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I would welcome some advice please.

 

S1 / S2 and Surround Sound

 

I invested heavily in Sonos over a number of years. My system in my home has 2 Play 5s, a Play 3, , 2 Sonos Connects, 3 Play Ones and several Play: 1s. I recently added the Sonos Ones so that I can use Airplay to the rest of my speakers by grouping with my Ones. Evidently, my entire system is stuck on the S1 controller. I want to upgrade to a surround package for the TV in my living room and was going to buy a Sonos Arc, Sub and 2 more Sonos Ones. However, from what I understand, I will then have two systems in my house. The new units for my surround system will be on S2 and everything else will be on the S1 controller. This is not ideal as it is nice to have music playing all over the house, especially for parties et cetera. Can anybody advise me because I cannot see a way that I can justify the purchase and then end up with a system that is in some ways worse than the one that I have?

Are your Play:5s and Connects Gen 1 or Gen 2? If they are Gen 2, they can be used with the S2 app. All of your other speakers are compatible with S2.

Read more about S2 compatibility here: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786?language=en_US

Thanks for the response GS P2,

 

My two Play:5s are both Gen 1, one Connect is Gen 1 and the other shows on my system page as “modern product” and so assume it is later. 

Unfortunately your two Play:5s and Connect have to be run separately on the S1 app. Have you considered getting a Beam instead of the Arc and finding an older Sub (Gen 2) so you can still use the S1 app for all of your speakers?

I did consider that but am a little bit worried about getting left behind. Sonos are promoting that the S2 will have lots of additional fautures and S1 will only have bug fixes going forwards. I could end up paying out a lot more money and being in this same position again in the future. I already spent my inheritance on my old system and am a little upset at having to pay out for a second time, but to pay out three times at some stage in the future would just about finish me off!

Have you looked at Sonos’ upgrade program? Read more about it here: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/upgrade

Just like buying any computer device, or smart phone. Any device that relies on software to operate will eventually reach a point where it reaches ‘maintenance mode’, where it continues to operate as before, but can no longer receive updates, due to lack of CPU power, or available memory to accept the size of the operating system. 

To date, Sonos has done an incredible job maintaining functionality for older devices, substantially greater than any other PC or phone maker has. Speaking for myself, I’m comfortable in continuing to purchase their equipment, with the complete understanding of the nature of software driven devices. However, I can understand the other side, and would expect those not comfortable with that concept to stay with a more traditional wired setup, with a non-software driven Amp, and non-software driven wired speakers. It’s merely a choice, one is not ‘better’ than the other, they’re merely different.

Thanks for the advice GuitarSuperstar. I am now looking at the upgrade program to see if I can utile it to lessen the costs by 15 to 30%.

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