It's less the app, more the business decision to tell people who had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on elaborate sound systems to go throw it all in the trash and start over, all at once.
Even Apple has never been that bad. They drop support for things over time but even their roughest transitions (x86, Apple Silicon) have come with extensive day 1 support for previous functionality.
People will think what you’re saying is hyperbole; however, I was on a walk with the family, and I saw a Sonos speaker in the trash. It looked like new and a fairly recent model. I lugged it home, and it was a $US500 Sonos Play:5 speaker system [1].
Once home, I plugged it in, and it powered up.
I tried to pair it with my iPhone using the new Sonos app, and it didn’t work (the app never found the speaker).
I then tried the same again using my development Android device, and it instantly worked!
Once it was set up with the Android app, I could access it via the iPhone version of the app.
I can only imagine some iPhone owner literally threw it in the trash because he couldn’t get the iOS app to work. Bonkers…
They (Sonos) basically willfully attempted to brick their consumer devices, and since many sonos customers were prosumer enthusiasts but not technical (hw or sw) it really did signal EOL for the products. Bananas. I still have a my Play1/3/5 infrastructure operating through Home Assistant and AirBridge that turns them into Airplay devices. It's not perfect but still gives them utility. Considering how much they f'n cost..
I have some old Sonos speakers that have been gathering dust for a while.
I decided to sell them because they still have some value but I don't really want them, especially with what the company has done recently.
However, I wanted to set them up again to make sure they work. I spent hours trying to get them to set up again with no luck. I'm sure this is exactly what other users are experiencing. The old app was so nice and reliable. I don't have an opinion on the new app because I just literally can't get it to connect.
And I know they're not dead. One has an audio-in jack and still plays. It works great. There's no reason any of them shouldn't be fine. The only thing that changed was the app. I just want to get them set up so I can sell them on Marketplace for a good price as fully working.
I am very annoyed at the planned obsolescence that Sonos has been pushing for a while now. I stopped buying new Sonos hardware, I'm still using all my old hardware, just not with the terrible Sonos apps, but with Roon.
I also took to aggressively repairing very old hardware that was actually failing (ZP80 players), because of the Sonos planned obsolescence policy. Recapping the PSU did the job, and I intend to keep them going for as long as I possibly can.
I guess it depends on what you're looking for. I would also like to get everything FREE FREE FREE, but I've grown tired of using software and services whose goals are not aligned with mine. I don't want ads, progressive ensh*ttification, and all the other crap. So I'm paying the $149/year for Roon, and I have perfect lossless (FLAC) audio playback on all of my devices, along with good library management and fantastic liner notes for Jazz.
As a fringe benefit, it lets me use all of my old Sonos devices (as well as a modern Denon). And lets me listen to my FLAC music in a reasonably decent phone app as well.
In other words, I think the value proposition is sound. Importantly, their goals are aligned with mine: I want to listen to music and I pay them to maintain software that lets me listen to music. They want to get paid, so they maintain software that lets me listen to music. This is a very different relationship than most.
Have a look at these:
bluesound, audiopro, bang-olufsen, denon.
Depending on which software is in use for streaming operations, you could also use ‘standard’ WiFi-enabled speakers like something from KEF (LS50) or
dynaudio.
Just from top of my head. Maybe someone else has a comprehensive liste at hand.
Soundboks 4 sync wirelessly with each other. They’re also battery driven and absurdly loud, so perfect for bringing outdoors or a dance party somewhere.
They just had a 30% sale for the holidays though, so might not be worth getting them at full price
Be thankful Sonos no longer have 'recycle mode' - an antifeature which gave customers a discount in exchange for permanently bricking their old Sonos hardware. They were forced to discontinue the practice after backlash.
Funnily enough I bought a Sub Mini last year and had to borrow an iPad to add it to my system because it failed on Android, even when being walked through the process by someone from Sonos support.
Well that is basically the model of the home stereo today.
People don’t realize sound was solved decades ago. How they could get the same stereo their grandfather could have ordered from the sears catalog and some cabinets from that sears catalog and that would be better sound than they are capable of ever perceiving, and how it would last them their entire life on that one stereo and probably the lives of multiple generations of family members. With IO that has always been a standard and always will be a standard. And a stereo like this isn’t even terribly expensive. A couple hundred up front for never having to make another home audio equipment purchase in your life is some serious savings.
Instead they are sold soundbars and other crap tiny speakers that are not built to last, and might use specific io to connect over open standards that have been around for decades. They end up spending quite a lot more money for a shit experience that they are none the wiser that there are even alternatives to, without becoming audiophiles themselves consuming hundreds of pages of relevant media in that niche.
I've been dabbling in Hifi for most of my life, a hobby inherited from my father. I have some awareness of consumer Hifi over the last 50 years.
Speaker and amplifier design are vastly better than even 15 years ago, partially because of better engineering and mostly because of advances in electronics. An entry level receiver today would wipe the floor with consumer level equipment from the 80s.
Still, traditional Hifi is dying to the "crap tiny speaker" folks. The company that owns Denon and Marantz may go out business this year.
