For troubleshooting purposes, try hardwiring the Play 1 to your router to see if the problem persists. If that fixes the problem, you may want to consider how to make it a permanent solution.

Because of the older hardware inside the Play 1, they sometimes struggle to perform at the same level as newer speakers. If you have no issues with other speakers, this may be your issue. I have a Play 1 that has always been hardwired to my network. I have not had any connection issues with this configuration.

Thanks for you idea. I will tes this. But I am concerned about two things: I don’t see how, based on the placement of my speakers, how the Play:1 can be tethered to the router, second I notice that this connectiton issue occurs when I connect through the S2 Controller’, it connects but drops intermittently with a message that the program’s content is ‘encoded incorrectly‘. Do you think Sonos will provide a microcode update to correct this?

I’d doubt a ‘microcode’ update, but that sure sounds like some wifi interference or a duplicate IP addresses issue causing the PLAY:1 not to connect to your router, and receive a ‘clean’ stream of music. 

​@Pools-3015 suggestion could be tried temporarily, in order to indicate the potential cause, by simply moving the PLAY:1 into a position where it can be temporarily wired with an Ethernet cable. Once you’ve  fixed the issue, you could move it back.