Worst most complicated piece you'll ever buy. Avoid at ALL costs



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Userlevel 5
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So much admission free entertainment early in the day?

Sorry, i pass and go back watching soccer with this amazing stadium atmosphere produced by the Playbar and a pair of Play5. Apologies for the rather unproductive contribution 😉
You are simply not right!  I just want to have a choise and Sonos doesn't give that possibility. 
Userlevel 6
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Dear Sonos,

This is a dead horse please delete this thread.   I love my Sonos, it does exactly what I want it to do with no hassle.
Userlevel 7
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You are correct Kevin ... not that Sonos is completely blameless (slow speed of development for wish list items) ... but many people complain because they did not understand the system they purchased.  
There are plenty of possibilities. I stream if I want from iTunes I stream direct from my pic. It may be matter of cost and effort but aren't all things.
I started small with Sonos. A play 3 just to try it out. Amazing. Took more time to get it out of the box than it did to make it work. (All my music is on a NAS drive - Sonos sucks up flac files and spits them out beautifully). Now I have 2 play 3's, a Sub, a play 1 and a play bar (The play 1 sits in the kitchen on its own until I can buy a partner for it). Fantastic sound, great access (we have deezer and amazon music) and it just works. Even my teenage Son likes it because he can play the music he wants when we are out of the house (he has a controller app on his iPhone, and so can play all his music as he sees fit - when we aren't there).

It isn't all rosy. We have occasional drop outs of music. Have contacted Sonos, and I'll report back in due course. I expect they will do their dial in jiggery pokery and all will be fine.

That's all!
I'm guessing Ray has other issues besides getting two speakers to work.


Honesty, Dave what were you expecting? Your passive-aggressive comment was met with actual aggression. IMHO Ray taught you a valuable lesson. I bet you're one of those people who speak softly about other people behind their backs, and say things like "you're causing a scene" after breaking up with your girlfriend in a public place.

As for SONOS- it sucks. Plain and simple. The software is garbage. It doesn't do airstream because they are too cheap to pay for the licensing fees (on a $500 speaker), and getting it to function shouldn't take pouring over the user forums.
Mine works fine☺
Sonos is a failing system, undoubtedly. consumers want easy use products that work seamlessness, immediately and without fault. Products should be easy to install and work immediately - that is what they demand. Good products do not have counts threads of millions of consumers moaning about how rubbish it is, ergo Sonos is rubbish, always needing tweaking and full of errors................I do not think it will survive - do not buy it!
Mine works fine☺
It is a mark of failure that comments like - not taken time to seek face to face advice or take time and money to implement systems properly or a 12 year old can install it. Guess what consumers;
1) Don't want to pay over the odds for poor face to face advice - we want to install ourselves, effortlessly
2) Don't have the time and want something I can plug in and play - we don't want to send 30mins on hold to rectify a problem we have called about before.
3) Don't want a system a 12 year old can install, intuitive products can be installed by a 12 or an 80 year old. 

Wrong perspectives above, today people grow up with intuitive well designed product that works flawlessly. Sons is not any of those things.
You are correct Kevin ... not that Sonos is completely blameless (slow speed of development for wish list items) ... but many people complain because they did not understand the system they purchased.  
But in my experience (and after 3 years of Sonos support being unable to fix properly) a "rock solid mesh network" is exactly what this product isnt. In fact it is so far away from that it isnt even funny. I can stream video around the house with Apple TV with maybe 1 network issue every 6-12 months. With Sonos I am lucky if the network works 3 times in a row. It is a running joke with our friends how bad this product is.
You are correct Kevin ... not that Sonos is completely blameless (slow speed of development for wish list items) ... but many people complain because they did not understand the system they purchased.  
Also there is an attitude with Sonos and obviously some supporters on here that if it isnt working it is the fault of someone else, i.e you dont understand it, you bought the wrong thing, your router isnt working, your firewall is blocking it, your itunes folder is corrupted, you didnt pay extra for a reseller to set it up. But that isnt good enough these days. It has to work out of the box if you are a casual user or a serious audio person and it has to keep working without having to call support all the time.
Mine works fine☺
Totally agree - thought it was me, or rather the wife or kids who kept "screwing things up" but it really is just a ppoor product. 50% of people I know are OK with it cos they hardwire it (the wireless it hopeless in any city) and the rest of us have given up. Last week I rebooted 4 times, reloaded, repointed, reconnected and it worked for a whole day and now it doesn't recognise the computer it is hosted on. I mean REALLY? the freeware I had before was better than this crap. 4 years a user and max of 4 weeks of working.
Mine works fine☺
Wow. I feel sorry for anyone that cannot get a Sonos system to work. Really....I do. Generally thought of as the easiest system to set up. I mean I have set up dozens of other style systems which were both portable and stationary and Sonos was absolutely the easiest. Push a button!!!! Come on. For the people that say "Thought is was me". It is.
Mine works fine☺
Agree entirely with Paris TX.  Many of my non-techy friends have bought Sonos after seeing / hearing my system and have been listening happily to music 15 minutes after getting the gear home.  Dead simple, sounds great.
Userlevel 6
Badge +3
Mine works fine☺
To add to this

Like any high tech gear today you do need to learn a bit about it to get the most out of it.

Sonos 101
Run the system on SonosNet
Scan you wifi and make sure that you are on the best channel for Sonos and your home router .
Scan your WiFi channels in your home Click hereReserve IP address on your router for your Sonos gear. 

