I am looking at starting a Sonos setup. RIP wallet. Anyone have one / are they worth the price ?
I was looking into this myself, but never got round to implementing it, (cost ) But I think it would be worth it yes, Iāve listened to a Sonos One and Sonos Bar and they sound great. (Check them out in Currys).
Why do you want this? What type of music are you playing and for what purpose?
If itās for easy streaming of radio/pop/rock then Iād think Sonos is a little overpriced. Yes, sounds great, but I have two Amazon Alexa units which also sound good āenoughā to my ears. I also listened to Apple HomePods which sound great too, but then I canāt pick out the difference other than they were pretty loud!
Are you replacing an existing system or is it a first time into this area?
Iād honesty start cheaper and see how your usage is, you can always upgrade later on if you want better quality.
FYI - Sonos kit is great and sounds good but not enough for me to want to pay 2/3 times the price that I did for the Alexa thingydoodahs.
I listen to loads of jazz and rock . I have some Google Home Minis but want something that sounds a bit better. Not fussed about the āassistantā more in it for nice sound and the ease of use
I was going to buy Sonos due to having it connected into my WiFi but on itās own Sonos Network, so less disruption due to other Network traffic. I have Amazon Music so would have listened to that as a streaming service.
I usually listen to music in the bathroom, but my phone is good enough for that, so donāt even use a Bluetooth speaker.
@gmclean Do you have Dot 3ās? Or a previous version?
I started off with a play 1 around 4 years ago, I now have 4 play ones, a sub and soundbar.
2 play 1ās in my kitchen / dining open plan room and then the full surround setup in the lounge.
I think they are great and if you dont need Alexa you can pick up some of the pre-alexa sonos speakers for good money second hand, I control mine with an old Echo Dot if you want voice.
You can automate them into your automated home, so my Sonos plays a tune when the doorbell rings and when my automated blinds go up in the morning the radio starts playing in the kitchenā¦ proper geek stuff (which I am sure you can do with other systems but work well with my home automation setup).
I have two Amazon Echoes (one in kitchen, one in living room) and a Dot in the bedroom.
Amazon Echoes are what I have, currently Ā£60 today! You could get two or three to try for the price of one Sonos??
Sounds tempting !
I had a pair of Play:1ās a few years ago I didnāt love them (I canāt remember exactly why) but I ended up going with Cast enabled Sony speakers & Google Homeās instead
Been super happy with a fully Cast enabled setup - plus having the ability to move things around and use Bluetooth if I fancy gives me that little bit of extra functionality
Iām eyeing up soundbars now, thinking Iām going to go down the Sony route, nice optical audio or ARC setup with my TV - not sure whether to go ābasicā or nuts yet Linus did a video about a crazy soundbar but I donāt fancy spending Ā£1k
Iāll definitely be checking out Sonos in my search but I donāt think Itāll be as good as it would be if I buy into their whole ecosystem (which I donāt plan on doing )
This is exactly what I do. I have a Sony speaker -> https://www.amazon.co.uk/SRSZR5W-CED-Multi-Room-Wireless-Surround-Capability-White/dp/B01EANKJGW/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=sony+speaker+cast&qid=1563361746&s=gateway&sr=8-7
and when I bought it originally planned to buy more but currently find one for garden partys and music in the dining room is enough (I have it in my conservatory which is where the dining table is, so does both outdoors and dining room without moving), and then I just use the google homes for music in the kitchen and bedroom. Would probably buy a sound bar for the lounge that was cast enabled if I was taking it further at this point.
Bought my first Sonos in 2008 when nobody had heard of them. Since then Iāve added a few extras. One thing that always impresses me is not only is it still going strong, but it gets all the current software updates.
I have the smaller Play 1 in the dining room, and 3 Sonos ZP120s - running ceiling speakers in the kitchen, bathroom and office. Itās great having the ZPs as theyāre hidden out of sight and by using ceiling speakers thereās no clutter in the room.
They give good sound quality and the ability to group multiple rooms is great. We mainly use it to listen to Spotify or the radio. My units donāt have built in Alexa, but they work well with our standalone Alexa Dots.
Iāve had Sonos and Google Minis.
On balance Iām happy with Minis as you can group them like Sonos and you can get one for Ā£24 at the moment.
I donāt think Sonos are worth the money.
I have 4 Play 1s, a play 3 in the kitchen and a sound bar under the TV. Canāt fault them!
Big fan of Sonos. Expensive but worth every penny.
Also have Google Home (big one) in each room and the audio quality just doesnāt come close.
Weāve got 4 at home and absolutely love them! We basically have one set up in each room meaning that we can listen to different things when we are in different areas of the flat. Sound is really good quality and you can also easily set them up for surround sound for bigger rooms. Also a lot of fun at parties. Iād recommend doing what my friends did and setting up two wi-fi networks - one for you and your sonos, and one for guests. Otherwise youāll find that your guests can easily change/add music etc if they have spotify or the sonos app. Just a suggestion!
P.s. we have only Sonos Play 1 speakers at home and they are powerful enough for music, radio, podcasts. But we live in a flat so we also donāt want to annoy the neighbours too much, so it does work well for us.
A big vote for Sonos from me too. Thereās nothing quite as good IMO, and Iāve looked around! Our config:
PlayBar, 2 x Play:1s, Sonos Sub (Living Room)
Play 5 in Dining room (hooked up to a turntable)
Play:1 in bedroom and my husbandās office
Stereo pair of Sonos Ones in my office
Sound is great. Sync between speakers is great. Weāve really not had any problems at all.
For me, having the TV included in the system was important as it means we can stream TV audio around the house too, plus only one system that way.
I currently have 4 Play:1ās along with a Connect to listen to my vinyl collection. Wouldnāt be without it.
Hoping to add another Play:1 soon as well.
Another Sonos user here. I have several speakers dotted around my home and am very happy with the system. I would point to the following as key factors
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Reliability - my Sonos system has been much more reliable than Google Cast and Airplay setups I have tried in my home. I put this down to the fact that Sonos has the ability to create its own stable and highly reliable mesh wifi network and so is less dependent on the quality of the home Wifi network. This is perhaps less of an issues these days (now that challenging home wifi issues can be largely solved using mesh routers) than when I was comparing systems (several years ago), but might be a consideration if you donāt have a great home wifi setup.
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Ease of use - Sonos is generally controlled by a single app/interface (although there are some services like Spotify which can control Sonos directly from their own native app). Some people see this as a negative, however if you have some people in your household who are somewhat dopey when it comes to tech, my experience is they will find it much easier to use Sonos than to use Google Cast or Airplay.
I love my Sonos set up.
I currently have 3 Sonos Play:1ās, and the Beam sound bar - and honeslty I couldnāt be happier - plus 2 alexasā dotted about the house.
The sound is fab, the music syncs across all of them flawlessly - and the sound quality from the soundbar is just wonderful. I would ideally like to set up a stereo pair behind the sofa to go with the soundbar but havenāt done that yet.
Iāve also got a vinyl record player, that with the help of a Rapsberry Pi I could connect to the system (as a radio station on Sonos) - which I am very happy with.
The Play 1s often go down cheap on Amazon - have seen them at Ā£125 recently - and I canāt seem to find a reason to upgrade to the newer ones.
The ease of use from various audio apps is just perfect too. As @o99 said, I also find it an easier interface than Google Cast.
I do like airplay howver for the sound bar.