It is ironic because traditional Hifi is in an amazing place in terms of value. I recently bought a budget (<$300) setup for my PC and I'm blown away by what a couple of modest bookshelf speakers, a modern mini-amp and a compact subwoofer can accomplish.
> Still, traditional Hifi is dying to the "crap tiny speaker" folks.
I wonder if it also ties into living situations and customers that are in a separate house.
With my apartment-situation, I'm always using a headset (or bluetooth headphones.) Perhaps not crap tiny speakers, but not so big that making them good takes as much effort.
> The company that owns Denon and Marantz may go out business this year.
Oh man. I guess I better stock up on the latest Marantz before the go out of business. The last one I had was my dad's and it lasted 50 years. Actually, it still works, it just requires you to manually power it on.
> Speaker and amplifier design are vastly better than even 15 years ago
Let's break this down into the components:
Speaker drivers: very little change
Speaker chassis design: still changing, last major change was improved computational modeling
Amplifier: Class D was the last major change, not much since
DSP: Still evolving, getting better every day
AV Receiver control boards: Standards are changing every day, whether that's new HDMI standards, new bluetooth versions, or new AirPlay/Chromecast protocols.
Needing cables between a "streamer" box and my amp, and then cables from the amp to the speaker(s) already makes it a whole different category of gadget from Sonos. The key thing Sonos sells is the single power cable setup.
Wiim does sell an amp model that removes one of the steps. That's probably the one I'd go for if I accepted speaker cables. Less waste reduction BUT at least you don't have the separate amp volume knob and power switch to worry about.
My desk setup is their AD-18 driving L/R bookshelf speakers and a compact subwoofer via its dedicated sub output. I love all the input options including traditional analog, toslink, BT/NFC, USB for high-res: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/566.html
Well one of those options lets me click a button on the phone in my pocket and play music across multiple rooms without running any wires between rooms. And similarly supports surround-sound audio without running wires around or inside walls.
I appreciate the value in a basic stereo system but there are some major differences in functionality to the end user.
Although I laughed out loud that they're asking $450 for that little box. That's pretty cheeky. The BOM on that must be $15. Margin level: Apple!
I wonder if they make it $450 to discourage doing just what I'm describing. To make people consider that for that kind of money they could buy one decent Sonos speaker and "simplify." Even though the Sonos speaker won't have anywhere near the sound quality or longevity of a 40-year-old stereo amp and speakers.
Neither a Sonos Port nor something like an Alexa Echo Dot nor the long-discontinued Chromecast Audio can awaken my stereo (whether from 1955 or 2025), select the appropriate input, and allow me to start playing music from my phone.
A Sonos speaker does allow that, though.
And so might a modern sound bar when combined with things like CEC and a regular-ass $25 HDMI Chromecast.
The Sonos Port claims to be able to trigger your amp to turn on, though I don't know how it works. It's called a "12v trigger." Quick searching mostly found people asking on Reddit how the heck they could use it and mostly getting "most hardware doesn't support it."
I did find this interesting comment, though:
> You can get a secondhand Sonos Connect (Gen 2) for about $100 these days; they are the predecessor of the Port and are functionally the same for your purposes.
Also if I wanted to make a product like the Connect/Port I think I would spend another $3 in materials to add both an IR blaster (like the Harmony hub has -- it's so powerful it bounces off the walls perfectly well even to devices on different shelves) for amps with remotes, and to also offer as a separate purchase, a simple relay switch module for old stereos that don't have remotes -- they could be left on and have their power controlled by the Sonos.
As far as I know that's not a thing with any Sonos or competing product, though.
> though I don't know how it works. It's called a "12v trigger."
THX introduced the trigger port to allow one amp to start other amps. Before that amps would have a 110V passthrough socket.
THX trigger is a mono 1/8th inch / 3.5mm TS plug. Each device usually has one 12V in and a 12V out. While it's on, it'll output 12V at up to 30mA[1]. Due to current fluctuation and the low max amp it's recommended to use an opto-electronic isolator at the input.
THX originally introduced it to allow for home cinema surround. At the time commercially available amps only supported 2 channels, so the first THX systems had one receiver decoding the dolby signal, providing a line level output that you'd connect to multiple stereo amps. Due to the currents required the 110V passthrough wasn't an option, so 12V trigger was born.
Before 12V trigger existed the IR/Remote port, which allowed you to connect an external IR receiver to TVs, VHS recorders and Amps. This used the same plug, but would modulate the IR remote signal directly.
You could also use this to connect multiple devices and allow them to send remote control codes to one another. But that feature disappeared quickly due to limited compatibility.
In computers 12V trigger and remote ports inspired the I²C based DDC standard for VGA monitors, which allowed turning them on or off or changing settings. DVI and DisplayPort kept DDC as is, while HDMI expanded DDC into the CEC standard, which also allows controlling volume or sending media controls in a standardized way. Nowadays 12V trigger is mostly being replaced by HDMI CEC.