Give you Sonos gear the right environment and you will get years of happy use out of it.  
Mine works fine☺
Ok. I wanted to add a speaker to my bathroom so I just now ran to Best Buy (could have got one cheaper on Amazon but oh well) and picked up my first Play 1 ( I have 4 play 5's). Unboxing - 1 minute. Plugging into speaker and wall - 10 seconds. Getting the Sonos system to recognize it by pushing two buttons - 10 seconds. Grouping it with my other speakers since this is how I like it - 15 seconds (this includes naming the room). Issues encountered - 0.

Sound from the Play 1 - So much better than I expected. Now I regret not getting the two play 1's deal that they have so I can add one to my workout room.

Again...if you are having trouble setting these up, then either you somehow have a defective unit or your just not paying attention. From memory - Open the Sonos app and go under manage. Select add a player or Sub. Follow the step by step (that include pictures)...I believe it says wait for green light on your Sonos speaker after you plug it in. Now click next and it shows you what two buttons to push and release. Hmmm that is it. 5 Speakers in my house and it was just as simple every time. 

For the first time I did adjust equalizer settings for the Play 1. Only because of acoustics in the room. Just a slight bump of Bass and Treble on it. Sounds great with the few Genres I tried.

On another note...They had a Sonos system setup for demo so I got to mess around with the Playbar and Bass. Wow..very impressed. Not quite $1300 combo impressed, but I might eventually go that route if there is ever a discount.
Mine works fine☺
I am pleased for those who have a working system, really I am.  I know lots of them seem to work and if yours works then I guess you can't understand why other people are having problems.

I can't speak for others but I have certainly spent (literally) days on the phone with Sonos support, they have remote accessed my computer, run tests on the router (In the time Sonos hasn't been working properly I've had about 3 router upgrades), changed the wi fi channel lots of times, and they can't fix it.

So it is not user error, or lack of effort, or lack of knowledge (I assume Sonos support know what they are doing). 

It is a system that for some reason doesn't work for everyone's set up, and no matter what you try it cannot be made to work consistently even by the experts.
Mine works fine☺
I think it is unfair for people to suggest that some users are only having trouble because they can't follow the steps to set up their system. The fact is that there are some gremlins that are impacting a lot of systems lately and they are not things that are easy to track down. From hypersensitivity to interference (even when your players are wired) to what appears to be intermittent STP glitches, there are definitely some underlying issues that can affect the stability of a Sonos system running the current firmware version even if the user follows all best practices to set it up. I hope Sonos is making system stability a high priority and is looking for a root cause to some of these more stubborn cases.
Worked for about 1 month direct from an iphone (only way I have got it to work recently) - now that has stopped too.

Credit to Sonos for keeping this thread open and letting people hear real life experience of how rubbish their product is - or maybe they just don't care?

I guess if you spend enough on marketing it drowns out poor product to some extent.
Considering the very few posts that agree with the title are being thoroughly drowned out by dozens of posts praising the product, why wouldn't they keep it up? Hell, I'd make it a stickie!
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yeah, after using it for 2 years with 3 speakers and being confined to the Sonos platform (can't even stream video sound through Sonos, and importing your own music library is hit or miss - I've given up), and seeing "Sonos was unable to connect" every 5 minutes or so, I can now honestly say that THIS SYSTEM IS AN OVERPRICED PIECE OF SHIT! Which is a shame, it could have so much potential, but hey. The market will decide, my bet is that they won't be around for more than 2 years or so and then slowly fade into the black hole of useless tech crap. Adios.
Funny how hundreds of other people were able to get their systems to work just fine.
But let me guess....it's because they're not as smart as you.
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Worked for about 1 month direct from an iphone (only way I have got it to work recently) - now that has stopped too.

Credit to Sonos for keeping this thread open and letting people hear real life experience of how rubbish their product is - or maybe they just don't care?

I guess if you spend enough on marketing it drowns out poor product to some extent.

There can only be one reason why hundreds of people have systems that work and work well.
Must be that they're not as smart as you.
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I'm guessing Ray has other issues besides getting two speakers to work.


Yes I have Dave, issues that two sessions with the "engineers" over the phone couldn't fix. As the twat before suggests I am not very technical, but why should you need to be to play your music? Over complicated crap .... sorry.

The issue isn't because you're not very technical.
The issue is that you're an excellent example of a colostomy bag with ears.
Userlevel 1
Mine works fine☺
Sonos is a failing system, undoubtedly. consumers want easy use products that work seamlessness, immediately and without fault. Products should be easy to install and work immediately - that is what they demand. Good products do not have counts threads of millions of consumers moaning about how rubbish it is, ergo Sonos is rubbish, always needing tweaking and full of errors................I do not think it will survive - do not buy it!


Buy an FM radio.
Total crap. Never worked, never connected, dropped when connected, could not find music library, etc.... Wrote over a dozen complaints and had one phone conversation with arrogant European/UK technician. He could not get it to work. I live in a 26sqm studio with Play 5 on top of the router!!! Put it in storage. Just took it out one year later: doesn't work AT ALL. Can not find system no matter what. Horrible scam, total waste of money. DO NOT BUY.
Sonos sells over $1 billion worth of gear every year. They have millions of customers and all but a tiny handful have a flawless experience, me and at least twenty friends, family and colleagues included.