Shortly moving in to a new house and after a WiFi (or other speaker system)

Lounge I would like full surround sub woofer etc. Probably 1 room equivalent of a Sonos 5 and then 2 rooms equivalent of Sonos 1.

What I don’t like about Sonos is the price of the above! But also I really don’t rate the quality of Sound from a Sonos 1. It is not bad but it ain’t great either.

Wouldnt be looking to buy all the above in one go, but certainly over 1-3yrs so it all has to be compatible.

We are an Apple family too if that makes any odds for control.

I’ve never been impressed with the quality of any Sonos stuff I’ve heard.

Depends if you’ve already got any sound equipment? You can connect an amp/AV receiver to any speakers and control it all via an Apple TV. Then it is all linked via Siri, iOS devices, etc.

Apple do their HomePod which is a very expensive thing with the functionality of a Sonos 1.

I believe you’d need a separate ATV/HomePod for each different room. Could get expensive!!

Conversely I love my Sonos system.  I’ve got five play ones around the house and a playbar under the TV.

Play 1’s are £135 at the moment which i think is a bargain.

One of the advantages of Sonos is that they have been doing this for a long time & it is their only business model (as far as I am aware).

I have looked at other systems and there seem to have been plenty that hung around for a couple of years before disappearing. If you didn’t buy all the components you wanted at the time, you would be potentially stuffed for adding to your kit.

I don’t have any Sonos units myself, but my brother-in-law has several 1’s and a 3. My brother has got a 5. They are OK, but not exactly mind-blowing in terms of sound quality, especially when you factor in the price. But, you are not just paying for sound quality – you are also paying for the connectivity, the convenience, the compatibility across devices & services like Spotify etc. and perhaps for the reassurance that this is what they do; this is their market & they are unlikely to disappear any time soon, or just pull items from their product line-up.

Jeeze, I looked at Sonos for a home hub audio system but even I had a little bit of bile repeat on me  after seeing the price and sound quality.

I’ve gone down the Bluetooth via Apple Devices into all speakers around the house.

Device (iPhone/iPad/MacAir/AppleTV)

Bluetooth into Amp

Speakers (mix of JBL for 4 downstairs) & (Denon for 3 upstairs)

Granted it’s not ideal, but there’s no way I’m paying £3k to link it all up via WiFi and then have poor sound quality.

If you want a plug and play then granted Sonos does it all, but with a bit of creative endeavour you can do what I’ve done.

Sonos stuff sounds good rather than great and it’s damned expensive. Personally I’m not a big fan of the app either (and remember you need to use it for almost everything.  If it’s a new house and you’re going to be decorating you’ve got an opportunity to run speaker cable through the walls to where you need it.  (remember that Sonos speakers still need a power cable, which is a lot thicker than a speaker cable).

For the £1000 cost of a pair of Play 5’s to you could buy

Yamaha Network receiver –

https://www.richersounds.com/yamaha-rn602-blk.html

and one of a selection of serious floor standing speakers (or a really nice set of bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer)

https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/floorstanding-speakers.html?p=5

Sonos currently does multi-room more simply than others but Apple Airplay 2 is meant to enable multiroom and you can do it with an app called Airfoil if you have a computer that’s aways on.

Sonos stuff is great – I think the only thing they’ve cut off support for was the old remote (which predated smartphones) because they wanted to do away with the bridges and just sit them on the regular wifi network. I have some units that are 10 years old and still run the latest software and work perfectly with everything, including pairing with newest ones.

Keep an eye on ebay for the older “ZP” units (the equivalent of today’s Connect / Connect:Amp), they’re great for hooking up to another hifi/receiver or an existing set of speakers, maybe something like ceiling speakers in a bathroom.

Bluetooth is OK for one person and one speaker but a pain for a shared family setup.

and the Sonos Sub is £700! – A BK Elec Monolith Plus is less than £600….

What’s lacking at the moment are cheap, good, standalone Airplay (or other) streamers.  Apple no longer sell the airport express.  The “Neet” audio streamer is only £25 but sounds flaky as hell.

Gramofon looked a good alternative but while their website is still up there doesn’t seem any way to buy them any longer.

In my shop testing the Play 1 sounded better than the 3 and 5.  I’m not the only person to have noticed this.  I cannot imagine why you ‘d need a sub – if you do into my downstairs loo you can see the water in the pan vibrating in time with the music!.

