Why would it? Sonos is by far better than any AirPlay system. Its rock solid aka it just works!
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Apple Music Coming to Sonos Home Audio Systems by End of 2015
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Why would it? Sonos is by far better than any AirPlay system. Its rock solid aka it just works!
Very happy about this if done correctly.
Current Spotify integration is lacking one key feature. Playlists etc all work but Sonos does not allow access to Spotify Radio directly. If Apple Music has full integration then I will be swapping.
I went the Sonos route and glad I did, it just works rock solid all the time, I believe this is due primarily to using its own network. To get around some of the issues I purchased a second hand Sonos Dock, this allows me to play any audio from iPhone/iPad etc (including Spotify Radio). I also bought Sonos Controller (CR 100) as it can go in the bathroom/shower, also means no need to open up an app to navigate etc.
Also doesn't have to be full price, each of my Sonos Play 1 speakers came from e-bay at an average cost of £79 each (two of the four had damage which was very easy to fix). The sound-bar was a luxury extra but picked it up for £480 on Gumtree. I'm not an audiophile so not after ultimate sound but they do sound great, also very easy to have perfectly synced sound throughout house/garden or each speaker with it's own feed.
Current Spotify integration is lacking one key feature. Playlists etc all work but Sonos does not allow access to Spotify Radio directly. If Apple Music has full integration then I will be swapping.
I went the Sonos route and glad I did, it just works rock solid all the time, I believe this is due primarily to using its own network. To get around some of the issues I purchased a second hand Sonos Dock, this allows me to play any audio from iPhone/iPad etc (including Spotify Radio). I also bought Sonos Controller (CR 100) as it can go in the bathroom/shower, also means no need to open up an app to navigate etc.
Also doesn't have to be full price, each of my Sonos Play 1 speakers came from e-bay at an average cost of £79 each (two of the four had damage which was very easy to fix). The sound-bar was a luxury extra but picked it up for £480 on Gumtree. I'm not an audiophile so not after ultimate sound but they do sound great, also very easy to have perfectly synced sound throughout house/garden or each speaker with it's own feed.
Excellent news ... would definitely tempt me to ditch spotify when this goes live.
As for Sonos vs Airplay, no contest from my perspective. I had a decent Airplay system (6 airport express) before I bit the bullet and moved over.
Airplay wasn't robust enough, zones kept dropping off despite being on a hard wired network and it was a shame not to be able to play multiple sources to different devices. Sonos is a bit of a one trick pony but it does it very well. Lack of DTS doesn't bother me in the slightest, I have a dedicated home cinema amp/speakers for that. Also love that by adding a Sonos connect I can hook up my Project turntable and use that as a source throughout the house too.
Would be nice if the kit was a little cheaper but that's what happens when you have no competition I suppose.
As for Sonos vs Airplay, no contest from my perspective. I had a decent Airplay system (6 airport express) before I bit the bullet and moved over.
Airplay wasn't robust enough, zones kept dropping off despite being on a hard wired network and it was a shame not to be able to play multiple sources to different devices. Sonos is a bit of a one trick pony but it does it very well. Lack of DTS doesn't bother me in the slightest, I have a dedicated home cinema amp/speakers for that. Also love that by adding a Sonos connect I can hook up my Project turntable and use that as a source throughout the house too.
Would be nice if the kit was a little cheaper but that's what happens when you have no competition I suppose.
Spotify integration in Sonos is awful - and I don't expect SOnos to deep include advanced Apple music features (Beats1, playlisting, charts, Apple Connect). No social functionality (can't check what your friends and followers are listening to), no radios, no charts, no quick browsing (long press to hear preview), no access to editorial features, no deep metadata (artist/album info provided by the Rovi database), no connection to Spotify API-enabled apps, the Sonos search engine brings results in a terrible order and makes it hard to find anything, etc...
You are much much better off with a pair of decent speakers in the rooms you want to play music in and a Spotify Connect enabled device:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=5365830031
or simply a Rocki
http://www.myrocki.com/
Spotify connect pulls streams directly from Spotify to the devices so work like Sonos, but without the awful Sonos app.
Myself, I stuck to Airplay (€30 second hand Airport Express bought off eBay) since I don't need multi-room. It is compatible with 100% of apps on the iPhone and works decently well. Lets you play lossless audio too on Tidal or iTunes, which is nice, with a decent pair of speakers...
You are much much better off with a pair of decent speakers in the rooms you want to play music in and a Spotify Connect enabled device:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=5365830031
or simply a Rocki
http://www.myrocki.com/
Spotify connect pulls streams directly from Spotify to the devices so work like Sonos, but without the awful Sonos app.
Myself, I stuck to Airplay (€30 second hand Airport Express bought off eBay) since I don't need multi-room. It is compatible with 100% of apps on the iPhone and works decently well. Lets you play lossless audio too on Tidal or iTunes, which is nice, with a decent pair of speakers...
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Even if it is laggy, what does it matter for streaming music? The only area where you would notice lag is video, if the audio ends up being out of synch.
A lot of people have been saying that Apple Music looks like a great option for them because of the integration with the existing Music app and the iTunes store. Wanting a speaker solution that forces you to use a separate app seems somewhat counterintuitive.
you can with airplay via a computer - no idea why they restrict this on iOS. I am guessing the older hardware couldn't hack it but i am sure an Air2 or iPhone 6 could
Actually you can manage multiple AirPlay zones using the remote app.
The notion that only sonos offers multi zone audio playback is a myth
IIRC it is mainly because of the extra power drain of having to stream to multiple devices. There are ways to enable this functionality in iOS should you want it.