________________________
1. Some devices support up to 80mA, Sonos even provides 100mA
Such a 12v trigger would be useful for a plain stereo amplifier, which are relatively simple things -- so simple that they may not even have a volume control.
This would allow a Sonos Port to have a dedicated amplifier connected (for driving one big stereo pair of speakers, or maybe an array of 70v distributed audio speakers, or who knows what) and control when it is powered on.
But it won't turn on my AV receiver (it has 12v triggers, but they're all outputs), nor switch its input mode appropriately.
(Yeah, sure. I can hack something up with an ESP32 with IR or RS-232 or even Lego Mindstorms or something from Switchbot, but Sonos buyers and hardware hackers are naturally somewhat diametrically opposed: A person who buys Sonos gear wants stuff that just works, not a new hobby.)
Chromecast Audios are still easy to pick up on eBay (or if you're in the UK, CeX, that's where I got one).
Any old cheap plug tied to Home Assistant (or plain old Google Home in my case) for auto powering on my Cambridge Audio amp. (I'm not fancy enough to care about automated input switching between TV and music, I just get up and turn the knob, but turning off the hifi remotely I like)
Music Assistant supports streaming to Chromecast from TIDAL at the native (24 bit, 96khz, flac/m4a?) format. And TIDAL mobile app itself supports casting to Chromecast devices as you'd expect.
Those 3 things combined got me an old school hifi set up which I can include in my Chromecast groups of shitty sounding second-hand nest minis, so I get multi room audio where one room has the most audio :-) but I could swap out the shitty pucks for some more CC audios if I wanted to fork out for more amps and bookshelf speakers.
I trust Google to at least not intentionally brick their old devices and chromecast is built on mDNS and documented http endpoints enough that you can automate your own stuff in your LAN that you should be able to keep that stuff working in home assistant + music assistant should Google ever decide randomly they wanna sunset Google home (so, 50% chance of them announcing that in 2025).
Homebrew you can roll your own DIY multi room hifi audio using stuff like Hifiberry, too. Pipewire/PulseAudio/JACK on raspberry pi / NUCs should be able to get you surround sound over the network with minimal latency (although you probably want decent ethernet), since you can make a virtual sink that bridges the audio servers together.
You have one of those fancy hifis that has hdmi inputs and digital input selection and whatnot? Okay yeah you'd have to roll your own HDMI CEC automation again with a raspberry pi or whatever. Eminently doable.
There's definitely ways to get multi room audio of equivalent or better quality and at-least-equal user experience as long as you're willing to invest the time in doing loads of DIY shenanigans, but honestly it's pretty easy these days. For me, I think the "this is too complicated for me to implement" bar is not high enough to warrant buying Sonos
Yes, this is annoying. I settled for the cheap variant:
Let any hdmi device grab focus. The tv has spdif to the amp. Amp is always on the spdif input. I can change sources on the tv and the sound will follow, if I want youtube or spotify to play, I have to use chromecast on the tv or airplay to apple tv. It works ok for only a single cable. If the tv is off, the sound is off.
An amp will wake on hdmi (arc) input, but it won't wake on spdif. Unless you figured out something clever you still have to mess with multiple remotes and turn devices on/off individually.
I have a 40-year old amp and speakers at home. My dad’s old stereo. Works fine, but it has so much static buzz.
Sounds great though. I’m just a bit hesitant to leave it powered on all the time which means I don’t use it much compared to my Bluetooth speakers. Old power supplies are not very efficient. They can get hot. There is also a decent amount of dust. And then there is the risk of some old cap blowing.
It's not properly grounded. I think I need to change out the power cable for one with ground, since the power cable that comes with the stereo only has two wires. There is a grounding point on the back of the chassis, but I don't have anything to ground it to except for the wall socket and at that point I should just use a proper power cable instead.
My favorite recent discovery in the HiFi world (after losing interest about 15 years ago) are the WiiM network streamers. Connect them up to any old system via RCA, toslink or coax and you can:
- stream from a wide number of subscription services
- stream from your own DLNA server or samba share
- cast from Chromecast or AirPlay
- with multiple devices, you can do multi-room synchronized streaming
- apply parametric EQ, including (in the higher end models) auto room correction
- hook up a digital source (eg, TV) so you can apply EQ
- hook up an analog device (like a turntable) and stream it to the rest of the devices in the house
The app's surprisingly good, the firmware updated regularly.
The cheapest version is under $100. They're like Chromecast Audio's on steroids. When (eventually) they die or get superseded, it's easy to replace without needing to touch the rest of the system.
I have 3 at the moment, the main one hooked up my amp and speakers from the 80s, which I picked up used in the 2000s.
Well said. I have a Wiim Pro & Mini, and love them both. And it's the best way of minimising waste (given some waste is inevitable as standards change, until they let us change the board inside the Wiim or something!)
I've been really impressed by how they keep pushing features out to old devices. Like, there was no reason for them to give the Mini 10 band PEQ - they could have made people upgrade. But no, the working (seemingly quite hard) to get the performance out of the chip in the Mini to do it, and pushed the update out to everyone.