If you are trying to link a Sonos system into an existing HiFi then it gets a bit more complicated (and expensive) but for Apple Music or similar then its simple.

Bluetooth – what happens if someone sends you a text?  Does the music stop and you get a deafening bing bong or similar?

Bluetooth – what happens if someone sends you a text?  Does the music stop and you get a deafening bing bong or similar?

Yes, you really want something that does “spotify connect” so that spotify is streaming directly to your device and your phone is just acting as a remote control.

For some reason spotify only supports streaming to one device at a time (though as per above, use airfoil to stream from a mac)

I have Sonos and I wish I’d bought something else. Sound Quality is ok but now its starting to cut short songs which means re configuration of the Wi-fi, which works perfectly on every other device in the house. It just never seems to work well without some messing around.

Bluetooth is OK for one person and one speaker but a pain for a shared family setup.

Agreed. There is only me at home, so if you have a family they get to listen to all your crap 😜 they may/may not like DadRock*

*other music is available.

As for texts and messages etc and the “bong” Yes, you do get the “bong” unless like me you have all that notification bollox turned off.

Phone still rings, but doesn’t play through speakers only on phone.

Like I said, my setup is a compromise but that’s fine for my requirements…

YMMV

Lounge – AppleTV to add Airplay to whatever surround system you have or would be buying.

Other rooms – Homepod. Yes expensive but they sound amazing. If you are pateint you can pick them up at ~£200 on eBay. Of course it is addictive and once you have one in a room it’s very tempting to add a second so you can link them and form a stereo pair.

Possibly worth noting that Apple recently updated the firmware on the long-discontinued Airport Express to add Airplay2 functionality. So they are also an option as a streamer to any existing speakers you might want to use.

(I can’t comment on the audio quality beyond ‘good enough for me’ and I’m not exactly fussy, so audiophiles take with warning)

If you’ve already got speakers, Chromecast audio is a pretty effective way of wifi-ifying them. Multiple speaker groups etc. From a quick google it looks like you’re going to be able to tie in ‘normal’ chromecasts to audio groups as well and use the TV speakers.

All very interesting, and by the look of it no real viable alternative to Sonos at the minute ?

I had a brief look at this https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/contents/audio_visual/musiccast/index.html

Yam make some decent kit that’s not stupid money

amazon’s kit is in the ‘decent enough for a kitchen’ kinda range, if you want that. Does multiroom, the cheaper sonos boxes support alexa as well (so you can use one of them if you want better quality)

They’re just releasing 3 new boxes with better quality – echo input (like a dot, no inbuilt speaker at all) – echo link (~$200, high quality input for a standalone amp) and echo amp (as before, $300ish, has an amp built in)

I think I’d be looking at the amp based solution with good speakers for the non-living room (or a standard echo if you’re not too fussed on quality), then an echo link plus a decent amp/speaker setup for the living room

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/first-look-amazon-echo-link-and-amp-could-take-over-the-audiophile-market

From a quick google it looks like you’re going to be able to tie in ‘normal’ chromecasts to audio groups as well and use the TV speakers.

You already can if you join the beta programme, so you can use £20 chromecasts for streaming simultaneously to as many rooms as you like.

Sonus 1 sound quality is a tad mediocre, but we still use them all the time as they integrate effortlessly with Spotify and are always on. We have a much better PA + Speaker system, but that involves turning things on etc, so gets used much more rarely…

I plan to buy more Sonus 1s….

NB Sonus App is pants compared to Spotify, but we only use it to pair the Sonuses and then use Spotify to play music.

All very interesting, and by the look of it no real viable alternative to Sonos at the minute ?

No. There are options. It’s just a weigh-up of whether you’ll still be able to get supporting products that will also work with them in 5 yrs time.
When i was looking into this a couple of years ago, I’m sure there was a standard being developed that meant supposedly your wireless Sony speaker in the bedroom could talk to your wireless Denon speaker in the kitchen, could talk to your Samsung surround sound system in the living room – no idea if it ever came to anything though. Not got the budget for any of it, so gave up looking – couple of Chromecast Audios will be about my limit, I reckon.

