Bose is making good products. When my old sonos unsupported products become unusable, I will make the switch. I have invested about 4k in Sonos bit no more. 

Bose recently abandoned an entire lineup of smart speakers that were less than a decade old design, replacing them with a new Alexa capable lineup that is 100% incompatible with the old.  Even worse, these older model speakers were sold right up until the day they dropped them.  You literally could have bought a speaker one day, and the very next day your speaker was obsolete; incapable of working with any future Bose devices.  

So, good luck with Bose.  

For me the question is what is an alternative to buying sonos speakers now? I want a distribution system which does not need me to upgrade the actual speakers every few years as that looks like the way its going. Am I better off buying a quality amp and using a different service for distribution?

Tricky isn’t it?

I’m going back to hi-fi. I've been listening to a friend’s hifi recently and I’d forgotten how much better it sounds anyway. Streaming, bluetooth etc are no longer the sole domain of smart speakers. You can get plenty of streaming boxes, bluetooth receivers, active speakers that can make up a hifi system that sounds way better than Sonos ever could. Second-hand amps and speakers are often incredible value.

Looking where I’ve got my Sonos right now, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if a few more wires were involved. And do I really need just one controller for the whole house? TBH - no I don’t.  I can invest a bit into the speakers and they will still be producing great sound in 20 years.

Just like KEF LS50 ?

“Looking where I’ve got my Sonos right now, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if a few more wires were involved. And do I really need just one controller for the whole house?”

You said it!  8 years with Sonos, 16 components now, (8 were recently upgraded so I could use S2 features) - purchased units almost every year.  Over years of trying to stabilize my system with the help of some high-level Sonos engineers, we’re still forced to WIRE over half of our Sonos components to get even reasonable stability!!  (wireless audio - my arse!)

Indeed I could have wired the same rooms for HiFi speakers had I not bought into the marketing hype Sonos sold all these years. 

Look! S2 is WAY MORE unstable than S1 and even if the fanboys here won’t admit it, many inside Sonos will (anonymously of course).  

I was an I.T. exec for decades, live in small home with no Wi-Fi interference for neighbors (who are far away) who knows more about routers/switches/modems/Wi-Fi than most consumers.

8 years of attempts to isolate Sonos units, Wi-Fi interference, cell phones, on and on! 

Several top end routers, all Cat 6 or better cabling.

Every single aspect (including a detailed network diagram) scrutinized by Sonos engineers year after year! 

100’s of diagnostics submitted, traffic managed, Static IPs assigned, then un-assigned, multiple units Wi-Fi turned off then on then off again. 

Engineers agree, I’ve done EVERYTHING CORRECTLY AND THERE ARE NO ISSUES WITH MY HOME OR SET UP!!!   Their advice, WIRE UP MORE UNITS!!  

FORGET Sonos HD radio!  Unstable b/c of the limitations of even Gen2 Sonos units.  Canceled my subscription after support admitted that it probably won’t get better soon!

And don’t get me started on the horrific management decisions to gut support and software programming staff, while farming out support to off-shore, contracted, companies with uncaring and under-trained staff.  And lastly the brain-dead, poorly managed roll-out of the S2 line! 

Rant off - Have a lovely holiday everyone and STAY SAFE!

kassey22000,

Not sure of the size of your home, but you would think with 16 Sonos products dotted about the place and running on one of the three fixed non-overlapping SonosNet channels, that you would not need to wire very many devices, if any at all, other than the Sonos Root Bridge device, like a Boost for example  - your walls must be solid stone, I presume?

I have a fair few more Sonos devices than yourself (more than half again) and at least 60+ home network devices in total about the place here ... and I try to ensure the SonosNet signal hops ‘kindly’ around my home-setup to provide a virtually green matrix (more, or less) with just one or two lesser-yellow exceptions ..and that’s with the neighbours on either side each running 802.11ac routers with auto-selecting channels, that I personally choose to always keep in view on a regular basis. 

Luckily the neighbours mainly use channel 6 on the 2.4ghz band and 36 on their 5ghz band, so these are fairly easy to regularly avoid. 

I tend to use channel 11 (mostly) for SonosNet, as neither neighbours router seems to hog that channel.

Our walls internally are mostly brick, or breeze-block, with the odd girder/lintel/beam thrown in between floors and above doors etc; and I do seem to manage fairly well with a central-based router to the 4 upstairs and 4 downstairs rooms (not counting shower/toilet/wash rooms). 

