Think I Found my Sonos Replacement

It's already been said in many different ways, but you're comparing apples to oranges. Although the products obviously have similarities, but they clearly have different features and functions, chasing after slightly demographics. it's also quite easy to see how a person may buy one product when they other may suit them better, simily because they don't care to research any further.

Like many others, Sonos meets my needs as far as audio quality, I really don't care to put more money and effort into gett a better sounding system. The law of diminishing returns as far as I'm concerned (me, not everyone else). The features that Sonos provides that you typically don't get from other systems is what makes the difference for me.

To be fully honest, I did not buy my sonos 5.1, I kind of got lucky in that it came with the house. I already had sonos products though, just not for the family room. Before then, I went with the typical mid range products (not 5.1 in a box) and was happy with that too. I doubt I would have bought sonos 5.1 on my own. Although, I am thinking about a playbar for other rooms in the house.

It’s pretty clear to me that people who complain about Sonos not supporting this Codec or that Codec probably don’t have the slightest idea of how to properly setup a HT system (old school); even a conventional 5.1 with separate LF/C/RF/LS/RS/Sub.

Using a Playbar (anyone’s playbar) is not going to produce a true cinematic theater experience…period! Do you really think that when you go to a theater they’re using some gigantic playbar upfront?? I mean really people!

Furthermore, the so-called playbar systems that proclaim to re-produce true Dolby-Atmos are using a lot of processing tech trickery. However, more importantly; regardless of the tech employed, those claims are based upon a rectangular room with four walls, flat surfaces and minimal materials that absorb sound (not an open space such as kit/family room /dining room combo) . The entire concept is based upon angles and sound bouncing off the walls. To be clear that’s not to say that the Sonos PlayBar and PlayBase doesn’t employ some of the same tech trickery.

Moving beyond the PlayBar (in any setup regardless of manufacturer) positioning of the surrounds is crucial. Typically they are placed left/right of the seating position no more than 1 foot to the rear. In case you didn’t know…surrounds have a sweet spot just like front L/R speakers. Sonos TruePlay will adjust each speaker in the HT 5.1 setup for optimum performance based upon room acoustics.

A typical Sonos HT 5.1 system consists of a PlayBar, Sub and Play 1’s x 2 or Sonos One’s x 2 for the surrounds. If you find you want more umph from your surrounds you can substitute Play 3’s x 2 or Play 5’s x2. The Play 3 and Play 5 have the added advantage to allow for a increased separation L/R and to the rear. Just don’t go overboard when increasing the speaker separation.

All said if you really have to have the TRUE Dolby-Atmos listening experience at home an don’t mind running wire either exposed or hidden….Here are your configurations - click the link….guess what…they don’t include a soundbar.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/dolby-atmos-speaker-setup/index.html

Bottom-line…stop whining about Sonos and go out and buy a system that outputs Dolby-Atmos. Even if Sonos were able to include the Dolby-Atmos codec in a future update you would still have to purchase at least two more speakers in addition to the current 5.1 Sonos configuration. Cheers!

Sonos has made it pretty clear Home Theater is not a priority for them. I was really hoping for an announcement at CES but while other companies were running laps around their decades-old audio codec support, Sonos was nowhere to be found (unless you count their panel on gender equality in the industry).

Sennheiser's CES offering seems to deliver everything I am looking for and more. Can't wait until this comes to market.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/11/sennheiser-ambeo-3d-soundbar/

This new soundbar sounds incredible:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/creative-showcases-award-winning-x-fi-sonic-carrier-at-ces-2018-300579383.html

Sonos has made it pretty clear Home Theater is not a priority for them. I was really hoping for an announcement at CES but while other companies were running laps around their decades-old audio codec support, Sonos was nowhere to be found (unless you count their panel on gender equality in the industry).

Sennheiser's CES offering seems to deliver everything I am looking for and more. Can't wait until this comes to market.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/11/sennheiser-ambeo-3d-soundbar/

This new soundbar sounds incredible:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/creative-showcases-award-winning-x-fi-sonic-carrier-at-ces-2018-300579383.html


Lol.
I expect it to sound as described for $5800 dollars.

That amount can buy you a very nice wired system.

I know it’s not the main job of a sound bar, but I want it to be able to stream and connect to multiple rooms

I googled "sonos dolby atmos" and found a Reddit thread from September 2017 from a guy who said he had emailed the Sonos CEO and the CEO told him that they are actively looking into incorporating Atmos. Interesting.