Here are some alternative options that might be worth a look…

https://www.samsung.com/uk/audio-video/smart-speakers/

https://www.denon.co.uk/uk/multi-room-audio-system

https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/gbr/en/products/speakers/wireless

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/wireless-multi-room-audio

you can use £20 chromecasts for streaming simultaneously to as many rooms as you like.

Using an iphone and Apple Music ?

Audio Pro, get the Drumfire for the main room and C5 and C10 elsewhere. I’ve had Sonos in the past, better app, but I prefer the sound of Audio Pro. Buy the Drumfire and post pictures because I really want one 😕

What about a Sonos connect? You can get whatever system you want in the lounge and then if you want to branch out,  sonos speakers around the house. Or if you’ve  money to burn, whatever you want round the house and more sonos connects. The connect will play other media to the sonos speakers as well.

If you’ve got the cash go Naim or Bluesound

I have a 20 year old Sony Hifi in the lounge.  I fed the original speakers through a multi-speaker switch.  I then ran cables through the loft and added a pair of ceiling speakers in the kitchen, another pair in the dining room.  A pair of hifi speakers in the bedroom, and added a stereo single ceiling speaker in the bathroom.

My phone streams Spotify into the hifi via a Chromecast, I choose the speakers it outputs to.  In the evening it streams spotify with a sleep timer, in the morning it wakes us up and switches to fm radio.

Much to the outrage/disgust of audiophiles, this plucky old Sony seems quite happy driving all the speakers at once and pretty loud, and I did not in the end need to buy a posh amp.

It was a bit loud in the kitchen and bathroom, rather than add inline volume controls, I wired the two rooms together (in parallel I think?)  which has the effect of lowering the volume in those two rooms.  If I was in a house a wireless solution would be more tempting, but in a bungalow its easy to wire through the loft and just add a length of discreet trunking to get all the wires up to the ceiling.

Can’t comment on the standalone Sonos devices but I have connects and connect amps in most rooms of my house. I have a mix of kef surround sound, kef free standing speakers and kef ceiling speakers. I have had it set up for a few years and I would do exactly the same again. I have them all set up in a purpose built media room and everything is wired from there. I’m probably going to get a play 5 next for summer in the garden.

An alternative, but expensive is a Naim Mu So.

Have a look at he Naim website.

I have had a Mu So for over a year, excellent gear.

sonos fan here. 5 1’s and a 5.

With the kids getting seriously into music, the abulity to be able to split and pair the system so easily is a great function.

Really like the ability to add mixckoud and other internet based plaftorms.

Shame you cant stream youtube though

£ for £ you wont get better than this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112840188816

Review:

https://www.pocket-lint.com/speakers/reviews/roberts/137577-roberts-radio-s2-review-singling-out-sonos

I’ve got Sonos. Definitely not for the audiophiles but for me it sounds grand. I think you buy it because it is sleek, minimal and flexible rather than anything to do with the best sound your money will buy. soundbar and sub in the living room, a pair of play 1s in the dining room and and a play one in both the kitchen and the bedroom. I love being able to walk about the flat and have audiobook/radio/music follow me about. I love having separate music playing in each room. I enjoy having TV playing in the kitchen when cooking and wanting to keep up. I love being the one that set up what is playing on my phone but being able to leave the flat with my phone and the music continuing and my wife being able to control it on her phone. I love the movie experience playing films (when I know there is no one in above me). Looking forward to adding a pair of speakers to get full surround sound in there too. I love the fact that a single spotify (premium) account will stream different music to each room without a family membership.

I hate the price and alexa control is still a bit basic (you can’t group using voice commands).  I wish they did a battery powered speaker I could use outside .

If buying now I’d have to think long and hard about other systems that have closed the gap for a lot less dosh.

I opted for Yamaha Music cast form Richer sounds.

seems great and a lot cheaper than Sonos, plus the soundbar will transmit the tele stuff ie MTV around the house

Sonos 5 and link to powered monitors here. Perfect for our use, more stable now than older firmware.

We are renting at the moment, so I looked into this a while back – not being able to run cables.

I didn’t want Sonos because I don’t want my (expensive) hardware’s functionality to be tethered to software which is good/ok today, but who knows in 3-5 years?

The closest I got was playfi (https://play-fi.com/) by dolby, which seems to be being adopted slowly by some good fi-hi brands.  But it’s not really ready yet.  Also looked at denon’s Heos, but it essentially has the same issue as Sonos.

