per the title, I can relocate 2 One gen 2s from another room and swap those with the One gen1s currently serving as surrounds to a Beam Gen 2. Is there any benefit? I am wondering if the gen2 Ones may have some features that will slightly improve the sound of the Beam gen 2 and current Ones.
Best answer by buzz
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I doubt that you’ll hear a significant difference, but you should try it. Only you know what sounds “best” (to you).
Thx. I asked because I saw a reference to the Beam gen 2 using WiFi 5.0 to communicate with the surrounds and wondered if the older (gen1) Ones may not have that capability.
All PLAY:1s and Sonos Ones have that capability. In fact, offhand, it’s only the first generation of the PLAY:5 that doesn’t have a 5Ghz connection for surround duty.
You could argue that the newer units incorporate better radios, but if you are not having any trouble there would be no advantage in your installation.
As
If you swapped the speakers, I think you would be wasting your time. Any improvement you may think you hear would be caused by hope / expectation.
I don’t think there is anything called ‘WiFi 5.0’, but if there is it isn’t relevant here.
For the pedantic::
In the public space WiFi standard names are a mess. For engineers there is a blizzard of specs known as “IEEE 802.11”. 802.11 is amended from time to time. (“802.11a”, for example) In an attempt to rationalize things for the public, the Wi-Fi Alliance has coined some generic names, such as “Wi-Fi 6”. The Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 designations were retroactively created. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this is beginning to fall apart. Supposedly, Wi-Fi 6 is the latest and greatest, but recently Wi-Fi 6E has been introduced. “6E” must be even greater, right?
Standby -- while Wi-Fi 6 is finally filtering down into actual products that we might own, Wi-Fi 7 is chaffing in the wings.
Summary from the Wikipedia article:
Thanks all. Will not do any swap. 😁
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