The central router (also 802.11ac) is set to a ‘fixed’ 2.4ghz channel 1 (20MHz channel-width) and the 5ghz to Channel 44/48 (40MHz channel-width). I also use just one WiFi extender with device blacklisting that mirror-images the main routers credentials, channels and channel-width and that irons-out any black spots for a selected 15 (non-Sonos) local network products. 

I do choose to reserve 16 Sonos products in the main routers DHCP reservation table (that’s the max limit for my Netgear router) and for several years I’ve not had any sonos connection issues or other network device issues for that matter and it certainly helps with the regular Sonos updates rebooting the devices too.

I opt to put most non-Sonos devices onto the 5ghz band, wherever thats practicable… just to get them well out of the way. I sometimes place them high up in the subnet too when fixing the IP on the device. I find that seems to often help with any full network reboot.

Anyhow back to your issues ...

My thoughts are that your connection issues are likely either the materials in/around your home, network configuration, or router (position, type etc.) ...so those are perhaps the areas where you may wish to concentrate your effort - but there’s not a lot you can do if stone walls, or steel girders etc; are getting in the way and are difficult to avoid, other than perhaps running cables to some carefully chosen areas. I would use multi-access wired/wireless points at the end of those cables, rather than just trying to cable a single device, if that is at all practicable to do. 

Router/Network-wise, I would personally avoid mesh-type WiFi hubs that combine the 5ghz/2.4ghz bands and which auto-select (randomly) their channels at each separate hub (like Google WiFi for example) and just carefully position your own network access products to ensure better/best ‘fixed’ connectivity to all rooms and move any identified interfering devices well out the way onto the 5ghz band, or wire those non-Sonos products too.

Anyhow, sorry to hear about your network connectivity issues, I hope you manage some day soon, to get it all sorted. It may even pay to shell out some cash and get a reputable on-site network engineer involved to perhaps help solve some of the things for you (after Covid is perhaps done & dusted).

Stay safe too & Happy Holidays.

Thanks Ken and appreciate the thoughts. 

No stone walls, standard wallboard on stick frame. 

No mesh networks, no neighbor interference as they are too far away.

Extensive testing with Sonos’ top engineers on all other options including router placement, interference (all electronic devices in the home were turned off for 4 hours and the Sonosnet constipation continued - see also Standing Tree issues still not resolved with Sonos products).

Engineering is the group that has confirmed that wiring up MORE if not ALL Sonos components is the only way to address Sonosnet buffering, lag, delays, traffic congestion/sorting issues. 

All Sonos units are within 8 feet of another and no unit is more than 30ft from the router (in the center of the home) so while the units are spread over a 1800sqft house, at least each unit has a neighbor close by. 

Sonos MOVE units (on WiFi of course) work flawlessly, no drops, lag, delay, etc. 

The S2 app is slow to load on ANY device/platform, laggy, and IMHO ugly. 

Many new issues ONLY appeared after S2 introduction and system conversion on my end.  S1 was actually getting pretty solid with few drops in its last year.  

My 1st Sonos purchase was in 2009 and for a number of years there were very few issues, the last 8 have been buggy and since S2 - WRETCHED. 

Sonos Engineer claims “I may be pushing the practical limit of number of Sonos components” - their phrase, not mine! 

Glad some have zero issues with Sonos components but we all know there are thousands who do NOT and while the VAST MAJORITY of them may never reach this community or even bother to complain to Sonos, their poor experiences are ultimately not good for the brand. 

Glad Sonos had a great revenue quarter - now they need to plow that back into the company, not just their personal investment funds. 

To Ken_Griffiths and kassey22000:

Your recent posts here give me both shivers and instant heartburn.  My Sonos system is brand new, purchased in the last 30-40 days, and I’ve just recently begun listening to my glorious “whole house” system.  I thought it was just my ignorance or potentially “weak” (it’s not) wifi in my ~2000sf (stick-built) home that was causing all the dropped/disconnected from network issues.  There have been dozens and dozens of times in the past week alone when everything just stops and I have to close out of the app, open it back up, several times, try to force the system to recognize the network again, UGH! 

The sad part is that much of my home is actually already pre-wired, and I could have just stuck with legacy speakers for so much less money.  (I appreciate in advance the Sonos community NOT pointing out how stupid I was to NOT do that...)  I do still have all the Sonos boxes, though...

