School me on SONOS and other home streaming systems

what's the setup of your big system, MDC? I fancy the NAS/connect/big system approach

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xp yes, it is great for "alexa, play discover weekly". Our One is in the kitchen so we don't have to touch the app controls while cooking. I just wish it could all be so easy. I haven't tinkered with it too much. I made spotify my default music service to drop the "on spotify" part. It might be more useful to make a set of commands for more complex tasks, though.

you'd think that "Alexa, what is the containment of the Thomas Fire?" would work. google will at least point you toward an article with 'containment' in it. you could find that article and recite the bit containing 'containment'. alexa just recites the wikipedia entry.

what's the setup of your big system, MDC? I fancy the NAS/connect/big system approach

I bought a WD MyCloud which seems to do the storage job well enough. The system itself is an inherited Linn which I would never in a million years have bought for myself (I have audophile in-laws who upgraded a few years ago), so it's not an especially useful guide, but the Connect will plug into the back of pretty much anything.

Tim H has an eBay'd Linn which is one of the best-sounding things I've ever heard.

My bedside listening device is a venerable mid 90s Hitachi boom box. Tbh it's more than fine, plays tapes and CDs and has a real radio obvs.

I've been thinking about getting a small Bluetooth receiver for it so I can stream off phone / computer (and recommendations are welcome - doesn't have to be super hi-fi.) But for reasons I'm also wondering if a Play:1 (specifically) would be a significant step up (or otherwise) in audio quality. The Hitachi is stereo of course and has a third 'bass' driver.

Any 'pinions?

I would highly recommend the Harman Kardon Onyx. I have the Studio 2 version which is a couple years old now. Bought it for around $150 and it sounds fantastic.

I love play:1s. they sound good, are small, and have reliable wireless performance. any sonos player will come tied to using a sonos app on your phone or pad device, at least for setup and admin, though. so it helps to have good wireless in the location you put the player and a good phone or pad for reliably connecting to that same network. Since it isn't bluetooth, you need to also be sure that your chosen streaming methods (or suitable equivalents) can be used with sonos.

Sonos also has the benefit of being a system. if you find you have another $150 to spend at a later date, you can build upon your bedside purchase and sync a play:1 in the bedroom with a new one in the kitchen. given the popularity of the system, the community also produces other interesting things to play with, such as the soco (sonos controller) package for python, if that interests you.

downside to the wireless/system approach is that you will need to go through speaker setup/registration every time you switch wireless networks. so it is harder to bring a play:1 to your friend's party (though not too much trouble)

We have a Play 1 in our kitchen and a 3 in the living room. Small house, so that covers us pretty well downstairs. The upstairs is the kids' space, and we just got them one of the new Play 1's with Alexa, which they love. So far I have resisted the urge to remotely take over their speaker and blast them out of bed in the morning.

I'm thinking that a lot of what a Sonos system offers I don't especially need right now. It would hinge mainly on sound quality, although setting up a NAS starts to seem quite appealing.

The Onyx stuff seems like it probably wins on sound quality.

Then again I'm looking at a <£20 Bluetooth 4.1 receiver with APTX which would require almost zero faff. I do love that the Hitachi has been with me over twenty years and survived multiple festivals and house parties.

tbh I'd expect the Onyx to win on portability and ease of setup and lose on sound quality. you'd have to A/B to know for sure.

I love my Sonos system. I've got it connected to a HDMI splitter, so I can use it both as a wireless stereo and also for movies off my laptop and games off my Switch.

Lots of weird quirks-- if the Wifi is slow at any point in the day, sometimes the sound dips out pretty annoyingly.

by "HDMI splitter" do you mean an HDMI to ethernet adapter? I'm confused about how you are getting digital audio to sonos in this case. I've had good luck with the wifi on play:1s or Ones. play:5 wifi reliability is bad, though. Sonosnet is 2.4GHz, so reliability will depend on the number of other 2.4GHz routers near your system. can also try changing the channel sonos uses.

I'm not AV smart, I just bought a 4-to-1 HDMI funnel and then a "split stereo audio off the HDMI cable" connector. Maybe not the most elegant solution but I can switch between SNES mini, Switch, computer or Sonos app without touching any buttons

ah, I see. So you are plugging that analog audio into an analog input on a sonos player or some other device eventually on the network. I plug all hdmi stuff into the TV and convert the digital optical out to stereo audio. I didn't think of the HDMI splitter + converter way.

i just plugged my new alexa (!) straight into my stereo and it's great

"play 1xtra" and it does it. spotify is plumbed in so i say "play the new gas album" and it does it. wild

podcasts are shonky. it's via tunein and i can't tell if any sort of subscribing or "bookmarking" is possible i.e. all the things that make podcasts good.

however. i can just bluetooth to it from my phone. which is probably a better interface for podcasts anyway.

bye bye airport express, you always pretty much sucked

Hm, AE is lossless, and the most recent has a DAC which measures better than most audiophile gear. Works for me.
Also - https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-can-rickroll-sonos-bose-speakers-over-internet/

AE dropped out constantly for me, totally unreliable whether i was using phone or computer.

it also didn't tell me the weather

Can be chancy in a cluttered wifi environment, but I stream to mine literally dozens of hours a week and typically get maybe 2-3 dropouts in that playtime.

no weather, but

yeah i live in London, literally more than a dozen Wifi networks visible in my dropdown

almost just wrote "me dropdown" like some salty sailor tutting at his poor wifi reception on the open seas

We got a second-hand Linn Numerik DAC over Christmas and plugged the Sonos Connect into it, and it's improved the sound even on Spotify to an audible degree. Everything just sounds more three-dimensional now.

