Paving the way for an Amazon powered Sonos?

Since I am not familiar with current Echo capability on the music side, some questions to those that use it:
1. Can it access any streaming service other than that offered by Amazon? If only the latter, is the content as good as say that of Apple or Spotify? In the same price band with similar streaming bit rates?
2. Does Amazon offer uploading/hosting of one's owned music in their cloud?
3. Can two Echos be paired in one room as a stereo pair? As independent but grouped units?
4. Can one build/store playlists similar to what Sonos allows?
5. If all the answers to the above are positive, is there any reason to prefer Sonos for any reason other than sound quality - leaving multi room out of the frame for the moment?

Since I am not familiar with current Echo capability on the music side, some questions to those that use it:
1. Can it access any streaming service other than that offered by Amazon? If only the latter, is the content as good as say that of Apple or Spotify? In the same price band with similar streaming bit rates?
In the USA: Amazon Music, Spotify Connect, TuneIn, Pandora, iHeart Radio.

In Europe: Amazon Music, Spotify Connect, TuneIn.

2. Does Amazon offer uploading/hosting of one's owned music in their cloud?

Amazon offers a subscription equivalent to iTunes Match.

3. Can two Echos be paired in one room as a stereo pair? As independent but grouped units?

No – as of today. Think of Sonos as the midwife in this respect. :)

4. Can one build/store playlists similar to what Sonos allows?

No.

Since I am not familiar with current Echo capability on the music side, some questions to those that use it:
1. Can it access any streaming service other than that offered by Amazon? If only the latter, is the content as good as say that of Apple or Spotify? In the same price band with similar streaming bit rates?
2. Does Amazon offer uploading/hosting of one's owned music in their cloud?
3. Can two Echos be paired in one room as a stereo pair? As independent but grouped units?
4. Can one build/store playlists similar to what Sonos allows?
5. If all the answers to the above are positive, is there any reason to prefer Sonos for any reason other than sound quality - leaving multi room out of the frame for the moment?

1. Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, IHeartRadio, Tunein, Audible

2, Yes

3. Not yet, Grouping is rumored to be coming. No indicaton they intend to support stereo pairing.

4. Yes

5. Simplicity. It is easier for most folks to set up a pair of Play1s plus a sub than it is to wire an Echo Dot to a receiver or pair of powered speakers plus a wired sub. Also some folks want to use streaming services that Amazon does not offer.

Also multi-room is important because it ensures the music playing everywhere is in sync. If you just started independent streams in each room they would all be out of sync with each other creating an unpleasant echo effect.

Also local playback is important because streaming services are not reliable day-to-day (just note how many posts there are about this service or that one being down or having some issue). Also none of them are currently profitable so you can't base any long-term strategy on an expectation that any given service will still be there next year. Even if you think of Internet services as a utility I notice there are no new houses being built around me that don't include a whole-house backup generator any more... a local library is just the backup generator for your music system.

4. Can one build/store playlists similar to what Sonos allows?

No.

I build playlists in the "My Music" section of Amazon all the time so not sure why you marked this as no.

I build playlists in the "My Music" section of Amazon all the time so not sure why you marked this as no.
That was me. You cannot create playlists and add songs from the Alexa app or via voice commands.

Sorry, grabbed the wrong quote tag. You are right there is no way to build a playlist by voice. I wouldn't expect to build one in the Alexa app as that is for controlling the Echo devices. For Amazon music you would use the Amazon Music app. Spotify the Spotify app, and so on.

Simplicity. It is easier for most folks to set up a pair of Play1s plus a sub than it is to wire an Echo Dot to a receiver or pair of powered speakers plus a wired sub. Also some folks want to use streaming services that Amazon does not offer.

Also multi-room is important because it ensures the music playing everywhere is in sync. If you just started independent streams in each room they would all be out of sync with each other creating an unpleasant echo effect.

