Sonos Sound System

DaveRichardson

I remember a while back some of you had mentioned that you had the Sonos Audio System at home. 

I have a friend who is looking into Sonos and wanted my opinion. Well, I'm tossing this to my Egg family....  What do you all think of your Sonos systems??

johnnyp

The software is cool, but the hardware is not.  The speakers don't sound very good.


Bose SoundTouch does the same thing, but the speakers sound significantly better.  

thegooddocta

Love my Sonos but I'm not a super-audiophile and the price couldn't be beat - outfitted the whole house with Sonos using Amex points from all my work travel!

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Love my sonos and it sounds badass. Shakes the whole house. I only use it for AV though. Got to get the sub. 

Eggingaround

Love my Sonos system. Software updates get buggy sometimes though. buddy just got they sound bar for his TV and it sounds amazing. I think have the play 5 system. @The Cen-Tex Smoker how did you tie it into your tv?

GrannyX4

We love it.  It is on all day long.   

Smokinpig

I have three sonos speakers. play 1s and a play 3. I like it and the Internet music and Sirius on it are great. 

Blassiter

Sonos is one of the coolest things in my house. Software is very good and the speakers are well built, and sound is above average. Downfall is the fact that they are expensive. My favorite one of the Sonos components is the Sonos Amp that allowed me to tie in all of my deck speakers to the Sonos system. Being able to control my deck speakers from my phone while in the pool or cooking has been worth every penny. Highly recommend this system.

thegooddocta

@Eggingaround - my playbar is connected to the tv via an optical cable - so anything that is connected to the tv via hdmi or otherwise plays through the soundbar

grege345

I stayed away from the playbar because I was told it only had one optical port which means I couldn't switch it from directv to Apple TV. Is this true? @thegooddoctaI love my play 5. My only complaint is that last time I used it (the fall) beats audio was super buggy. 

thegooddocta

@grege345  - nope, that's a common misconception - I have 4 different devices connected via HDMI and one via component to my TV, and then the Playbar via optical - everything plays through the playbar instead of the TV audio... It was the easiest surround setup for me - playbar right under the TV, two play:1s behind the couches, put them in a group - sounds awesome. I have a couple of play:3s and a play:5 as well, but I really only end up playing Pandora, Google Play and Sirius through them. Never had an issue, but haven't tried Beats!

Acn

Love Sonos; it is so convenient to be able to have music in the whole house, or to be able to only have it on in the kitchen.  The speakers are good, if your buddy is a serious audiophile and is used to high end speakers, he might not be super happy, but they are solid. 

If he's playing music out of his music library he'll need to adjust the computer's sleep settings; it is a pain when the music cuts off and you need to go wake the laptop back up.

hondabbq

There will be those that bash the Sonos for several reasons. The most predominant being. It doesn't sound good. Compared to a full 7.1 or standard 5.1 system with QUALITY components it will sound lacklustre. 
You must remember that primarily it is just a sound bar. I have the playbar , sub, and 4 play 1's. 2 play ones are over in the pool table area. Does it replicate surround? Most definitely. Does it sound like the imax experience? No. 
It has distinct advantages to the traditional theatre set up, as many have stated here. It is portable. 
Is it simple to set up? Very much so. I didn't want cables run everywhere. I wanted a clean non obtrusive look. You are paying for that ability as well. 
This thing is well above most sound bar set ups in price,but it runs and sounds as good if not better than ones priced higher. 
I looked at lower range systems and they had one set up at a shop so I listened to it. It blew all the lower option out of the water. 
Even my close friend who's ho is a huge audiophile and  has a full theatre set up that cost $80k liked it. I'm not saying it sounds as good but he agreed that for what it is it sounds amazing. He also liked the idea of different music in every room if needed. 

smak

I really like my Sonos setup.   I have a Connect:Amp running ceiling speakers in the house, a Connect:Amp (in the garage) running out door speakers on the patio, Play:1 in a bedroom, Play:5 that moves where needed, recently add the Playbar and Sub.  (they multiple kind of like BGEs.)

If you are a little geeky about stuff and like Sonos you should check out these
http://shawnrk.github.io/songblocks/
http://mattwel.ch/tag/sonos/

Proser

I love my Sonos system. Started with a Play 3, added the 5&1 then added Sonos Connect to supply music outside. It's great to be able to control volume and content with my iphone

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Eggingaround said:

Love my Sonos system. Software updates get buggy sometimes though. buddy just got they sound bar for his TV and it sounds amazing. I think have the play 5 system. @The Cen-Tex Smoker how did you tie it into your tv?

I have it run through thr optical input. The soundbar and sub alone are fantastic. Add play 3's and it is full theatre sound. Very Loud and very clear. 

SkinnyV

I don't know about quality sounds perfect to me, non audiophile.
Its perfect for my family, convenience tied in with spotify and Sirius accounts. I have 4 play1's , sub and play bar. The sub makes a huge difference, stereo pairing play 1's sound great.
Love seeing my kids sing and dance at times, makes me smile. My 3 year old picks songs via the tablet its pretty funny.

VaElArbol

I looked at Sonos and Bose SoundTouch. I went with the Soundtouch and have been very happy. In my opinion, I thought the Bose had a richer sound quality. I have 2 do the 30s and I also have the the SA4 which powers and links my outdoor speakers. The software has been great. The app works seamlessly on all of my devices.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

VaElArbol said:

I looked at Sonos and Bose SoundTouch. I went with the Soundtouch and have been very happy. In my opinion, I thought the Bose had a richer sound quality. I have 2 do the 30s and I also have the the SA4 which powers and links my outdoor speakers. The software has been great. The app works seamlessly on all of my devices.

