Sonos


Mzdadoc

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I have some Sonos bits and overall I'm pleased with them. Some thoughts:

 

1) If you have the option of running ethernet to each place you want music, go ahead and do it because wireless is a crappy thing to rely on and it's only getting worse as more and more devices use it. You'll never be sorry you added more physical network. That being said, run Cat5e because there's no current or proposed networking standard that actually requires Cat6. Gigabit Ethernet and the draft proposal to replace it both run on Cat5e and, by the time whatever comes after that finally makes it to consumers, there's no guarantee we're still going to be using twisted pairs of copper wire at all.

 

2) The little self-contained boxes seem to work well but, in my very not-humble opinion, don't sound fantastic. They're average boom box sound just like a Bose system or something. Keep in mind, however, that's being said by a guy who's spent more on his 2-channel stereo than all his woodshop combined (even including the 20" planer). Most people do seem happy with the sound of the stuff.

 

3) If you do want LOUD, you'll probably want more than the little boxes provide. As mentioned above, there's a thing called the Sonos:Connect that hooks up to your full-sized stereo and effectively turns your stereo into a Sonos device.

 

4) You WILL need an Apple or Android tablet to function as a remote control/music chooser. Trying to do it on a smartphone is hard because everything is so small. I use an iPad Mini as the remote for the Sonos and it's fantastic. If you buy last year's model on closeout, the Minis are crazy cheap.

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We just started using Sonos this year. Considered our optoins for whole-house audio and you just can't beat the simplicity of Sonos when wiring is either not an option or too much work. It's a fantastic solution for general whole house ambient music. Being able to include or exclude zones and control their volumes seperately, all with the app, has been quite a treat. I have an iPhone 6+ so the screen is a bit larger than average and i find the app easy to control and navigate. Also, I should mention that you don't actually need a smart phone or tablet. Sonos offers a desktop app for mac and pc and I use mine all the time. Sometimes I'm sitting at the computer and I don't have my phone with me so it's nice to just fire up the app.

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A couple more thoughts.  

 

1) the only real annoying part of Sonos is the software updates.  They seem to update the software 1x a month, which can take a few minutes.  When you just want to listen to some music it is annoying to wait for the updates.

 

2)  If I were building a house, I'd still hardwire speakers for 5.1 or 7.1 home theater sound.  Wireless speakers and sound bars are really a poor substitute for wired surround sound.  You can still hook up a sonos:connect to your home theater receiver and make it a sonos zone.

 

3) I have an iphone 4 and I mostly control it using the iphone app.  The small size does not bother me at all.  I might actually buy the dedicated sonos controller (if they still offer it) because it can take a few seconds for the app to initialize, which is annoying when you just want to adjust the volume.   I also use the desktop software.   

 

 

 

a1) The other way to look at the updates is that they're bringing you new features and better stability on a regular basis. It's a nice change from companies that release a product and then promptly abandon it.

 

a2) Multichannel gives me pause, especially the cost of pre-wiring a room like this. The "new hotness" in multichannel seems to change about every 18 months. I'd hate to spend a lot of money putting decent wire (check out Blue Jeans Cable for very high quality, scientifically valid, low cost cables) for a surround sound system I didn't own yet only to find that, 3 years later when I finally get around to buying the system, everything has changed and it's not compatible. Additionally, multichannel is EXPENSIVE to do right in terms of speakers, amps, and processors. A lot of people aren't going to spend that kind of money. Most people would be better off spending whatever money they do have on a 2-channel system than getting a much lower quality multichannel system for the same price. Obviously, that's deep into the realm of personal preference though.

 

a3) Sonos controller widget has been discontinued for a while now. They expect you to provide the control, at this point.

 

 

 

 

To me, Sonos units with speakers are best used for putting music where you'd never bother to use a "real" system. Laundry room, bathroom, whatever. If you're going to have a dedicated place for listening to music, it's worth getting something that sounds better. Though I still think a Sonos:Connect is one of the best functioning, and just about the cheapest, way to get music off a NAS and into your "real" stereo. The only real drawback to the Connect as a high-quality audio source is that its analog outs don't sound as good as something costing 100x as much (gee, imagine that). It has a digital coaxial output that has somewhat elevated jitter (again, compared to something costing 100x as much) but that can be handled by feeding the digital output to a DAC that re-clocks the signal like the Emotiva Stealth DC-1. The Connect plus the DC-1 DAC costs about 10% of what a "high end" network streamer will set you back yet sounds as good as the best of them and better than most. It's a real winning combination for audio quality and the fact that it's about as cheap as possible is just icing on the cake.

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Marc you mentioned the word ambient. That's kinda my worry is that is all they're really good for. I don't need every neighbor to hear them but when we have party's id like ambient in some rooms but dance quality sound in others. Also I plan on putting a few up angled down in my garage/shop/man cave and it will be louder there.

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Totally agree with Mike on that. We have three Sonos Play:1s in the house (office, kitchen, bathroom) and they are perfect for background music. I'm always pleasantly surprised with the bass handling and rich sound from a small speaker. But if your "jam" comes on and you feel the need to dance, I'm not sure you'll be happy with them. But like others have mentioned, Sonos provides a great way to turn your own gear into a Sonos zone. And Sonos does offer larger speakers. But if you're really into good sounding loud music, I have to think you want a separate receiver and speakers.

