School me on SONOS and other home streaming systems

This is... not good.

I’m scared that they’re trying to expand their offerings rather than honing their speaker product and selling more units tbh

this is how companies either lose the plot or end up tanking completely!

This
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/21/21228460/sonos-radio-announced-features-streaming-music-date-price
says

Listeners will enjoy a stream of new, well-known, or rediscovered music, behind-the-scenes stories, as well as guest artist radio hours from the likes of Angel Olsen, JPEGMAFIA, Phoebe Bridgers, Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Vagabon, and more. Artist hosted radio hours, released every Wednesday, will start the stream of Sonos Sound System for a 60-minute radio show with music and commentary about inspiring artists, releases, and the host’s latest work.

hrrm

Hm is right

🤔

Sorry:
hrrm is right

In any case, their radio algorithms seem obviously inferior to any of the other ones I have encountered in the current era.

Oh crap, Sonos One SLs have gone back up to $179 from the $119 sale price. I guess I'll be waiting a while before I buy a pair.

i really love the move. It is better than the one and portable. If you are looking at a One and might want to move a speaker around, just get a move.

i also don't hate the radio. One advantage of sonos is certainly the source side options. The option to listen to their own radio streaming just adds to that.

alba, i tried posting that a minute after your post and got the warning. It wasn't a response. Definitely hold out for sales.

I've been making slow progress on my amateur Sonos-replacement Raspberry Pi project. I got the Pi to play an mp3 file through the Hifiberry DAC, using VLC. I also wrote a little script to copy music files from my PC to the Pi through FTP. Next step is to build a bare-bones web app that will let me control playback from my phone.

I've been making slow progress on my amateur Sonos-replacement Raspberry Pi project. I got the Pi to play an mp3 file through the Hifiberry DAC, using VLC. I also wrote a little script to copy music files from my PC to the Pi through FTP. Next step is to build a bare-bones web app that will let me control playback from my phone.

Any reason you wouldnt use an off the shelf solution like Volumio? seem to do most things you might need for a PI based audio streamer.

Ended up buying two Sonos 1s on a warehouse deal for not much more than the discounted SLs. Excited to have some decent sound again after years of putting up with having a Canton soundbar as the best 'hifi' in my home and the rest covered with Echos. Interested how they will compare with the sound of my budget separates system of old.

Also wondering how easy it is to combine control via Alexa and the Sonos app. And whether I'll be able to listen the BBC in stereo! Anyway, all this to be discovered in a few days.

They're pretty punchy and bassy sound-wise but also really detailed, I don't use mine as the main speakers in my house but they work well in the kitchen. Are you planning on having two in the same room?

Yeah - in a largeish living room. I miss having stereo sound!

Good move - in my experience one doesn't quite fill a big living room.

It's weird that their only subwoofer is so expensive. Would be great if they released a budget one too.

Any reason you wouldnt use an off the shelf solution like Volumio? seem to do most things you might need for a PI based audio streamer.

Mainly just because I wanted to tinker. Also, it looks like Volumio takes over the whole device, and I wanted to keep the Raspberry Pi with a regular Linux OS so I can do additional hobbyist projects on it if I'm so inclined.

i really love the move. It is better than the one and portable. If you are looking at a One and might want to move a speaker around, just get a move.

Yeah, I'm thinking of picking one up, if only to add some dimension of sound to different rooms. Pity you can't set up L/R splits between different models.

Still not clear why I should care about Sonos Radio. Between Spotify playlists and TuneIn for local stations, I'm sorted.

So I built my Raspberry Pi fake Sonos thing. It actually works! My requirements were basically:

- ability to easily transfer music to it from my PC, music is stored on the device, so PC doesn't need to be on for it to work (I just drag and drop a music folder to an icon on my desktop, and it transfers to the Pi)
- ability to control playback from my phone, so again PC doesn't need to be on
- music organized by artist and album, if I start playing the album, it should continue playing the whole album, etc
- the music webservice starts up on boot, so I can just plug it in. Also, I can shut it down from my phone, to make it safe to unplug

Sound quality is pretty good, though I'm wondering if I should have sprung for the more expensive Hifiberry model, now that I know it's something I'm going to use fairly often.

lol i'm trying to set up my new SONOS BEAM (bday present)

— the app won't download to my iphone (4s = too old and doesn't support)
— it does download to my laptop but the set-up procedure can't be undertaken from a laptop (needs a phone or an iPad)
— w/o the start-up procedure i can't register it and hence find it for other apps that could e.g. control it from my phone (e.g. possibly sonophone)

my BiL (who part-gave me the present) suggests connecting it via ethernet to my router and doing the start-up via the laptop as if it's just speakers -- we shall see if this works shortly

<3 this brave new world of effortless connectivity.

In a fit of trackerphobia I recently went into my google account and disabled all personalisation including 'Web and App Activity' which is described thusly:

Saves your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated information like location, to give you faster searches, better recommendations and more personalised experiences in Maps, Search and other Google services.