Your descriptions of what you have both gone through to end up with a “stable” (read “usable”) system are stunningly over-the-top techy, and the idea of hiring a top-end network engineer to come to my house to make my speakers stop dropping off the network is utterly preposterous.  Sonos itself needs to really, truly fix this, or at least offer some restitution to those of us who have been left to deal with their failures.  I’m savvy enough with technology to not give up just yet, but I shouldn’t have to go through these hurdles, especially since from everything I’ve read the old platform worked just fine.

I suppose I will start digging into my network settings using Ken’s descriptions to see if I can create even a moderately more reliable system.  Or, perhaps investigate the return policies of where I bought everything.  I’m not patient enough to have my expensive system keep dropping off the network after an average of about 12 minutes of Pandora streaming.

RipVanW,

Just to add that my Sonos system is stable and working just fine here and it’s not a huge technical issue to change & ‘fix’ a routers 2.4ghz non-overlapping WiFi channel or it’s channel-width and it’s straightforward to switch the SonosNet channel, if any single Sonos product is wired, which in turn switches all over to STP SonosNet.

I’m fairly sure my young grandson could do those kind of things and reserving/fixing a devices IP address in the routers DHCP table, within the configuration pages, is often just a tick-box too these days, but I know some folk do not like to ‘mess’ with such things. I guess it’s then time to call someone into help… my wife calls that a GALMI - “get a little man in”. (Which is regarded as sexist these days too).
 

Anyhow most, if not all, routers have online user-manuals and there’s even 5 minute YouTube videos showing folk what they need to do - which is basically logging onto a (routers) webpage via a web browser, or App, and change a drop-down Wifi channel list from ‘Auto’ to channel 1 and hit ‘save’ to store the setting.

In kassey22000’s case he had chosen to wire many of his devices, which in some cases, if not thought through, or planned correctly, may sometimes cause loops and network storms and perhaps make matters worse, rather than better. Hence my suggestion was perhaps not to cable some individual devices, but perhaps look at wired access points placed in strategic places in the home that would extend the wireless coverage instead.
 

Personally speaking, I find the SonosNet spanning tree protocol provides more than adequate connection for all my devices and most of the Sonos connection matrix shows green - meaning all the connections are doing fine.

Calling on a GALMI though, which can sometimes just be a good mate, or a work colleague etc; is sometimes a good last resort, if you’re unsure about all things involving home ‘networking’ ...and perhaps don’t wish/choose to dabble in/with yourself.

With a good secure, stable network at it’s base, Sonos products will all work really well together.

To Ken and Rip and any Sonos employees who happen to still read these posts:

Ken, you’ve always been a big help on these forums and it’s really appreciated.  I think though that you keep looking past the fact that many of our systems have been thoroughly gone over by high-level Sonos support teams and even engineers.  THE ONLY REASON I’ve even gone to the trouble (and great expense of funds and TIME) of crawling though attics and basements to run yards of cat6 Ethernet cable is BECAUSE Sonos engineers said this would FIX the WiFi issues with Sonosnet!   NOT BECAUSE I wanted to run wires!   Initially it was just 2 units, then 3, then 6, then 8 and now they suggest perhaps ALL OF THEM! 

Every SINGLE device in our home that is WiFI’d or directly wired to the router WORKS PERFECTLY!  NO device drops, stalls, lags, cuts out, won’t find the router, or take 20-30 seconds to open the associated APP (on any platform). 

I appreciate that you and others on here have a great working system and are long-time and consistent supporters of SONOS, but honestly Sonos knows there are SERIOUS and ongoing issues.

I just wish the fans on here would stop always pointing people to their router settings and blaming WiFi interference as the panacea for all Sonos disruption issues.  I’ve been in Tech long enough to know when all other issues are addressed and the only one left is ONE PRODUCT and manufacturer... they are the PROBLEM, (not my Router and Wifi) and I suspect there are a LARGE number of dissatisfied Sonos customer who have come to the same conclusion.  

I will continue to work with engineering where possible and post their suggestions for others, but it’s becoming crystal clear Sonos has a LOT of work to do for TOO MANY of us. 

Peace. 

kassey22000, 

In my humble (non-expert) opinion I still think this will ‘likely’ all come down to your local network and its got little to do with whether ‘other’ wired, or wireless, devices work just fine on your network and communicate with the internet, or not etc. This is about multiple products successfully communicating/streaming across the same subnet and online. Sonos controllers for example and your devices communicate using SSDP, (the UPnP discovery protocol). This is sent as UDP multicast and broadcast and if those packets are not getting through, then that in itself may cause issues for you, this is in addition to other factors of network bandwidth for streaming and the various forms of wireless interference. Even interference around your self-laid cat-6 wiring should not be excluded.
 