If only there was a small and very cheap device with wifi and aux out that you could plug into your old stereo, and instantly get the possibility to cast music directly from all your Android apps. Like a Chromecast but for Audio.
Seriously, this was a thing 10 years ago! I bought five, and they all still work perfectly. They do multiroom audio. They are compatible with the new Nest speakers. The only reason we can't have them today is corporate greed and rent-seeking MBA fuckers.
A self-updating hardware/software combination from Google can never be a long term solution. Reliance on old units from eBay (or not!) cannot make that situation any better nor any worse.
It is Probably just fine for the next 10 years. Chromecast audio are working great for me with my 70’s receiver and modern mini amp and Bluetooth speakers with line in.
Belkin SoundForm Connect + a physical power button amp. So many people chasing so much complexity, but this seems like the precursor to the WiiM(?) - first I'm hearing of that one.
(FYI, I chased that route, there is/was _one_ model that worked as an airplay2 device, but it still didn't feel as "native" as the modern HomePods ... icon was different, pairing was slower and slightly flakey... I moved to the belkin directly and have been happier. That and home assistant allowing single target airplay1 support to chrome cast / google nest devices sometimes is useful in a pinch)
Oh interesting. I was recently in my local HiFi shop (been a customer there for 40 years) to buy a new CD player and I noticed a WiiM box behind the counter in a display cabinet. I just assumed it was some sort of aging Nintendo Wii gimmick.
I'm being serious. If it has nothing to do with Nintendo then it's terrible branding.
There are a bunch of hifi brands that are making great products but don't have great name branding: SMSL, Topping, WiiM, Fosi (I own 3 of those 4, lol).
The upside is that they mostly seem to care about making good products rather than branding.
Right. I'll go back to the shop and have a closer look in that case. I like the idea of a streaming device to connect to a normal stereo system.
TBH, I didn't even know such devices existed. I thought that if I wanted to stream from Spotify without a PC I would need to go down the Sonos route, which I obviously don't want to do.
The problem with not having good branding is that potential customers walk right past your products. It's only chance comments in this thread that's made me take a second look. Thanks for the info :-)
It feels like one of those low-sci-fi settings where we thought it'd be funny and quaint to have post-collapse scavengers endlessly repairing retro tech, but now it's actually happening and it's not funny anymore.
Like for example: My dad bought a hulking integrated Akai amp / cassette / turntable combo in the early 80s. Every user-facing component was brushed aluminum, the volume pot was the size of a Dallas church, and it probably would have killed any living organism you dropped it on.
My dad died over a decade ago and I guarantee that amp is still sitting in someone's living room heating the place up. I'm just mad it's not in mine.
Amplifiers are quoted in peak output, not average (and play some games with other parameters e.g. resistance) to capture bigger-number-better sales. A 750w system will consume nowhere near 750w at typical listening volumes (just like your 750w PC doesn't use 18 kWh every day.)
Yup. Newer products use various tricks to try to fill in the gaps that their physical reality can't overcome, but ultimately there's no getting around that reality.
I will say that the Sony upright boom boxes aren't to be slept on (and, if one is active, fat chance). They're quite good for their intended use cases (parties, and closed Best Buys during clean-up/inventory).
A 500W amp is probably a class A and can't really be made more efficient. It would still be 500W in 2024. Decades ago there were more efficient setups too, though of course now they sound better and also have lots more features and connectivity.
Yep, and this kind of needlessly wasteful consumerism is everywhere in the tech industry. All of the token statements about sustainability that come from the same industry that normalized and celebrates this kind of product strategy drives me a little crazy sometimes.
> A couple hundred up front for never having to make another home audio equipment purchase in your life is some serious savings.
I have a rather nice NAD amplifier that I bought about 29 years ago. It had to be repaired once at about the 6 year mark. Recently, it has developed a new electronic failure mode that I don't believe can be repaired.
So ... yes, but let's not overdo the "never have to make another home audio purchase" part ...
Still enjoy my Elac speakers from 20+ years ago at an analog amp, a class D amp wouldn‘t be bad, though. For smaller speakers at computers I like active nearfield monitors and a good interface like Focusrite. Can recommend Genelec speakers, for example.
I had a fancy separate stereo system with a HDMI switcher in the AV amp, well reviewed speakers I bought from a hi-fi enthusiast friend and all that.
It was a massive pain to put out all the cables, adjust the system manually little by little (the setup mic kinda helped, but wasn't that good).
Then I got a Sonos Beam and that set of "crap tiny speakers" with a fancy DSP brought so much more dimension to movies that it wasn't even funny. Upgraded to a Sub and it automatically offloaded those frequencies to it and the Beam got even better now that it didn't have to cosplay a subwoofer.
For setup all I had to do was walk around the space and wave my phone around and the difference was clearly audible even to my non-discerning ears.
Later I upgraded to an Arc + got two rears and everything got a lot better.
The v2 app is utter crap, I haven't had to use it for anything else than Trueplay adjustment when we moved a while ago. The v1 let me debug what the soundbar was receiving (my TV was sending data in the wrong format and I was just getting fancy stereo instead of Dolby Atmos). V2 doesn't have any power user features at all.
