To Sonos or not to Sonos

[DavidEdwinAston]

Forgive me guys. Should I wish to replace the Sonos system which is the way I have to play my main Hifi? What do I need, in order to access Qobuz, and my NAS drive? Not troubled about playing vinyl, cassette or cd.
Full chain is Sonos, Qutest, pre amp amp. Speakers.
Thanks guys.

 

[Jimbob54]

Forgive me guys. Should I wish to replace the Sonos system which is the way I have to play my main Hifi? What do I need, in order to access Qobuz, and my NAS drive? Not troubled about playing vinyl, cassette or cd.
Full chain is Sonos, Qutest, pre amp amp. Speakers.
Thanks guys.

Replace Sonos with something like the Wiim mini or wiim pro. Just control using the Wiim app on phone rather than Sonos app. Should be able to see nas files too.

 

[pjug]

Forgive me guys. Should I wish to replace the Sonos system which is the way I have to play my main Hifi? What do I need, in order to access Qobuz, and my NAS drive? Not troubled about playing vinyl, cassette or cd.
Full chain is Sonos, Qutest, pre amp amp. Speakers.
Thanks guys.

I replaced my sonos connect with the wiim pro but I don't think there is a big need to do so. The only reason I did it is that everybody but me in my family uses apple stuff and wanted airplay.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

Thank you both. Does the Wiim product plug into the Stereo, exactly where the Port currently plugs in?

 

[Ghostofmerlin]

Sonos is generally pretty decent, although I do have some wonky network issues from time to time. Usually it’s an update issue, but I have a giant system with many speakers. Why would you want to replace it? Just curious. I love my Sonos stuff.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

Fair question Ghost. Sonos does the job. Of course, if they don't quickly fix this inability to add to a playing queue, then I would expect many users to abandon.

 

[Ghostofmerlin]

I really am not enthused about the new app, but I’m assuming they will clean it up a bit as time moves on.

 

[Dpaulyn]

Thank you both. Does the Wiim product plug into the Stereo, exactly where the Port currently plugs in?

Yes

 

[Jimbob54]

Thank you both. Does the Wiim product plug into the Stereo, exactly where the Port currently plugs in?

Assume you mean via red black rca? Even better use an digital optical connection from wiim to qutest.

 

[Mr. Widget]

Forgive me guys. Should I wish to replace the Sonos system which is the way I have to play my main Hifi? What do I need, in order to access Qobuz, and my NAS drive? Not troubled about playing vinyl, cassette or cd.
Full chain is Sonos, Qutest, pre amp amp. Speakers.
Thanks guys.

If Qobuz and NAS are your sources, have you considered Roon? I use Roon as my distributed audio system and couldn't be happier.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I hadn't considered Roon Mr W. I thought that it, was a fair bit of dosh?

 

[Mr. Widget]

Not sure what dosh is, but I assume it is not good.

Look into Roon, it may be a good fit. I love it. I have owned Sonos in the past and also BlueSound. Roon is not for everyone, no Spotify or Apple Music, but for Tidal and Qobuz users I think it is great.

I actually still have one BlueSound Node for my garage... I use it through Roon as well.

 

[Waxx]

Bluesound is a better system than Sonos i think. Idem with Roon that is even better but more pricey (as you need extra hardware).

For cheap, i would also recommend Wiim, it's great, easy to use and almost as good as Roon or Bleu Sound Node, the only thing that it lacks a bit compared to Roon, Sonos or Bluesound is the network streaming. It's possible with Apple Airplay to active systems that support that, but that's it. For the rest it's a steal.

Sonos is not that bad altough if you don't use their speakers, but connect it to a good stereo setup. My brother does that (he uses an older Pioneer stereo) and that is quiet good. But their software updates the last years are an issue, they often change things in a bad way or remove very usefull (and much used) features, so that even my brother (a longtime sonos enthousiast) is looking for something more stable, and will probally move to a Bleusound Node.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

As always you have all been very helpful. Thank you. Possibly, by next weekend Sonos will have reinstalled the add to queue feature.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

Not sure what dosh is, but I assume it is not good.

Look into Roon, it may be a good fit. I love it. I have owned Sonos in the past and also BlueSound. Roon is not for everyone, no Spotify or Apple Music, but for Tidal and Qobuz users I think it is great.

I actually still have one BlueSound Node for my garage... I use it through Roon as well.

Money, Mr W. Sorry that I wasn't clearer!

 

[Mr. Widget]

Ah... yes. Well there is that.

Roon will cost you for the license. $15 per month or a bit over $800 for a lifetime subscription, and then there is the server. That software is free to use on a the computer of your choice, but you do need a computer on your network that is always running.

If you are like me and prefer convenience and reliability to saving a few bucks, you can spend a bit more and purchase a Roon Nucleus which is simply a dedicated Roon server that is optimized by Roon to run their software.

So yes, it is not the lowest cost system... but for me I appreciate the way it manages my personal and streaming libraries and I find it worth the cost.

 

[robertbond]

Until now I have been using WIIM Pro Plus for the exact reason I researched and purchased the device; to make the absolute most out of my Sonos Five pair. I even have audioquest power cables for them but WIIM Pro Plus had an epic effect on the sound. Now suddenly AirPlay / wifi for casting as an Output to my Sonos Fives is gone. Please note I will not be changing my speakers as I bought them just before I bought the WIIM Pro plus, 7 months ago (Nov 2023) after much research, choosing WIIM over the Sonos Port. As Sonos Fives are wifi and don’t support bluetooth, nor DLNA and I don’t want to use any cables to plus my WIIM Pro Plus into anything except my turntable with is already plugged into my line in. The only output I want to use is over Wireless / Airplay and it worked brilliantly until now.Airplay disappeared from configurable Outputs, yet AirPlay is all over the packaging.