Who would you recommend?

Depends on what you are using the speakers for and what your expectations are. What Sonos devices do you current own? What specific issues are you having with the app?

I have Play:1 and Play:3 speakers. The app regularly (since the recent update) sends messages like “not connected” while it’s playing music I started earlier in the day. Or, “something went wrong”. It eventually figures itself out or I fix things the old fashioned way - I unplug the speaker. 

I use these speakers for ambient music throughout the day. It’s the first thing I turn on in the morning and the last thing I turn off at night. Music genres span the spectrum, with a few exceptions. I listen to a wide variety of music streaming from iTunes, Sirius, Spotify, Tune-in, Amazon, and Sonos. 

This app update is an unmitigated disaster and it’s forced me to look elsewhere for a speaker solution. 

Any suggestions, please?

I would only get the Apple Speakers if your primary way of listening to music is Apple Music. Bluesound supports both NAS libraries and TIDAL (and a few other streaming services) and seems like the most similar alternative that doesn’t have these stupid problems. I have started replacing my Sonos system with Bluesound myself. 

I suggest Echo Dot, if you have any Sonos units that have a line in jack; back in 2007 all had these. Wire any old Dot into a Sonos line in jack that has been configured for auto play, and that unit then becomes a dumb servant of whatever is wired to the line in jack. Almost out of the box, the Dot will play Amazon and Spotify, via voice command or via casting from a phone, through that Sonos unit. See how that goes, and then see if expanding this solution makes sense. I have moved to this in a 5 zone Sonos set up in 2020 that now has Echo Show units as front ends. I only use the S1 app in the rare event of listening to my local libraries, I never moved to S2. With album art on Echo Shows in all zones, this works very well for me. The only fly in this ointment is that the latest Show devices no longer have the necessary audio out jack.

@Nav - thanks for the idea. I’ll check out Bluesound as an alternative. 

@Kumar - appreciate the out-of-the-box idea utilizing Echo Dot as the driver for the system. Unfortunately in my case, my speakers are new enough to not have the line-in jack. Bummer! 

@SONOS - how could you let this happen to begin with? Where was the QA testing? The customer input? I’ve been such an advocate for your product for so many years, but that’s lost now. This is a case study for customer experience disasters and how to destroy a brand’s reputation. Pity. 

@dennishodges 

You’ve made up your mind to leave Sonos behind. That’s your perrogative. I hope you find the satisfaction you’re looking for.

However, there is no solution that is perfect. Granted Sonos went off the rails in the app refresh but it’s nothing IMO that irreversible. In fact things are improving everyday.

Regarding no perfect solution click the link for the Bluesound community below. It’s just one of the forum discussions as there are others.

That said good luck with your Bluesound investment. As I said in the beginning of this post…I hope it brings the satisfaction you desire. 😊👍

https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200017678-iOS-Connectivity

We can’t say it’s improving every day, Sonos are NOT releasing code every day (thank god)… 

It might improve every week or two, but equally it may also get worse… indexing for example, and regression in the old discovery methods too… 

Thanks @AjTrek1! Appreciate your perspective and the link. 

@Ian_S  - indeed. Time will tell if things will improve or not. I love the speakers and the product promise - always have. It’s just astounding how they, with all the fanfare, rolled out such a DOA software update.

I honestly want the best for them. Actually, I want the best for me, which they’ve historically provided. Not sure they can recover and I’m running out of patience. 

This was, and still is, a massive leadership/strategy/design failure, which appears to be reflected in their YTD stock performance. 

Not quite; if you can score a used Connect, that has line in jacks that will send the music to play units that do not have these jacks. The problem of course then is that the present chaos of the app will not allow you to set up said Connect as easily as in the past! So then yes, Bummer!