My old Airport Express used to drop out all the time, it was hugely annoying.

I connected my Airport Expresses to inexpensive powerline adapters via ethernet and it solved all of my dropout issues. I've mostly moved to Sonos but still use a couple of AEs and can't remember the last time I had a dropout. Don't know how well those adapters work in apartments though.

This might be outside the scope of this thread and better suited to computer questions in ILE, but -- I picked up a Chromecast Audio to use at work, not realizing that client isolation would prevent me from using it on the office wifi network. I think I can get around this by using one of those $20 wireless travel routers in bridge mode to create my own wifi network that piggybacks off the office wifi. Will that complicate my life in any ways I'm not anticipating?

Wouldn’t the travel wifi itself have to join the office network, encountering the same problem?

if you have access to an Ethernet port at work, you might be able to use the Ethernet Adaptor for Chromecast

It would have to join the network, but no other wireless devices would need to communicate with it on that network, so I think I would be ok. The reason I can't use the Chromecast now is that our office router isolates all of the wireless devices connected to it, so my phone can't communicate with the Chromecast over the network. But with the travel router they'd be communicating through the new wifi network that it creates, so I think I'd be ok. I think if I can set my phone to prioritize my new network over the office one it should work pretty seamlessly, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm overlooking something.

I hadn't seen that Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast -- will look into that too, though my stereo isn't very close to the available ethernet ports unfortunately. Might be worth running a cable though. Thanks.

the travel router needs to be a repeater, not a bridge, no?

Wouldn't a repeater mean that I'd be on the same network that is causing me problems now with AP/client isolation? (I'm no expert on this stuff.)

I am also not an expert. but when I set my second router to "repeater mode", it creates new wifi network for forwarding to the main router. if I connect to that new network, I believe the main router still only sees the repeater as a client. when I set the second router to "media bridge mode", I am connecting to the LAN of the main router and connecting to the bridge with ethernet. I don't think I am treated as a wireless client in this case? this is at least the convention used by my old asus router.

actually, I think the bridge is treated as a wireless client. so you'd need to do "repeater mode". I think we are in agreement here, and just using different terms.

These Controller updates can be slightly painful, especially when WiFi is a little dodgy. Wonder what the latest one is about

I have the feeling there is almost an update per day. It's dubious. The user interface has become worse after the last major update from a while ago. I will never understand why software is too stupid to find out my faves, here the radio stations. I have about 3 or 4 but sonos sytematically proposes those i just don't want to listen to. I also lose the wlan connection despite repeater very often.

This latest update seemed to require admin password on my Mac to do something

I'm researching because I want to get a Sonos system, the above's been of great use already. Just one quick (dumb) question: Sonos lists it works with different music streaming services (Spotify, iTunes etc), but will it also stream any sound coming from my mac/pc laptop? Like youtube?

Also: I'm thinking of getting two Play:5's for the living. Will an extra Play:1 suffice for a smaller working room/home office (25 m2)?

still no youtube support and doubt it will ever be added

you might consider Heos or Bluesound which basically do the same but add bluetooth functionality (for streaming direct sound from pc/phone)

Thanks for that, will investigate. Heos looks good but only has a smartphone/tablet app, no pc/mac

you're in the Netherlands? you can get a demo of all three systems at your local Hi-Hi Klubben https://www.hifiklubben.nl/

Actually some of the newer Sonos speakers (including the most recent Play:5) support AirPlay 2, so you can indeed stream all audio from your Mac — Sonos specifically mentioned YouTube as a use when they announced it a few months ago. The Play:1 you’re considering for the workroom doesn’t have AirPlay, but if you AirPlay audio to a Play:5 that speaker can send the audio to the Play:1. The slightly more expensive (and somewhat confusingly named) One does have AirPlay.

As for room size, I have a single Play:1 in a room probably about 35 m2 and it’s perfectly fine for casual listening.

I don't know what's up with my Sonos, to be honest.

It works perfectly for Tidal. When I play a game and run the audio through the line-in there's no problem. But as soon as I try and play a movie through it-- HDMI into audio-splitter, video goes to the projector, RCAs go to the line-ins on the Bridge-- it glitches and hiccups. I got a Boost, even, to see if that'd help, but it continues to stutter. (It's almost as if Sonos can sense when I'm doing something non-profitable with it)

youtube music is going to be added, i read. the app has been on various free trials for a while.

Thank you Early Rejecter, that is kind of the last piece of the puzzle I needed an answer to! (Play:5 Airplay 2 -> the Play:1) And pleased to hear a small Airplay:1 will suffice for a small(er) room. Thanks!

Niels, I won't bring my very best 'Brothers In Arms' mp3's to a store to test the different systems, but thanks ;)

* "a small Play:1", is what that should read

well, if you go to a store you get a good idea of how the speakers sound and you can try out the interface etc, I'd def try before buying

you can also bring some dope ass Knopfler recordings to hear how much better a Sonos Amp with a pair of real speakers will sound at the price of a Play:5, but I realize people are different (I would personally use a play 1 in the bathroom, tops, but I like stereo systems)

Heos has no native pc/mac app which is a dealbreaker for me, and Bluesound is priced way higher, so I'm settling for two Play:5's for the living and a Play:1 for the writing room.

that'll definitely do and Sonos is a hella cool system too

but if you have the time to pass by your local store and get a demo of two play 5s (around 1000eur?) vs a sonos amp + 2 dali zensor 3s (817 eur https://www.hifiklubben.nl/streaming/sonos/sonos-connectamp--dali-zensor-3-muziekinstallatie-met-streaming/) I think that might prove revelatory

I know you love music ;-)