I use Bose sound links for all my music. Love the portability. Sonos is for the av set up. I'm a big fan of both. Bose sound quality in small speakers is tough to beat for the non-audiophile. I know the high end listeners think Bose users are knuckle draggers but I like what I like. Same with sonos. I listen to compressed audio files so $30,000 speakers are just going to bring out all the defects anyway.  

MFDcap10

Comments like "does it sound good? No" should be a good hint. My Bose Sounddock 10 is a kick ass speaker and the VERY BEST $500 stereos you could ever dream for. At 18# it's a little heavy but if you want rich lows, that means big magnet. It's still very portable and kicks ass. It's definetly one purchase that I'm pleased I bought (along with my XL). 

Monaarts

You (well, he) can get something else much better.  Here is how I setup the music inside my house....

We are iPhone/iPad users so I bought a few AppleTV's, 1 for the master bedroom, 1 for the living room, and 1 for outdoors.  When we want to listen to music we can AirPlay from our iPhones, iPad, or Mac to the speakers of our choice.  The living room just plays through the living room speakers (Bose CineMate 15), the bedroom plays through the TV in there, and the outdoor speakers play through some Yamaha speakers we installed.  You can see the speakers in the attached picture along with a volume control we added out there (we added the volume control because we can also listen to whatever is on our living room TV if we choose to).  

I highly recommend a setup similar to this!

yogi84

I use 4 Raspberry pis running piCoreplayer...  https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home
With Logitech media server functions similar to a Sonos setup...

Eggerty

Funny that this thread started. Timely for us as we just installed a SONOS Connect yesterday for our house.  So this is a little different as that is the only SONOS product we are using.  Our interface to the audio system, I guess is the way to put it.  We really like the capabilities, ease of use and app layout (iphones, mac's) of SONOS.  Have no experience with the SONOS speakers themselves and it is hard to beat BOSE.  I was looking at the Playbar.  Not sure for the cost if it really brings much to the table but I am definitely interested.

hondabbq

........................

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Eggerty said:

Funny that this thread started. Timely for us as we just installed a SONOS Connect yesterday for our house.  So this is a little different as that is the only SONOS product we are using.  Our interface to the audio system, I guess is the way to put it.  We really like the capabilities, ease of use and app layout (iphones, mac's) of SONOS.  Have no experience with the SONOS speakers themselves and it is hard to beat BOSE.  I was looking at the Playbar.  Not sure for the cost if it really brings much to the table but I am definitely interested.

playbar + sub is really really good. It's good by itself but when we added the sub it was totally different

Eggerty

Thanks @The Cen-Tex Smoker. And that is only hooked up specifically to your TV? Could the playbar be integrated into the SONOS connect so that I could play music, through the app, through every speaker in the house (ceiling speakers, Playbar, exterior speakers)?

saluki2007

It really depends on what he is going to use it for. I'm putting the sound bar and connect amp in my new house. The main purpose will be to listen to streaming music and listen to TV. For that scenario it's hard to beat. If he is looking for a true listening experience or a true surround sound experience, then there are much better options. 

Nanook

I love my Sonos stuff. I have the playbar, sub, play3, and 3 play1's. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Eggerty said:

Thanks @The Cen-Tex Smoker. And that is only hooked up specifically to your TV? Could the playbar be integrated into the SONOS connect so that I could play music, through the app, through every speaker in the house (ceiling speakers, Playbar, exterior speakers)?

Yes. It's totally modular. I just use it for AV but it should work for everything that runs through connect.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

MFDcap10 said:

Comments like "does it sound good? No" should be a good hint. My Bose Sounddock 10 is a kick ass speaker and the VERY BEST $500 stereos you could ever dream for. At 18# it's a little heavy but if you want rich lows, that means big magnet. It's still very portable and kicks ass. It's definetly one purchase that I'm pleased I bought (along with my XL). 

I have the soundock 10 and 2 sound links. I love them all. None of them could sniff the sonos playbar and sub and it's not even in the same league when you add the play 3's.  That being said, that setup with sonos has a center channel, 2 satellites, a dedicated sub that rocks, is hard wired and costs $2000. I use the bose setups pretty much exclusively for music but we are not talking apples to apples when you get in to the larger Sonos setups. Sonos rattles the windows on my house when I crank it up.

As far as stand alone speakers go, the Bose Sound Dock smokes the Sonos play 5 on it's own and the Bose Sound Link smokes the Sonos play 3 (and maybe even the play 5) but if you are looking for an integrated setup with great sound, the Sonos is a great option.

I don't think I would have a Play 5 or play 3 on it's own in a room or on my deck though. The Bose is way better for that if you don't need to play music in every room with one remote. I have never needed that in my life.

cazzy

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

VaElArbol said:

I looked at Sonos and Bose SoundTouch. I went with the Soundtouch and have been very happy. In my opinion, I thought the Bose had a richer sound quality. I have 2 do the 30s and I also have the the SA4 which powers and links my outdoor speakers. The software has been great. The app works seamlessly on all of my devices.

I use Bose sound links for all my music. Love the portability. Sonos is for the av set up. I'm a big fan of both. Bose sound quality in small speakers is tough to beat for the non-audiophile. I know the high end listeners think Bose users are knuckle draggers but I like what I like. Same with sonos. I listen to compressed audio files so $30,000 speakers are just going to bring out all the defects anyway.  

I hate Bose you damn knuckle dragger!