaker will be able to decode DD+, DD true HD, DTS HD MA. Since this will be a possibility, it means that Sonos is going to pay royalties to decode DTS signal as well --> maybe they will add DTS support via SW update also on Playbar/playbase.

DTS 5.1 IS POSSIBLE trough optical, but codec is missing...

The new Sonos PLAYBAR needs to have at least 2 HDMI 2.1 inputs. Only 1 is technically needed for new HDMI 2.1 TVs via eArc, but let's say at least 2 for TVs with HDMI 2.0b and below.

1 HDMI 2.1 (eARC) output.

4K Dolby Vision and HDR10+ passthrough.

Support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X respectively.

With HDMI 2.1 comes eARC. eARC allows the following audio formats to be transported:

Dolby Digital Plus (up to 7.1 channels)

Dolby TrueHD (up to 7.1 channels)

Dolby Atmos

DTS-HD High Resolution Audio (up to 7.1 channels)

DTS-HD Master Audio (up to 7.1 channels)

DTS:X

I fear that compiling this wishlists will only lead to disappointment come June 6 - I hope to be proved wrong !

Wildbomber, what are you thinking the 2nd (or more) hdmi is needed for? Not doubting you, just curious what you're thinking. I can see where it could be useful for older tvs that perhaps don't have eArc. If there are multiple hdmi inputs, are you thinking that that cable, Blu-ray etc sources would route to the S14 first, then to the tv, as many receivers are designed to do today.

Personally, I'd like it to have an hdmi output, to pass audio and video to another tv, but I'm pretty sure my use case is not that common.

I think you are right DTS on a new product will drive more sales, current playbars can be moved to 2nd/3rd tv rooms.

I'm not a expert on royalties, but I don't know that that would be a good idea from a Sonos perspective. Sonos has always looked to add new features to their existing products, but there is always at least a chance that the customer will end up buying new products because of it. Assuming that the new product replaces the playbar , adding DTS to the playbar will only cause customers to avoid buying the S14 (or whatever new product is). Perhaps maybe they add it to the playbase, if it serves a different customer than the S14.

But I speculate.

It much way to ever do that except with a Connect (only Sonos device with output)

Some interesting ideas about the headphone use, and how peole use their equipment in different ways. I guess my use cases are very simple. ATV or PS3 to soundbar for movies and radio app and spotify for music i chucked my NAS and local file collection into a recycle dump when I moved house as I was never using it. ?

I guess having more non speaker uses for Sonos might help justify the always on paradigm and 24/7 power consumption.

Oh i forgot, i would really like to be able to use wireless Bluetooth headphones on Sonos

Not being sarcastic, but what for exactly? I’m struggling to think of an use case that is not better addressed by having the same stream play direct (to headphones). Curious what the purpose of powering on a lot of speakers, only to put on headphones would be. I’m probably missing the point though ?

The ability to create playlists from multiple sources comes to mind. I don't think I own anything else that allows that. But that's kind of niche - I could see a long term Sonos owner who has a lot of playlists built up in the ecosystem liking it, but it's not likely to be a real draw for new customers.

Chris - but i still like my Sonos 5.1 system, in your case, i would have to add a connect to my tv aswell.

I have my work around because of Apple tv, but would be much easier If Sonos handled the output from all tv plugged sources:)

Could that not be done via a receiver? All inputing into receiver then from that to sonos for 5.1 or direct via receiver to BT.

Some sonosnet headphones might be interesting, assuming the techncan be miniturised enough and working from a batter is feasible. Not sure I’d want audio path going stream > Wifi/snet > Sonos > bt > headphones. I’d have thought the lip sync would be horrible. It is bad enough going direct from streamer to headphones when using BT. And I have quite high end BT headphones (well B&O) more form over function if you ask me ?

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