I personally much prefer the way airplay works over Sonos (or Chromecast, which works in a similar way). Plus it is considerably cheaper, there are many cheap Airtunes compatible devices on ebay or you could even build your own using something like a Raspberry Pie.
Exactly - overpriced home cinema playbar can't even support standard HD audio formats for all the dollars it costs.
Great for music though
It's only because it runs on a separate mesh network. There's no voodoo in that at all.
It's a very very good product / ecosystem for music except for its dreadful app and overpriced hardware.
Part of the appeal of AirPlay is that it just works with your and guest devices without the need to download a specific app.
Sonos really needs to support the apple watch too.. Queueing songs from your wrist would be killer for their ecosystem
Sonos really needs to support the apple watch too.. Queueing songs from your wrist would be killer for their ecosystem
I have 9 airplay devices. Only 1 of them is not very good. the iHome iW1 which is shocking. All the rest play very well indeed.
I tend have a central music store on a mac mini and use the iOS remote app to play to all. I wonder if that will be compatible with apple music. I suspect eventually you will be able to just say "Play Whatever by whoever In the kitchen" via siri.
I find most people that complain about Sonos don't really understand its purpose - if you are just sticking a stereo pair into your bedroom to stream music from a single device then you might as well save money and buy an old Airport Express and a nice set of wired speakers. Sonos is the ideal solution for someone that wants synchronized audio across their entire house, controllable by more than one user (More than just taking over the entire airplay stream - creating queues for individual rooms or the whole house.)
It is essentially like getting your entire house wired for speakers but at a fraction of the cost while still being more expandable and flexible (You don't have to setup every room at once, buying piece by piece is fine, and you can take it with you if you move.)
I only have two Play:1's right now, but they have been great so far. And for those that want airplay support, check out SonoAir.
I thought Sonos was just a wireless speaker system? If it can already play iTunes, what is the restriction for the new Music app?
I hear good things about Sonos and I am starting to look for a good speaker system for my home, but had airplay as one of my requirements. I am very interested in why you think this is the way to go versus say a B&O speaker with Airplay (granted that B&O is much pricier).
I agree. Sonos has been out for years (i've had it since the beggining and even still have a couple ZP100 amplifier units but my original controller finally bit the dust when the battery started expanding and broke the sealed case). I've had the system for close to ten years.
Sonos is polished and works very well for a multi-zone music control system. While they have tried to move into the home AV segment, I don't go there and use them purely for music. Between my own library, streaming of stations on radiotunes.com and iheartradio.com, it's perfect for us. I do have one of our DirecTv boxes plugged into one so I can listen to TV in my shop and office.
I think their app got a little confusing on the last makeover, but when you figure it out, it's easy to navigate.
Since my Google Play Music account is in there, I won't be needing Apple Music anytime soon, though.
Playing music from iTunes media file is not anything special, Sonos simply fetch music from the PC's iTunes media folder, or any networked storage unit. And you'll need to keep both devices online at all time.
Whereas for Apple Music, Sonos will be independent, and streaming music from Apple's servers directly via some special APIs.
I'm glad they are doing it. Apple refused to open up iTunes Match to third-parties like Sonos, so I wasn't very hopeful this would happen so soon - if ever. I guess the fact all their music subscription competitors are on multi-room speaker systems forces Apples hand here. Even Tidal managed to do it.
Sort of like Google Play Music, which can play back my entire music library stored in the cloud without any local storage (through any of my Sonos units).
Sure. I use a mac mini to do just that but it's a bit overkill - I wonder if, as it seems to be the case, when the Apple ATV4 arrives it will be a hub for the home so could manage the Airplay streaming to multiple Airplay speakers as it's will have a AC power supply and probably a A8-9 chip.
They're smart. They're letting the dust settle. If I were Sonos, I would want nothing to do with the initial launch of Apple Music. I'd be a support nightmare. We can only imagine what tens of millions of free users are going to do to the system in the first few months.
Actually. I think over the past 2 years the newer Airplay kit is a lot more solid and it does help to have an apple only WiFi network setup. But still all way, way cheaper than a comparable sonos.
Also... I have much better speakers and amps than Sonos' standard fare. The Connect:Amp is no that good and the Connect is 5x times an airport express or apple TV ( which is the cheapest way to have a client with optical out ) with the added bonus of video from your device if you hook it into a AVR.
I do like sonos just think it's a bit limited now and the hardware is overpriced. Odd to think that Apple is a complete bargain here.
Bluetooth Max bitrate is not great and has a limited range. Also as I understand it it's a one way street. So there is no adaptation if you lose connection.
Wrong. To use Airfoil you need one computer running Airfoil and an Airplay receiver*. You can control which receiver receives a signal using AFRemote.
* An Airplay receiver would include several different devices ranging from AppleTV, Airport Express, the multitude of receivers with it built in, individual speakers by a multitude of companies with it built in. You can also Airplay from one computer to another or from a computer to a mobile device running Airfoil.
It would typically be cheaper than Sonos, especially if you want to use your own speakers rather than the speakers that Sonos puts in their wireless devices. A Mac Mini and two AppleTVs will drive three audio and video setups for approximately $637 + ~$20 (or whatever the going rate of Airfoil is now) and you also get all the benefits of a Mac like running Plex. For $700 you can use a Sonos Connect in two setups. It gets more expensive as you scale up.
No, that isn't the case with every bookshelf. However, most speaker manufacturers publish the approximate bass response of their speakers. For example, the NHT Classic 3 has close to 40Hz (in room) reponse. The reason I know is because they have the information in their specs, unlike Sonos.