The_Lhc
Well-known member
andyjm said:LHC - good summary of Sonos.
Just wanted to expand on a couple of points -
The sonos 'mesh' network is a protocol that sits on top of WiFi, it still uses WiFi channels and WiFi hardware. The mesh approach allows each Sonos box to act as a repeater, so longer distances can be covered as long as the signal can jump from box to box. It cannot change the physics of WiFi, fix a very congested WiFi environment (if you are in a block of flats for example) or very long runs without intermediate boxes.
Err, yes, pretty sure I said most of that. Certainly said it uses standard wi-fi hardware with its own protocols on top.
The Connect (or whatever it is called these days) has poor jitter performance, one of the worst of the streamer group tested a couple of years ago. If you use it to drive a DAC and your DAC does not have jitter mitigation circuitry, this MAY impact sound quality. To be honest, these days any decent DAC should be able to tidy up the input clock, so this is less of an issue than it used to be. An async USB connection on the Connect would be a nice feature for future development.
Jitter aside the output IS bit-perfect though. We won't see any new hardware this year apparently.
Having said all of the above, Sonos is the system I recommend to friends who want multi room playback. It has staying power, great support and a solid hardware and software platform.
They've got a good 8 years development time on most competitors which appears to count for an awful lot in terms of functionality and usability yes.