 

As a bit of a home theater nut myself, I have to agree with the folks who recommend wiring for surround. Pick up a spool of speaker wire and get in there yourself before the drywall goes up. Install junction boxes where needed and run them all to a home location in the room. I would recommend wiring up for 7.1. You may not ever even use the extra channels since 5.1 is still pretty "standard" but at least you have the option to expand if you want to. And the cost of running the wire is peanuts when there's no drywall or insulation to worry about. Not sure if you're going to get into projection, but you can save yourself a lot of heartache by having an outlet installed in the ceiling and running an HDMI cable. Both are minimal cost at this stage of a build and you'll thank yourself later.

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Quickest way I know to do that:

 

1) Find playlist, album, whatever that you want to listen to

2) Right click on it and select Replace Queue, which effectively clears the queue and then adds the entire thing you just clicked on

3) Double click in the queue where you'd actually like to start listening

 

 

You're right that the Sonos method is very list-focused. I'm not sure I have a preference about it. On the one hand, Sonos' method takes a little more fussing around. On the other hand, it doesn't randomly play something unrelated you didn't expect just because it thought it was "next" like iTunes sometimes does.

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FWIW, even on the Sonos speakers themselves (let alone if you plug it into a real stereo), you guys should be able to hear the difference between the free/basic version of those streaming services and whatever they call their lossless CD-quality version of the service. The bit rates on the basic version are REALLY low. Like 1/10th HP router motor low :lol: Moving up to something higher actually does sound better (until you get the 16bit 44.1kHz lossless. Anything higher than that is just a scam).

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In a nutshell, digital compression saves space. Full CD quality is a space hog. Forty some early CDs could be ripped to MP3 and stored on a single disc. Trusting my memory for the amount. You may not ever know the difference. I hear it immediately. For the bang, I spin a disc. Streamers can do this as well. It is kind of like SD v. HD.

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Yeah, I tried to claim over simplification by using the word nutshell. I am not normal. As a live audio engineer and music educator, I immediately hear missing frequencies in the overtone structure. I am not saying that every consumer will even care. Kev from Tune It or Die can tell you this may be a curse:-)

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That depends on the audio source. This all breaks down with digital sources like keyboard synths and sampling machines that auto compress themselves. For an electric guitar or violin however, car audio speakers are often capable of the full spectrum and only lack depth in the bass field. If you are a classical nut like me or a guitar aficionado, you may be able to tell with car audio that is not premium. I still want to admit that I am splitting hairs here. I accept lesser quality for 80% of life, but I notice it.

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williaty I'm a little lost on what you're trying to say. Can you repeat for the challenged that is me?

OK, digital music can be delivered in several different qualities. They quality they send you determines both how good the music sounds and the size of the package they have to use to send it to you. Generally speaking, the worse the quality, the smaller the package the streaming service has to send to you. Smaller packages are cheaper to send to you and the streaming services love to save money by sending as small of packages as you're willing to tolerate. All of the popular streaming services default to sending you really low quality, really small music packages unless you sign up (read: pay more) for better quality packages to be delivered. Generally, most people listening on most in-home stereo systems can hear the difference between the TINY music package streaming services like to use and CD-sized packages.

 

However, you can take the "bigger is better" idea too far. Some places (like Neil Young's new Pono service) offer you packages that are BIGGER than CD-sized. The problem with that is you physically can't hear it. CD was designed (from a physics standpoint) to properly package everything humans are capable of hearing. Now, it took a while to learn how to pack the box properly (which is why early CDs often sound unpleasant) but what humans can hear exactly fits the CD-sized box. These new offerings are basically trying to sell you a bigger box than you can hear. Inside of it, there's still the CD-sized package of what you can actually hear, but now it's surrounded by a bunch of packing peanuts. Packing peanuts that cost a lot of extra money to buy and to get rid of once they arrive, but you can't hear them at all.

 

In other words, most of us can tell the difference between Home Depot plywood (tiny package, low quality, what the music services prefer to send) and cabinet-grade plywood (CD-quality). Often, it's worth using the cabinet-grade to do something nice. However, it someone comes to you and claims now there's something better than zero-void, AA-grade face venner, high ply count plywood (aka CD-quality), be real darn skeptical that this new product matters in the real world.

 

The way to identify the CD-sized/fits human hearing quality music is to look at how they describe it. You're looking for 16bit, 44.1kHz lossless audio. Often, you'll see this written as 16/44 and the lossless will usually be ALAC or FLAC. So if someone offers to sell you 16/44 FLAC, take them up on it. However, don't be tricked into paying extra for 24/192 FLAC or something similar. Bigger numbers (beyond 16/44) are not better. They're just more. More money, most hard disk space, more expensive to play back. Not more better.

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I assume that if you're playing on crummy car stereo speakers, the quality of compression won't make a difference.  Or is it even worse?

There's two ways to look at it. One is that your car is too noisy to hear the difference between "better" and "best". The other way to look at it is that the base/free level of most streaming services doesn't even rise to the level of "ok", it's flat out "bad".

 

So I wouldn't pay extra for CD-quality (16/44 lossless) music in my car. However, I'd pay a tiny bit extra for better-than-terrible music in my car.

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