Oh, please, please, please Sonos - don't let apple screw up your product. I'm begging you!
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Sonos Speakers Coming to Apple Online Store Today, Retail Stores on October 5
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it streams on it's own your phone or computer is not streaming the music. so it is not eating up your battery. get gets a whole lot of music under control from one app (my wife is blind and loves it makes her life much easier) we have some 1's and a receiver and a amp the amp powers her speakers and suboofer and can stream from airplay too.
Yes the Silver 10s are outstanding. I probably would have chosen the Axiom speakers if the real wood veneer upgrades weren't so expensive. I really wanted to Walnut veneers to match the rest of the decor.Cool -- sounds like you landed with a nice setup as well
This and the freedom to play from any app on your iphone Sonos speakers is why I use an airport express as the bridge between my iPhone and my Sonos speakers.This. I struggled trying to setup my own system trying to mimic Sonos - mostly because I'm hard headed and like to do things the long and painful way
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Airplay can not match what the Sonos system does. Airplay is for one speaker - Sonos can manage as many speakers as you want to put up. They play under the same wifi protocol IIRC. The only drawback is you can't use iTunes as your player with sonos, you must use the sonos app but once you get used to it you really won't miss iTunes.
I mostly use pocket casts to stream podcasts throughout my house so that I can move between rooms and not miss anything. Also, you have more options in apple music if you use the native Apple music app over the Sonos app.
The audio is beget if I pay directly to the Sonos speakers, but I'd rather have the freedom of using airplay.
Oh wonderful... there go the $350 pair deal that I got in on last time. I have 4 play:1 speakers. I want 4 more but I'm waiting until they go on sale again.
Look elsewhere. While you can probably set up Sonos equipment to get close to what you seek, you can do much better in ONE room with a good receiver and 7.1 speakers especially for that objective.
Sonos is really about whole home audio- mostly stereo- readily pumped & playable in any and all rooms. They have several options for making that work but the big point is being able to have some pretty-good (sounding) speakers playing (mostly music) audio anywhere in your home... or EVERYWHERE in your home. If the rooms are wired or not, wired network or wifi, they have all such bases covered well.
If you've been in some big store and roamed about section-to-section and heard the same music everywhere you go, that is somewhat THIS but at your house. Or maybe you want some songs from iTunes playing in a couple of rooms, Junior or Juniette wants other songs from iTunes playing in his/her/their rooms, etc, Sonos makes all that pretty easy and it sounds very good. Yes, it's possible to approximate the same with other products and various setups involving airplay, etc. but Sonos is pretty much "just works" simple, sounds good, and is arguably easier & more refined than many copycat options.
Having a party and want to play the same music all throughout your home? Sonos will do that well- even syncing it all up well so that there's not a little delay from room to room.
One of the biggest deals about Sonos vs. many other options is it's wireless reliance on wifi instead of Bluetooth. Much of what you've read about Bluetooth audio is true, especially the glaring weakness that comes from it's relatively limited audio bandwidth. Streaming audio via wifi doesn't hinder quality in that way. Head-to-head with the same speaker, it will SOUND better.
What you want is something different. You want super sound in ONE room. Sonos has some options to go in that direction but you'll get more for your money buying a receiver and dedicated speakers for your application. If you want to jack in that setup into an overall Sonos setup, you can buy a little box from Sonos to pump audio out and into the receiver so that your 7.1 speakers join into the chorus (of whole house speakers).
I hope that helps. Some of us will bash Sonos because it's not Apple but- IMO- Sonos is the most Apple-like player for this kind of thing going... including how they price their stuff.
Excellent reply.
I'm sure if you got rid of all your Taylor Swift bootlegs you would be well under that number.
I wanted to... then I bought one without fully understanding that you are locked in to using their app only. So it sits on a shelf not doing anything other than looking like a white cube.
Using the Sonos app is that restrictive that it causes you to not even use the speaker at all?
If that is the case, the good news for you is that Sonos does, for a tech device, hold its value pretty well. So turn that $200 "white cube" into about $170 cash so you can move on.
I've had delay issues with Airplay, but not with the Bose SoundTouch system. Bose did have Airplay integrated into their earlier systems, but now integrates Bluetooth. The Bluetooth can be broadcasted throughout the system as well. The current SoundTouch hardware is good. The app is clunky, but according to their forum it's getting completely re-written this fall so we'll see what the new one looks like.
