The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

The article I shared said you were “sunsetting the Sonos Desktop app by the end of the year.” If that’s true, how can you maintain access to local files on a desktop without it?

Or are you saying you’re keeping access to local files but only if you use Plex?

 I hear that you are a golden eared audiophile, but we can agree to leave both views here so anyone that reads them in future has access to both views.

I still maintain that in an accurately sound level matched blind test, these differences cannot be picked. Except, perhaps, on very high quality headphones.

The Sonos app upgrade (from the screenshots I’ve seen) doesn't seem like it’s that much more user friendly to me, as a lot of the placement seems the same (favorites up front), except for a few minor things (i.e. search). But perhaps when I actually get to play with it, I’ll change my mind. I want to see more improvements in functionality though. So things like different bass / treble settings for each service and different bass / treble settings for the TV input. This is something that Wiim has.

In terms of SVC, I find it completely and utterly useless in launching music (due to horrifically poor and hilariously bad voice detection), compared to Amazon Alexa. The only time I use it is when grouping (as you noted) and when activating or deactivating the speech enhancement. That’s it. With massive improvements coming to local on-device AI engines, I seriously hope Sonos invests in upgrading the SVC to something actually usable in the future.

@Corry P Are you able to confirm if search for local libraries will also be added later, or should we assume once classic search is gone we won’t be able to search local libraries again without running Plex?

Exactly my point in responding to what you said. You made it sound like nobody can tell the difference and that’s not true. Certain people can tell the difference. But ya, each person has to test it out for themselves, as you said.

As for being a “golden eared audiophile”, I’m not sure about that. I mean Sonos is more accessible midrange audiophile gear, not high end. But I can easily tell the difference on my Sonos Beam. Like I launched some lossy music via Alexa just yesterday and it sounds way more muddied than when hearing the clarity of lossless music when launched from the Sonos app.

BTW I’m using Amazon Music Unlimited which I think the sounds amazing on Sonos products. When I tried Apple Music though, I found the difference between it and Spotify to be less noticeable and harder to detect. I think it’s because Amazon Music uses FLAC which sounds way better to me. Apple Music’s own lossless format does sound slightly better than Spotify but it still sounds flatter in the midrange compared to Amazon Music’s FLAC files. This is why I’m somewhat excited that Spotify will use FLAC for their lossless files and it should work easily with Spotify Connect.

I don’t disagree, but I wasn’t the one who mentioned the NAS side, it was a reply to Marco mentioning running it on a NAS.  However, running it on a NAS or indeed yet another device to enable such a simple and expected function seems absolutely crazy to me.

Couldn’t agree more, I’ve pretty much never got it to play anything other thatn the occasional specific song I ask.

The whole point of SVC for me should be for Sonos to implement Sonos specific voice commands that they struggle with ‘enabling’ via a third party.  I use Sonos generally to listen to a queue.  I will often think of a song I want to hear next and go into the App, search for it (will be impossible for many soon if they update), and ‘Play Next’.  This isn’t possible with SVC (or any other voice service).  If you ask it to play a song then you then get a session started that completely breaks your queue and then carries on playing ‘other stuff’’ -  and you can’t get out of this session except by opening up the App (not the Desktop Controller as this no longer allows you to control your speakers or end the session - as sessions can only be ended with an App!!).  Play Next, add to end of queue etc. are all key things in the Sonos queue ecosystem yet none are supported by their own voice control.  ‘End session’ would be nice too...

@Nollind , regarding lossy and lossless differences, I’d be interested to see/hear how you get on with this test.  I hear no difference personally, never mind a noticeable one.  Use your headphones too.

You listen to A and X and B and can toggle as many times as you like between them.  X is either A or B and you simply select which you think it is.  Because of how they’ve done it though there’s no gap or pause and it perfectly and seamlessly switches between them.

You will get a statistical score of whether you probably can or can’t tell the difference.

There are other tests there too.

I believe the answer to this is the desktop app is not needed for access to local files (local files meaning files stored somewhere on your local network, including on your computer). To do it without the desktop app you would just share your music folder on the local network and point the Sonos system to that folder using the mobile app. You can do this with the current mobile app. It sounds like the functionality to this in the new mobile app won’t be there initially but will be brought back at some point.   

Yeah I think this is the case, but also that the desktop controller will still work for a while, so perhaps this functionality will be added before the desktop controller is killed. 
 

Also wonder what the actual plans for local libraries is given search won’t be supported. This is a necessary feature I would think for most users who play local libraries. I have Plex set up, I really like it and do  use it often. But ime it isn’t a replacement and still find local library useful. Plex isn’t as reliable, requires a Plex pass ($$$) and you must exposing Plex to access outside your router through remote access. It’s also another thing to maintain. It shouldn’t be on users to facilitate a solution for Sonos removing this feature. 
 

Would be good if these details were clear before updating. 

Playing local files was dropped from the Android app a while ago and I doubt it will be coming back in the new update.  Take the local library reassurances with a grain of salt.