Also local playback is important because streaming services are not reliable day-to-day (just note how many posts there are about this service or that one being down or having some issue). Also none of them are currently profitable so you can't base any long-term strategy on an expectation that any given service will still be there next year.
To the above three points see below:
1. Noted, but if one was to be satisfied with the standalone Echo/Echo Show, it would be just as simple to set up as Sonos, I imagine.
2. I have a 5 zone system, but I never use the in sync multi room function in separate rooms. What does get used is a common NAS for different music needs of each room, but if one kept one's music in Amazon Cloud, each room could access that music independently too. What I would not get is the space filling capability from grouped zones that are in an open plan space, I agree. For that space, even an Echo pair would be too thin.
3. Having bought an Echo, is it unreasonable to assume continuance of Amazon to provide streaming and cloud storage? I would say no, it would not be unreasonable to expect this from a major like Amazon.

IMO, the reasons to not go just the Echo way - with no Sonos in the frame - will keep reducing if Amazon takes things a little more seriously on sound quality, moves a little quicker on grouped/stereo play, to the point that many may no longer care much about a Sonos integration that is always in catch up mode. Things may look very different in just a couple of years if that happens.

Appreciate the answers to my questions, Mike/Smilja.

On the service reliability here is how I see it: the entire concept of Echo and all it does in every sphere is predicated on a robust and reliable broadband service - in the absence of that, the entire concept collapses to the point of making it a useless purchase. But if it does not, then music play survives just as stably and as well as, for instance, calling Uber.

IMO, the reasons to not go just the Echo way - with no Sonos in the frame - will keep reducing if Amazon takes things a little more seriously on sound quality, moves a little quicker on grouped/stereo play, to the point that many may no longer care much about a Sonos integration that is always in catch up mode. Things may look very different in just a couple of years if that happens.


I don't think it will take a couple of years to see how things are going to shake out. I still believe 2017 will be the year that defines the landscape for quite awhile to come. I think a lot of people just getting into voice control and basic automation will make a selection of what ecosystem they are going to buy into largely based on what is actually delivered to the market between now and Black Friday. Once people commit to an ecosystem they tend to stick with it.

As far as music goes I plan to do some testing after the Sonos/Alexa integration is released to see how different configurations work in day-to-day use. I plan to set up four rooms as follows:

1- A single Play1 controlled by an Echo Dot.
2- An Echo Show
3 - A pair of PLay1s + a Sub controlled by an Echo Dot.
4 - An Echo Dot feeding a Receiver and set of speakers that I think are a reasonable match to the Play1+ a matching sub .

This should show pretty quickly if the sound quality gap is really narrowing enough to consider a pure Echo music strategy (it might for the single speaker locations but I am skeptical that it will for the left/right + sub setup)
It will also surface any usability quirks or special feature advantages/disadvantages of each scenario. I suspect there are more tradeoffs between the different approaches than is evident from what we know now so I am expecting the testing to produce some surprises.

This should show pretty quickly if the sound quality gap is really narrowing enough to consider a pure Echo music strategy (it might for the single speaker locations but I am skeptical that it will for the left/right + sub setup)

I agree. But I am not sure that sound quality gaps will narrow in 2017 as much as they may need to for those that are used to a higher sound quality for their music.
The more I think about this on seeing the new Show, the more it seems difficult for Sonos to compete with the Show in the market being made for all the diverse things that Show will do and do these in ever improving ways. Echo isn't just about voice controlled music; and those that will use it for more than just music are unlikely to be satisfied by what the Sonos integration will offer. On the other hand, if all that the integration will offer is just voice controlled Sonos play, I am not sure it is very earth shaking. I don't see much use for it, at any rate. I am also finding reviews by many Echo users noting that they are happy to sacrifice some sound quality for all the other things that Echo does; and this was before the Show. People will not buy Show because it offers voice controlled home audio, but for the total experience it offers. Or promises to. I am not sure the Sonos/Alexa integration will approach that breadth of experience.
There are many parallels here between Blackberry and Smartphones; I remember holding on to my BB for quite some time because it did emails really well, and much better than what phones did, and ease of email use was a personal priority; but many switched because they wanted all the other things that smart phones did. Now, my phone does emails as well as BB did. Spence must be suffering deja vu every day.