It should not be all that difficult (at least in most cases) to use a combination of both wireless and wired access points to get 16 devices connecting well and transversing a wallboard & stick-frame built home - I’ve truthfully managed to do it here with more Sonos products and with a home that has brick/breeze-block walls, as hopefully my matrix (attached) shows (I’ve just blurred my devices/Mac addresses for security reasons - it’s not a complete matrix (sorry) - I just can’t show all devices on my iPad screen capture, but hopefully it will provide an overall impression for you to perhaps see.

I clearly cannot comment on those who may have provided you with advice in the past, except it’s usually the case that Sonos Staff are not responsible for your home network subnet and cannot change your other ‘devices’ settings etc; or position wired, or wireless, access points to get a desired stable network outcome. Relocating ‘other’ home-networked devices ‘out the way’ and on other wireless bands, or subnets, is not something Sonos (or any other company) would do for you. 
 

These things will always come down to yourself (the local system administrator) and it’s for you to achieve a stable networking platform, not Sonos ...such matters are outside their product support remit.
 

No one here can likely confirm if any advice provided to you, has been correctly given, or followed either, at least ‘perhaps’ not without a site visit (to see things in situ) and look at your current setup - Only so much can be achieved via remote access to a site.

I can only finish here by stating that on a stable network platform, it’s been my own experience, that small and even large S1/S2 Sonos Systems will work (and do work) absolutely fine. I’m sure that’s not just my own experience either. I have helped to setup several systems for both family and friends and they have not had any issues either. There are also many experienced community users here too, who I’m sure will ‘likely’ confirm that is the case for their own Sonos systems aswell. In fact I understand that some here, run multiple Sonos Households around their homes, either on the same, or different, network subnets without any significant issues like the ones you appear to mention in your posts in both this and some other community threads.

I really cannot add much more. I do accept you are (clearly) having issues with your system, but my own thoughts and suggestions are to get someone with a fresh pair of eyes and a reasonable understanding of home networking to perhaps take a close on-site look at your home network setup and maybe seek a different opinion and approach to hopefully help solve your problems. I really do think it will ‘likely’ turn out to be a local network-based issue, rather than something that Sonos may need to resolve.

I mean @kassey22000 posted that they worked with Sonos engineers. I bet you’ve been waiting for years to flex your massive matrix in rebuttal. Who u tryin 2 impress smh

I will just mention, that Sonos engineers will not touch other products within a network, nor can they see the physical issues, change hardware, adjust device/wiring locations, or continue to monitor the changes to the local environment. A customers network and other hardware/software is outside their remit, which is aimed at Sonos products only. 

The matrix attached and shared earlier, was geared to show I was being ‘truthful’ (without exaggeration) and that with some thought and consideration, that a stable network environment for Sonos products can be achieved - Sonos is also only a small proportion of my home networked devices and with planning and some small practical changes to hardware/physical locations etc; all things will work together. I am able to reboot other segments of my home network without affecting the Sonos devices for example.
 

It’s also important and helpful to monitor any network, from time to time, as the surrounding environment can and will often change, sometimes on a regular basis.

importantly, a wired and wireless network all needs to be stable to begin with and I suspect that’s where the issues lie here - I was simply trying to help kassey2200, as my thoughts (still) are that he perhaps needs to get a "fresh pair of eyes” on site to look at the matter from a network perspective. I honestly do not believe this will turn out to be a Sonos issue, as everything is working fine here. S1 and S2 systems work fine at my friends/family homes and there are many others here who are are not having issues… which leaves the only explanation, that it’s ‘most likely’ a local network environment problem.

Oh and I’m sorry Bumper if the screenshot of my Matrix, or my posts have offended you in some way, it was certainly not my intention to do that.

Ken, with all due respect, your premise that Sonos engineers can’t see/change/help or correct home network issues is on the face of it BUNK!   They always ask for diagnostics (which I have submitted probably over 200 times) - They have a full network diagram of my entire home WiFi/wired system, - they have every detail of every router/switch/connection and other devices (many which have been upgraded through the years to help solve potential issues with Sonos), and they have made REAL-TIME changes to networks settings over Remote-PC and other direct-to-my-computer help desk apps with my assistance/approval. They can also remotely (with my permission) reboot my entire Sonos system and look deeply into what’s going on remotely.  