Any Company saying that they are a whole home audio solution should have full surround capabilities for parts of the home that have a TV. I do like the Playbar surround system but do find it frustrating that some audio sources require me to go in and mess with them to get sound (DTS DVD). That said it is a great system and was easy to set up and sounds pretty good. But as others have stated many people find DTS noticeably better for movies. That was not a deal breaker for me but if I were setting strategic direct for Sonos I would embrace the whole home solution that does incorporate full surround solution for the TV. I am not an engineer but I would think that DTS decoding is really a software programming issue and not a hardware issue. DTS has been around for a long time and it would seem to me that this would be really easy to incorporate. I guess it could be a licensing issue also but if a $60 DVD player or a $150 AV receiver can have the technology, how much can it really cost. People are looking more and more for single solutions to all of their entertainment needs and others will make Sonos future tough if they don't continue to evolve their products.

People are looking more and more for single solutions to all of their entertainment needs
Are they really doing that? Certainly the market at this time is such that best outcomes need cherry picking by customers. As another example, the outdoor/on the road market is better served today by the huge variety of bluetooth weatherproof battery equipped portables. Why bother with Sonos there even if the home is fully covered by Sonos kit?

And at the other end Apple will launch HomePods with TV sound not addressed. Ditto with existing offerings by the other two giants in the space, Google and Amazon.

Will there not be more rather than less fragmentation in the home automation space for a long time to come?

People are looking more and more for single solutions to all of their entertainment needs
Are they really doing that? Certainly the market at this time is such that best outcomes need cherry picking by customers. As another example, the outdoor/on the road market is better served today by the huge variety of bluetooth weatherproof battery equipped portables. Why bother with Sonos there even if the home is fully covered by Sonos kit?

And at the other end Apple will launch HomePods with TV sound not addressed. Ditto with existing offerings by the other two giants in the space, Google and Amazon.

Will there not be more rather than less fragmentation in the home automation space for a long time to come?


I think everything you said is true. Sonos demise has been predicted it seems many times.

However. I think Google, Amazon and especially Apple will attack this segment if they see a opportunity. It’s fragmented now but what will the market look like in 2-3 years? Is Sonos ready and agile enough to respond if the big three get serious.

I bought the very first batch of echos as a prime member and I reminder thinking whoa! This is a game changer. It has continually gotten better and Amazon has continued to bring more products at different price points to the market. In basically 2 years it has created a totally different landscape.

I love Sonos and I know they are not aware of what’s happening. Opening up to allow developers is huge and getting in with AirPlay 2 I think is big as well.

No one knows if the HomePod is any good but I would bet money it will create a nice ripple when it’s released and Apple has a history of starting slowly and slowly ramping it up

Thanks for sharing. I hope you enjoy it. I would say that Sonos have never aimed at serious HT enthusiasts. So I think you are right there. But I suspect Sonos know their market, you just aren't it.

Youre right i many ways - but still cant understand why Sonos, wont take a bigger cut in this marked.

I my self have skipped my traditional 5.1 for Sonos and i have many Blu Ray i cant play because of dts codex.
If they just made a passthrough here, many who likes simplicity would embrace Sonos.
Its quite a dealbreaker for those who still likes there Blu rays.
I have (nearly) ripped my Blu Ray collection and luckely Apple tv can convert a dts signal to Dolby digital.
Otherwise i have only Oppo or Samsung and turn to.

Passthrough and we are all good to go:)

Hdmi and hd sound-codex is not that importent in as oundbox in my opinion anyways.
Spdif is bulletproof an in most cases flawless

I doubt Apple or Amazon will get into the home speaker business in the upper end. Just not sure that market is big enough for them. But they make a lot of products better by doing a lot of the integration for you. If I were Sonos I would define my Company as offering a whole home audio solution on every device in every part of my home. As part of that I would develop an outdoor speaker offering. They could use the same technologies as the Play 3 or 5 for this just probably different speaker material and the enclosure. Others have done the weather adaption and it would be easy to replicate. I would do the outdoor speaker with a rechargeable battery so I could simply unplug it and bring it anywhere in my home by simply unplugging it. I would also include an outdoor option with Bluetooth so I could bring it camping or to a tailgate or other activities without Wi-Fi. I don’t follow the home audio market like I used to but spend a lot of time in retail and the next generation of customers and even baby boomers want simple solutions. I am not saying Sonos is bad I really like their system but it could be better. And in this age of technology why should I have to replace a DVD collection? For that matter if I still had a Betamax why couldn’t they just have an RCA input on the play bar. Ok so that last one is a stretch but having an RCA type input like on the play5 on the Playbar would not be a bad idea. I want to see Sonos do well because I like the platform and think it has a lot of upside to do more. If you are an electronics company and you aren’t doing significant updates each year to your products and innovating new products the company will be gone. They could easily be the choice for whole home audio solution in the upper end and Amazon and Google will definitely make that easier for them. But they need to invest in more features and products or risk someone else taking market share from them.