Do you have a lot of music in DTS format or are you referring to the home theater speakers? I am curious.... If you have some music tracks, what format did you rip them in? I have a few HD tracks that play with no problem (ALAC, AIFF)
You miss the point. You get all your iTunes, plus a load of other stuff. Why stick with just airplay when you can choose between which ever music service will give you the best service/value at that point in time. I've used mine with Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon and Deezer. Keep going back to Spotify as I just prefer the way it works.
In a nutshell Sonos is much better than anything Apple have come out with for home audio.
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If you have a guest over just use Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal, etc. Basically take your pic from any of the online music services. Unless you are into some really weird stuff one of them will have what you want.
If you want to choose your own speakers then get the Sonos connect and plug into your existing hifi, or get the connect amp and just plug some speakers in. Chromecast looks interesting and something I would consider if I hadn't already bought Sonos, it's certainly a lot better than Airplay speakers.
I sought out Sonos when I just got tired of rebooting my Airport Express. I'd been AirPlaying for years to my stereo system, which has great sound, but kept running into issues with dropped signals and the Airport Express going offline too frequently. A compounding factor was that I'd just acquired an AppleTV (3rd gen) and for whatever reason, iTunes and my MBP just wouldn't airplay to it.
Once I made the jump, and it's not cheap (not horrendous in the scheme of audio equipment, though), I instantly fell in love with the ease of use. I got my Sonos Play:1 units around the time when iTunes was at its hair-pulling worst in terms of UI. (And it ain't much better today, but it is...) For better or worse, Sonos applies the same, consistent UI to every service you subscribe to and configure with the Sonos app. For me, it's for the better. Apple Music became much more straightforward. I'm not exactly the king of subscriptions, limiting mine to Apple Music (paid) and Pandora (free) for music, and TuneIn (free) for radio. Manage/queue up what you want from the app and Sonos does the rest, freeing your device to do something else, be powered down, or leave the premises in case you feel like serenading your pets in absentia.
Quibbles: I wish there was better podcast implementation/synchronization (ideal would be if Sonos integrated Downcast). I've used TuneIn to access podcasts but lately have been content to use the "access content on this device" feature that lets me play podcasts stored on my iPhone over Sonos. Not perfect since there's no syncing of where you left off, but still preferable to dealing with iTunes/AirPlay.
The Sonos UI, while straightforward, feels a little simplistic at times, but I chalk that up to getting beat about the head and shoulders by the worsening UIs of iOS music and iTunes. There's nothing I've not been able to do with Sonos, but my needs are simple: music, radio, content from my iPhone or my MBP's iTunes library.
I must say that if I was only streaming to one destination, I don't know that I would have gone to Sonos (though if I was looking for a TV sound bar, that might be a single destination worth getting--mostly due to my frustrating experience with Apple TV and airplay). If you're an audiophile, Sonos isn't there with a component stereo and dedicated speakers system, but then I'd wager that if you were an audiophile, streaming may not cut it for you, either. I'm okay with good enough sound--add the ease of use in there, and I'm hooked.
Sounds like a pretty reasonable description for me. I've haven't had any problems with AirPlay because the overwhelming majority of my home network is wired with gigabit ethernet and I have multiple access points in the house. I only have one set of truelly wireless AirPlay speaker connected to an Airport Express, the other four are all wired and connected to receivers.
To convert to Sonos I'd need 4 Sonos Connects to achieve the same setup, at $350 a pop I'd rather put the money into better speakers and subwoofers. What I'm really waiting for is for 4K Home Cinema projectors to come down in price.
I do WANT more speakers, but can't right now. Other priorities. But I am sure if you list it you will sell it very quickly.
Air play is a software service so maybe as part of the deal of being sold by Apple, they will open up support for it.
It does seem strange if they aren't going to support it. I thought Sonos would be dead by now due to services like Air Play, but what has really competed against Air Play is all those portable Bluetooth speakers.
Also I guess as Apple ripped out the 3.5mm jack from the iPhone, they need to support as many audio products as possible.
Good point, I notice iOS now treats Bluetooth speakers and AirPlay speakers very similarly. I wonder if Apple will just open it up to support any supported wireless speaker protocol. Looking for an announcement next WWDC.
Aluminium makes the sound sound metallic.
Jony Ive doesn't like that Plastic until Timmy makes him do with it.