My finding was that wireless is great for streaming the source to the system, controlling things remotely, accessing NAS servers etc…… but for speakers?  Particularly when they are going to be in a fixed location?  No.  Also, with wireless speakers you also need to provide power…… so (in a rental) you’d still end up running conduit up the walls anyway, so they are not really an advantage in terms of a clean installation.

In the end I decided to save my money for a decent system when we bought a house, maybe in ceiling speakers, or a sub-sat system with well hidden wiring (which is what I had in my previous house).  In the meantime I bought a samsung soundbar (the model below the atmos one).  Couldn’t be happier with it – plays pretty much anything directly, or through my apple tv.  The sound quality is ok (debating whether to add the wireless sub), and it was cheap.

The other area where it excels is simplicity – if it needed a separate remote, or series of button-presses to make work, my wife just wouldn’t use it.

I’m certainly not saying that you should get a Samsung soundbar – but I would say, consider what bit of the system would benefit from being wireless.  My assessment was getting an amp that can do all the wireless functionality, but then choosing wired speakers was the way to go.

I would suggest Chromecast audio with traditional hifi and/or av equipment. It sounds better than Sonos and you are separating the multi room part to the sound producing part….meaning when the technology moves on you only have to replace the cheap Wi-Fi enabling bit but still have a top notch sound system.

That was my take on it and I am pleased with the results.

Sonos is old hat.  A decent amp and better speakers with optical input from a chrome cast.  Plug the TV in to a second optical or coaxial input too,  livingroom sorted.

You’ll struggle to get much better quality wireless than optical to amp DAC as long as the bitrate is decent i.e. Google play list @320 as opposed to Apple 256 and most streaming half that.

For the rest of the house some wireles speakers:

https://www.whathifi.com/jbl/playlist/review

Plenty have chromecast built in now.  Chrome cast is really reliable no connection issues. You can set up multiroom and control by voice. Job done.

Or plug in Sonos and connect to WiFi. That up there sounds like “blah blaaa blaaaa whathifi blaaaa blaaaa cables. Balaaa” 😀

One of the advantages of Sonos is that they have been doing this for a long time & it is their only business model (as far as I am aware).

My experience was that I bought a Play 3 for the kitchen, both my wife and I have Android phones and we have BT broadband. I would regularly not be able to find any Sonos devices on my network, at times it would be unavailable for control but it was still playing music so clearly could access the router.

Sound quality was pretty good, however lack of communication forced me to chop it in, I went for Ruark MR1’s instead attached to the Chromecast, this is for kitchen sound where I spend a surprising amount of my free time so yes it is worth having decent sound in there. I also already had a full surround setup so was never going to dive fully into the Sonos world as the cost is just too high.

Also, the Sonos/Spotify integration was horrible, it may have improved since earlier this year though.

I like the Chromecasts we’ve got, They work perfectly for podcasts and spotify.  But they won’t play a good slice of my music.  It’s my bloody music, Google, play it!

Stayed at mates’ places with Sonos and never had a problem with Sonos, seems to work very nicely.  Not going to buy into that though.  advantage of chromecast is tat you don’t need to buy any more audio equipment if you’re happy with the amp and speakers you’ve got already.

Yamaha MusicCast, BluSound, HeOS, AudioPro, Chromecast Audio, RaspberyPi, Amazon Echo Input plus a number of other brand specific HiFi options.

All good alternatives to Sonos with different pros & cons. All a very simple to setup as well with the exception of the RaspberryPi.

I would regularly not be able to find any Sonos devices on my network, at times it would be unavailable for control but it was still playing music so clearly could access the router.

Did you try Sonos support? When I’ve had issues they’ve been excellent.

For those that don’t know about it, the Sonos hidden web interface can be very useful for diagnosing issues – e.g. if one speaker is struggling in the mesh.

Have been on the Sonos bandwagon for almost 8 years now (5 products now) and still love them. They have their annoyances, but for me the positives outweigh them (and they’re constantly improving – e.g. IFTTT support).

Did you try Sonos support? When I’ve had issues they’ve been excellent.

I raised a request, but it was something where I had to do a bunch of things I was frankly too lazy to do, I understand that this is on me. It went through times where it’d work, but in the end I just got to a point where I couldn’t connect to it at all, so I got rid of it. Like I said, with a decent setup in the lounge it was more a trial than a commitment to the brand.