What is the best Sonos alternative?

Fix your network.  Without that, nothing short of an old school wired system is going to work.  

@jgatie Thats what I was wondering. We have a fairly sophisticated network, and run many other systems on it without even a double-digit percentage of downtime as our Sonos products. What I have suspected is we will move back to a hardwired system. Thanks! 

A multiroom audio system is going to have different demands on your network than other devices.  If you have not already, I would contact Sonos support for advice. It will be much easier, and obviously cheaper,  than switching to a hardwired system 

Describe the ‘sophisticated network’ please. It may actually put obstacles in the way of the intra-LAN traffic essential to Sonos. 

How is the Sonos connected anyway? I’m a Sonos_user_since_2007, with a substantial system, and I’ve always been able to resolve any transient issues.

Other systems don’t have the interoperability between devices like Sonos.  Sonos constantly communicates between each Sonos device, and some networks can defeat or hinder this communication.  In addition, network problems like IP conflicts, which may cause an easily ignored blip in things like web browsing, email, or single point streaming, will wreak havoc with Sonos.

I’ve had my Sonos from about the same time you got yours and once I correctly set everything up it has been rock solid.

Tips and suggestions here were a big help getting started. The Sonos Support folks looking at my Diagnostics were key to finding the last couple minor problems. Now it just works, day in and out for months on end. Even through power outages and system updates.

For many reasons, I now use Echo devices as front end to all my Sonos zones, with the Echo units wired to Sonos line in jacks; if you have Sonos kit with those jacks, the Sonos investment still remains fully available, as long as the hardware is in good working order.

In all but two zones, Sonos radios are turned off. Grouping is done via Alexa groups for the front end Echo devices.

Music play stability, through automatic Echo updates, is excellent.

The only use case where this will not work is if you want to play purchased music sitting on a local hard disc.

I know that Sonos needs network issues to be all sorted out but I get a sense that Echo devices do all that a user like I needs, with less trouble with network issues, perhaps because Echo units don’t talk to each other as much over the network. But if they also don’t need to talk in such a manner while delivering all that Sonos does, that is a plus, perhaps because they use tech of a later generation.

I also see that Sonos sues everyone it can for patent infringements, except Amazon/Echo. That might be down to business reasons, or it could be down to tech.

Good grief.