The top tier Sonos support team are awesome and I believe they really know their way around these issues, YET and  once and FOR ALL KEN - They have clearly and repeatedly ADMITTED that it’s their EQUIPMENT and NETWORK - NOT MINE!  

I wish you would QUIT defending the indefensible!  You and the rest of the died-in-the wool fan-boys just give cover and solace to Sonos and enable poor excuses for constantly revised software/firmware (why is it constantly updated/revised?  BECAUSE IT’S BUGGY!).

Sorry but often you guys come off as shills for Sonos and not true consumer/community helpers, which I know is not true, but the perception of this has been expressed here a lot. 

Oh, and Ken, as for that cute little Sonos Support Direct Command-line Matrix, you can say good-bye to that.  Word has it that Sonos has plans to remove that user function just like they did with the customer controlled reboot option!  I found it useful (to a limit) as well, but apparently it has to go.

Cheers

So in summary paying for a Hi-Fi subscription to Tidal, Qobus or Deezer does not make sense because Sonos doesn't support it. 

Finally I found the solution for Hi-res and MQA streaming compatibility. 

https://www.bluesound.com

As with most ‘solutions’ - they have a tendency to ‘evaporate’...

This decision made me go from loving Sonos to hate it. Worst customer experience ever to try to force users to buy new equipment when the old is working 100% fine. 
what is worse is that my old equipment which worked fine until S2 was announced has started to act up - and Sonos support won’t help...

My experiences with Sonos support are different. Maybe if you post a new thread explaining what problem you encountered the community can help? 

Exactly how are you being forced to buy new equipment?

Finally I found the solution for Hi-res and MQA streaming compatibility. 

https://www.bluesound.com

As with most ‘solutions’ - they have a tendency to ‘evaporate’...

Indeed no more issue and happy with my real Hi-fi sound. My jazz collections never sound better. 

Last but not least, bluesound doesn't use a separate wifi network like Sonos, and I never had any interferences issues. You know the BIG and only excuse used by Sonos support why your system isn't working properly. Obviously you cannot be a sound and network engineers in the same time. Pathetic. 

Sonos support isn't Sonos anymore. It has been outsourced abroad. They don't even know the system they are supporting. 

One of the biggest problems with S2 is how it fits in with S1.  For example, I have 3 original Play:5s that won’t go beyond S1.  I have 2 Sonos Ones which are locked onto S1 as a result as I don’t want to break up my ststem.  If I decided I wanted a new Sonos:One to expand my setup, then it will come with S2 and won’t be downgradable to S1.  (Correct me if I’m wrong).  So at that point I would need to replace all my play:5s or buy a legacy product 2nd hand.

Personally, I don’t mind replacing my play:5s with Ones over time, but I can’t really do that as I’d end up with a system that doesn’t work together.  So I’d have to replace all 3 up front or have equipment sitting around that can’t be used together.  (The whole point of the Sonos system)

So it doesn’t force you to replace everything if you want to keep the overall system exactly as it is.

I would also say that there seemed to be a lot of fuss made about S2, but the last time I checked there’s virtually no difference.  And I’ve not really seen any hype anywhere at all about S2 features.  As far as I know it doesn’t solve my two biggest gripes with my Sonos (the crappy way it deals with a temporary wifi glitch, and the poor accessibility of the apps)

One thing that bugs me about Sonos is that there doesn’t seem to be much engagement with the customer.  They never make promises or talk about upcoming features or seem to be that interested in what their customers think.  I’d feel a lot more inclined to upgrade to S2 if there was a degree of excitement about what the new system can do now or in the future compared to S1.  But pretty much all I’ve ever read about S2 has been to do with the interoperability problems, or the promise of high-def sound which AFAIK only works with one speaker type anyway.  (Admittedly I don’t follow Sonos news that closely, so I’m only talking about what pops up on my news feed.)

So I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I now hate Sonos, but I would say that the S2 experience has been frustrating but without that glimmer of excitement that should come from new technology, just a grudging feeling that I should upgrade my stuff at some point but without really knowing why.

You are wrong.  It cannot ‘come with’ S2.  Provided it has not been used as part of an S2 system (witch new, it won’t have been) it is compatible with S1 and S2.