I'm not going back to a wired setup with a separate amp unless I get a dedicated theater room I can sound proof and manage the acoustics. I _am_ considering switching to a brand that doesn't need an app to setup, but it's slim pickings in the upper tier of soundbars.
Similar to you I had lugged my 7.1 speakers and amp and wires around to every address I’ve had in 20 years. For the current house I had enough and put a HomePod in every room and top tier Samsung bar + satellites + sub. It’s not as good at dimensions as discrete speakers but now I have reflected Atmos
Waves off the ceiling and setup was super easy. I had to use the app one time to calibrate but I already had it since I have a Washing machine it connects to.
The DSPs in sound bars are absolute marvels. I haven't checked the AV amp market in a good half decade, but I'm guessing there aren't any valid options if you want 4k 120Hz + room correcting DSP that are even close to the price of a mid/high end sound bar.
I never had a “proper” HT setup; my first was an Arc + Sub. I thought it was pretty great, and then I added two Era 300s for rears. My god.
I’m sure things can get better, but I’m pretty happy with my setup as-is. I’d probably splurge on an OLED TV first. I have an 85” Sony X91J that I quite like, but I can’t deny the absolute inky blacks of OLED (just couldn’t justify the price at the time at that size).
Sound might be solved, but multi-room audio is not. On major renovations you could layout speaker cables, but then you can't adjust positions.
Custom solutions with, like, snapcast and raspberries (like mine), works and you don't need to deal with any of this, but then you need to deal with software setup annoyances. It get's technical.
Nailed it. You don’t even have to buy new stuff now.
Still rocking my early 90s system. Has required a couple of amp repairs (capacitors and sticky relay) but no big issue. Bought a Bluetooth DAC for streaming stuff. Job done.
Except the industry is nearly dead. Almost nobody is buying legitimate stereo systems anymore, and the ones that are out there (at almost any price) are mind-bogglingly incompetent. I'm shocked that Sonos is even a going concern at this point, although I suppose it is because of what I relate below.
The home-audio market is consolidated into a tiny number of manufacturers masquerading under once-proud brands they bought. The crippling incompetence of the products themselves is depressing.
A few years ago my Denon A/V receiver crapped out and I decided to go "upmarket" and get an NAD T758. I accept a bit of quirkiness from a smaller name, but "quirkiness" doesn't come close to describing the design and functionality defects that plagued this thing. Everything from baffling menu navigation (not kidding: Pressing Enter did not select a menu entry; you were supposed to use an arrow key) to the fact that it would only pass 720p video because it reported erroneous EDID info to HDMI devices. It didn't pass the info from the connected display device; it just provided its own EDID blob to everything, which reported a max resolution of 720p.
The NAD also featured Dirac processing, which I shelled out for to get the full license and spent hours with a test mic profiling my room and speakers. Then... it would just lose the entire configuration. Deleted off the receiver. "We haven't been able to figure out why this happens," said NAD. In fact, in several years they never fixed a single one of the crippling defects I encountered and reported.
But NAD isn't the only shitshow in town. Let me address the biggest impediment to whole-home audio (or even multi-zone audio): manufacturers' bizarre conceit that anyone can use secondary zones that only play ANALOG sources. The NAD was crippled by this stupidity, as is the top-of-the-line Pioneer I bought to replace it.
In the case of the NAD, I addressed this defect by running RCA cables across the back of the receiver, from its preamp outputs to a CD-player input; and assigning that input to Zone 2. Why the hell didn't NAD just do that internally with a switch?
On the Pioneer, it's actually worse. There ARE no preamp outputs. It has THREE zones, one of which I can tie to the main one but the third, yep, can only play analog sources.
All I want to do is play the same shit on ALL MY SPEAKERS. My living-room ones, my patio ones, and my backyard ones. All I need is A, B, and C speaker switches. But NOPE. As far as I can tell, nobody makes this. Nobody addresses the 99% use case for multiple "zones." There are at least NINE AMPS in my receiver, but I can't play the same source on three pairs of speakers.
BTW, I did build a patch bay with switches, to wire the secondary zone in parallel with the first... but this overloaded one pair of amps in the NAD and destroyed the entire receiver. Yep: NAD doesn't have a simple overload breaker. They just burn the entire amplifier board up; that's the breaker. Unfuckingbelievable.
But back to the main issue: Who is seriously going to dick around trying to select sources and adjust volume to each zone (with what, by the way, an app?) on one receiver instead of simply buying a bookshelf system for every remote room you want to play music in? I sure as shit wouldn't, and I'm the kind of person who ran digital cables under my house to an equipment closet so I could have a proper surround setup in my living room. I have a projector and home-built screen, but even I would never bother with the stupid usage scenario Pioneer, NAD, and the two other makers envision:
This scenario revolves around nonexistent people who are going to put on a RECORD or TAPE, then go to the other side of their house or down to their rec room for half an hour... and then come running back to the other side of the house to flip the record or tape over. WTF.