However it turns out that if you turn it off, Google Home integration with Sonos stops working.

xp Dang. Curious to know how you get on. My parents are getting on good with the Chromecast Audios I got them... but a big wrinkle with those is you have to use the mobile Spotify app to start playing on them (and then you could, conceivably, queue up tracks on a laptop).

Still on Logitech Server ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

definitely not working -- i'm not even sure what's meant to work, i need to create a sonos system (i.e. register) before i can add this beam and it's not letting me do that yet (bcz my otger tec is too ancient or just not able to do it)

Not shocked they would straight up require a recent mobile device. Yuck. Maybe you could borrow one to get it to a usable state?

exactly what i'm thinking yes

or lol upgrade my phone :0

Like I think it's that over your network gear. I'm sure a lot of people run these on ancient ISP-provided router modems

my router's actually fairly recent, talktalk sent me an upgrade not long ago

the only thing I had an issue with when setting up some Sonos equipment was that my wireless access point at the time broadcast on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz and I had them separated because devices capable at connecting to the higher speed were stuck on the other when I only had one wireless name

I don’t think this is mark’s issue, sadly. But if you do run into this,if you can install the app but you can’t see the devices when they join to the network, it might be because you’ve actually got a separated network.

Maffew - the one way around having to use your mobile is to use the web player through Chrome and cast from there. You can control from the desktop app then. Still a fiddle arse, but takes the mobile out of the equation.

Anyone else using a free Google Play Music account for storing/streaming your personal library, and trying to figure out what to do now that it's shutting down over the next few months? I did the auto library transfer to YouTube Music, but only paid accounts can be added to Sonos at the moment. One Google rep said that free accounts are coming to Sonos, but if that's true I suspect it'll have ads based on my tryout of the YouTube Music app.

If I end up having to pay for a streaming service, YT Music probably wouldn't be my first choice -- but do any of the other ones offer easy storage of and access to your own library? I use a Mac and the Music app for local storage, but remember lots of horror stories about libraries getting badly messed up when Apple Music was first introduced. Are those issues a thing of that past? My library has been trouble-free and perfectly organized/tagged for years and I don't want to throw that all away.

I know I could just leave my computer on 24/7 or set up a NAS, but would prefer some sort of cloud solution. Mostly interested in my own library, but if I have to pay for something I suppose access to millions of other songs would be a nice bonus.

Ugh, just realized that I rely on a Chromecast Audio/Google Play Music for my outdoor speakers. Between library storage and Chromecast support, paid YT Music might end up being the best solution. Anyone using it?

I use / pay for / enjoy YT music (and did the transfer of all the stuff I had uploaded to GPM), though I don’t use Sonos or have your other considerations.

I feel like Tuomas has some thoughts on this

ok, i concede defeat.
the Sonos Pindrop/Electronica 'station' has become my default setting.
i suspect it's a simple case of randomly playing anything in the Sonos library with electronic as a metadata tag.
no dj chat, a couple of ads/idents here and there.
love it.

I got a Move for my birthday and have found it surprisingly useful. Of course it's great to take outside (where the wifi still reaches, surprisingly) and it's a stellar bluetooth speaker for places outside the home. Additionally, around the house it's useful to beef up the sound in the couple of rooms where I have only one Sonos speaker.

I agree. The Move is great.

If I wanted to buy just a single, good-sounding speaker to move around the house and stream YT Music, etc., would that be the one to get?

If you have or plan to have other sonos speakers, yes. I haven't used any other portable speakers with both wifi/bluetooth, so maybe there are other good options. But we use it as our kitchen sonos speaker for when we broadcast music in multiple spaces with sonos speakers, and grab it on our way out the door for outside listening. It's certainly the best in that context.

Thanks. I noticed Google has a new “Nest Audio”; I wonder how that sounds compared to Sonos (you can buy two for stereo, as with Sonos One, and it’s half the price).

...according to a few reviews I just checked out, I guess not as good.

For $100 the Sonos-compatible Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speaker seems like a pretty great deal. They can be paired for stereo too.

In looking for a Google Play Music replacement over the past few weeks I've been seeing a lot of comments suggesting that YouTube Music integration with Sonos isn't ideal at the moment though, so if that's your primary music source you might want to check that the features you use are supported through the Sonos app before going that route.

Huh, thanks.

Am I right to be aggravated they have this whole second line of speakers that aren’t compatible with the older ones?

Yeah, they backed themselves into a corner with their hardware design. I was lucky enough not to get bit, how bad is it for you, just one or two speakers or more?

What is it about their design? I thought they were just being jerks. The bad press around them is enough to make me stay away from any sort of speaker(s) I can't fully control..... For that matter the powered speakers I got for my parents that had to be returned twice have me convinced to do all separates in whatever systems I set up.

I want the Five but it’s not one that they put on Black Friday sale :(

My (discontinued) Apple Express works extremely well - I believe it was this thread that convinced me to get it, so - thank you. It just connects straight to my stereo. I select it from the Airplay menu, or devices, in whatever I'm using. I like it so much I have another one in a box in the crawl space just in case this one dies.