Risking major flames here but .. my Sonos amps do this perfectly. Analog cable through the house, amps on eth in the media closet, it’s is very very solid.
Yeah, that's why I added the caveat at the top of my rant.
Too bad they messed up the app so badly. I've written some hardware-control applications and they're not necessarily easy, but... well, that's the job.
Meanwhile I've had my time stolen on numerous "ghost job" postings. Maybe someday, somewhere someone will take a lesson from Boeing and Sonos and other companies that have suffered from grossly incompetent software engineering and put a halt to the despicable disrespect for our time and knowledge.
They should just fold. I read in some other forum that they just cobble together crap that they source from numerous and variable providers, so one unit's guts can vary widely from the next.
It's the absurd design defects that I will never excuse. I mean... incompetent MENUS? A modern receiver that doesn't support even HD video?
My burned-out T758 is gathering dust in my office; I'm keeping it in hopes of using the chassis for a project case someday.
I would replace my stupid Pioneer too if anyone made a stand-alone surround processor with preamp outputs. Then I'd get separate amplifiers and that would be that. But nobody makes such a processor, as far as I can tell.
Yes. The entire platform -- hardware & software -- is just a mess. I bought an MDC phono module for my digital amp only to discover it wasn't supported by its firmware. I waited 18 months to be able to actually use it. I experienced the same non-persistent configuration problem you described and also very sketchy things like the power button simply not working. Unacceptable by any measure and at any price point as far as I'm concerned.
> All I want to do is play the same shit on ALL MY SPEAKERS.
Actually that's what Denon's HEOS does, might want to take another look at their mid-level X1800H or the bigger ones if you need more zones from a single AVR instead of multiple devices.
> The home-audio market is consolidated into a tiny number of manufacturers masquerading under once-proud brands they bought. The crippling incompetence of the products themselves is depressing.
There's quite a rise in Chinese HiFi companies that are making some great equipment. I've found audiosciencereview.com an excellent resource for getting back into hifi and avoiding much of the nonsense. I recently picked up a Fosi amp which, to me, functions at least as well as my NAD from the 80s. It cost me half of what I just spent on getting the NAD serviced.
> All I want to do is play the same shit on ALL MY SPEAKERS. My living-room ones, my patio ones, and my backyard ones. All I need is A, B, and C speaker switches. But NOPE. As far as I can tell, nobody makes this. Nobody addresses the 99% use case for multiple "zones." There are at least NINE AMPS in my receiver, but I can't play the same source on three pairs of speakers.
Look into WiiM streamers. Cheap and quite impressive IME. Multi-room streaming from digital or analog sources, PEQ, room correction etc.
> All I want to do is play the same shit on ALL MY SPEAKERS. My living-room ones, my patio ones, and my backyard ones. All I need is A, B, and C speaker switches. But NOPE. As far as I can tell, nobody makes this. Nobody addresses the 99% use case for multiple "zones." There are at least NINE AMPS in my receiver, but I can't play the same source on three pairs of speakers.
Maybe a smart speaker switch like an Audioflow[0] is up your alley?
It boggles my mind that I'm not able to download the oldest released version of software that was compatible with my old version of iOS.
My iPad is too old to upgrade to the new OS, but yet no software is available for it in the store, because all new apps are encouraged to be re-released for the newest version of the OS.
My device is completely frozen in time from whatever software was installed on it when it went out of support.
I have an old iphone somewhere and I also experienced this frustration. I appreciate you're not compatible with my ios - so give me the one that was. I don't care about whatever features you've added
However, I do suspect app developers don't want to be on the hook for supporting old versions, should they continue to serve things in need of security fixes etc etc. I don't entirely attribute it to malice.
Thanks for the link! I wasn't aware of some of these workarounds.
Your link is very helpful, but also notes some of the limitations. Namely, this doesn't work if the software has been purged due to not being updated recently, and it doesn't really work to find new-to-me software (that I haven't purchased previously).
Even if it's technically possible to reinstall software that I've previously purchased, it is very limited in its ability to install new-to-me software.
I dunno, I ran my mid-2012 MBP until ~October 2021. In that time, I got it serviced once for a screen issue that they fixed under some program (after the warranty period). I think it got security patches as recently as then. That seemed like a solid run to me.
The last new OS that a mid-2012 MBP received was High Sierra, in 2017. That was the OS that added warnings about the impending breakage of all existing 32-bit apps (!), you may recall.
My own MBP from the same era as yours succumbed to a logic board long before then, and I replaced it with a late 2016 MBP, which came with a touch bar + butterfly keyboard, had terrible performance, stopped receiving updates after Monterey (2021), no longer receives security updates, and (obviously) can't run modern ARM-based Mac software. (Incidentally, it was also the single most expensive computer I ever bought, even to date!) Not a very solid run, I'd say.
Personal anecdotes aside, I don't think it's too disputable that Mac has never taken backwards compatibility or computer longevity anywhere as seriously as Windows or Linux have.
I had the Retina, which went up to Catalina (which is the last major OS mine had), but it also got security patches up until 2022. I upgraded to the M1 MBP when they were released, but last I tried, my old MBP still booted up.
Ah, yeah, I do recall the horror stories about the butterfly keyboard ones. Sorry to hear it. I was able to skip that entire generation because mine ran like a champ.
> Personal anecdotes aside, I don't think it's too disputable that Mac has never taken backwards compatibility or computer longevity anywhere as seriously as Windows or Linux have.
I think this is probably true. Unfortunately, the reason I moved to MacBook's in the first place was because I had a terrible run of Windows PCs & laptops. I think I had 4 or so between 2002 and 2012, but only 1 between 2012 and 2021. I suppose that's why I'm partial to Macs.
I hear you! You had a great device through some of the best years of OS X. I wasn't as lucky, but that was a big impetus for eventually pushing me to Linux, where I'm very content with my combo of a Mac-ish DE and actually being in control of my device.
> Other OS providers do support the devices longer. At least for core OS updates.
Microsoft is abandoning 63% of its user base later this year, with an untold amount of those users unable to update to Windows 11 due to the requirements of a processor released after 2017. Keep in mind that with how the average Windows user buys their device, it's common to see brand new computers with two years old CPUs. With the pandemic having forced everyone to scrape the bottom of the barrel for laptops, there are so many people getting bitten by Microsoft right now.
Why is apple always brought up even though they have nothing to do with the topic on hand, and speakers and iphones/laptops are obviously quite different products?
Usually yeah. Though it sure appears that a lot of apps requiring a recent iOS lately don't need too. It's curious where that push is coming from, if they're all individual company choices, made at once, for the first time ever.
It’s relatively easy to justify supporting only one or two major versions back if you’re writing an iOS app. There are stats out there on how many active devices are on what version, it’s pretty striking. Especially compared to Android.
Agreed of course. Though currently iOS 16 is the standard and that goes back about 2.5 years. Which is sort of a shift from many major apps supporting an iOS dating back 4-5 years.
Where are you getting these numbers from? Do you have stats to back them up? When I worked as an app developer we would only support back 2 or 3 versions, and that was 5 years ago. Anecdotally I have not noticed a shift to only supporting more recent OSes.
I have two Play 5's that I have had for a decade and they're still currently set up working completely fine on an Apple device. That's a speaker that was released 16 years ago and still works through the Sonos app, still allows me to play Spotify, still works natively with the Playbar to watch movies and TV.
That sounds pretty good to me. If people want to throw out their hardware and buy new that's fine, but they haven't needed to throw out their Play 5's.
If I was still using an Apple iPhone from 2009 you can bet it would be a terrible experience
There was a time when Sonos really tried to EOL "Gen 1" devices, including the Play 5. There was such a backlash that they backpedaled a bit, but Gen 1 devices lost the ability to interact with Gen 2 and later devices and you need to use a different app for them.
I'm a Sonos hater. I will never ever buy a speaker again that comes pre-bricked unless you "activate it".
I will never ever buy a speaker again that demands I enable precise location in order to "discover" the speaker on my network. Approximate location is not enough. Sonos demands your home address before it permits you to use your speaker. Even aux line-in.
I will never ever buy a speaker again that requires I log-in before I can set certain things unrelated to online use, such as the volume limiter.
I will never ever buy a speaker again that has an obscene amount of delay even when using the aux line-in. And yes I toggled the setting in the app to "reduce delay" and followed all the steps to reduce the delay as much as possible, but the delay was still there. Forget about using a Play5 gen2 for home theatre or anywhere you need low-latency. Rant over!
Requiring "precise location" is probably necessary because it wants to use Bluetooth to discover speakers.
Any app that uses direct bluetooth could theoretically get your precise location from a Bluetooth geotag, so Apple requires apps to get "precise location" permission before being allowed to use bluetooth.
I checked the docs, and you are right, I mixed something up. Bluetooth does not need "precise location". Bluetooth has its own permission dialog since iOS 13.
I confused it with the "Access Wi-Fi Information Entitlement". If an app wants to scan for nearby Wifi networks, it needs the "precise location" permission [1], because the names of Wifi networks can be used to determine precise location.
Maybe the Sonos app wants to scan for Wifi networks?
This is the answer for one of the arguments as to why Sonos needs precise location. It needs to scan for WiFi networks because they connect to your WiFi network and Apple to do that requires precise location.
But it won't matter saying that because some people refuse to believe that some companies genuinely need to use that.
But they don't need to [use location services]. I only wanted the 3.5mm line in on the Sonos Play5, but was denied unless I jumped through their app "onboarding" routine.
It's essentially a loudspeaker with 3.5mm input. But you must complete the mandatory Sonos induction dance before the input signal is permitted the path to output. Like I said, never again.
It's a shame because I quite liked the sound of the Play5. It's bright, but the wide dispersion is good for certain types of listening at low to medium volume.
Then I think you may have misread the product line for Sonos and perhaps the core product just isn't for you. Sonos is about wireless speakers that can connect with other speakers in your home and can be controlled over your WiFi network, that is the heart of Sonos. Heck the Play 5 is called "Our most powerful wireless Hi-Fi speaker".
Line in is an additional component of the speaker however the entire ethos is controlling the speaker over WiFi by anyone in the home.
Sonos speakers set up their own WiFi network that's used to configure them before they join the final network, doing that probably requires "Access Wi-Fi Information Entitlement".
I guess that's why they ask to move the speaker "close to the router" when setting up.
Honestly, if they had a checkbox saying "do not share my location with Sonos" it would have eased my anxiety. But they don't, they default everything to "we collect data".
Relying on an unread "privacy policy" as the pinky swear for protecting the data they force users to give up, is bad privacy. You can't even delete your own Sonos account, the "delete account" button doesn't actually perform that function.
2 out of 3 of my Sonos devices were rendered useless by their policies. One day they were functional and working, and the next day they were not. One of these was a fancy, very expensive jog-wheel remote that I rather liked (every one of these in use all got absolutely bricked, deliberately, in a bullshit move), and the other was a Sonos Bridge (a wireless access point) that they didn't deem worthy of working with new software (even though that was also bullshit).
The remaining device has mechanical issues (as old speakers sometimes do). This one is disappointing, but at least it isn't irrational.
we moved into a home that had wired speakers installed in every room all to a central Sonos enabled device - it is all old. It worked perfectly until this.
Funny thing is, we thought it was silly when we moved in - then we grew to love it. Now I hate them!
> It's less the app, more the business decision to tell people who had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on elaborate sound systems to go throw it all in the trash and start over, all at once.
As a Sonos purchaser, ironically product longevity was the reason I bought so much of their stuff!
While other similar systems would drop support for old devices eventually, I could be confident with Sonos that I was investing in stuff that would continue to work.
… until now! I’ve started to lose confidence. Which is a shame - I’m moving into a new house and wanting a sub, but now questioning if that’s a sensible decision given I don’t know how long my older speakers will work for now they are going glitchy. Real shame!
> They drop support for things over time but even their roughest transitions (x86, Apple Silicon) have come with extensive day 1 support for previous functionality.
Catalina literally just dumped half the software that ever ran on MacOS overnight to make the transition to Apple Silicon seem smoother than it actually was.
First of all "Even Apple" implies Apple is particularly bad, in fact it is one of the better ones in supporting older usecases and devices. But even then x86 to Apple silicon is not the roughest by far.
For me, it is the removal of x86-32 bit software support. The removal wasn't needed at all and broke all the steam games.
I assumed it was part of the migration plan to Apple silicon. Rosetta 2 makes x86 apps work on Apple silicon, but I had assumed that Apple could only really get 64-bit x86 apps working smoothly and that’s why they removed 32-bit support a few years earlier.
Rosetta supports 32 bit apps. I've read conjecture on here that the removal of 32 bit was due to unresolvable pointer security issues on their 32 bit SDK, which was different than how its done with their 64 bit system.
I can vouch for this, as I have a pile Sonos "bricks" that _used_ to be components of a costly yet functional sound system. Won't touch anything Sonos with a 10ft pole.
I like to reverse decisions further back. The connected speaker is basically a commodity at this point. Sonos does have some nice features, but they are very expensive. I think the ceo saw the down sales and lack of new products and rushed out the app hoping it would work and boost sales. Obviously it was a disaster, but I’m not sure if sticking to the status quo would have led to any different outcome in sales.
The app update they're talking about is the one that got released last year which is terrible, it keeps crashing, doesn't work with time zone and a bunch of other stuff
There's a bunch of stuff built around the old Logitech media server system, with open source implementations running on esp32 and raspberry pi, as well as a slew of other devices
> It's less the app, more the business decision to tell people who had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on elaborate sound systems to go throw it all in the trash and start over, all at once.
What does this refer to? Did Sonos drop support for products? When was this, which products?
> Sonos has a good reputation for building quality speakers, but its latest move has disappointed some buyers. Recently, the company offered a trade-up program, giving legacy customers 30 percent off the latest One, Beam or Port. In exchange, buyers just had to "recycle" their existing products. However, what Sonos meant by "recycle" was to activate a feature called "Recycle Mode" that permanently bricks the speaker. It then becomes impossible for recycling firms to resell it or do anything else but strip it for parts.
> Sonos suggests that after bricking the device in Recycle Mode, users drop it off at a recycling facility or give it to Sonos to do the same.
I mean, the week the iPhone X came out, they put out an irreversible update for the iPhone 7 that made it unusable. They also tried to charge me 2,300$ to fix just one broken keyboard key. Apple is definitely that bad.
It never happened. I used a 6 and a 6S Plus, fully updated, for many years after my I got my wife an XS. Not that it proves nothing happened to the 7 the year before the XS came out, but,
A) it would have been huge news if Apple bricked all iPhone 7, and
B) it makes no sense to brick iPhone 7, but not the ones before it.
Even Apple has never been that bad. They drop support for things over time but even their roughest transitions (x86, Apple Silicon) have come with extensive day 1 support for previous functionality.