Sonos Connect - Return on experience

[McChicken]

I was about to go Sonos until a friend who has been using Sonos for years told me that since he bought the Phantoms he liked Spark better... Crazy right ? He said Sonos was less responsive when selecting songs and was surprised how fast he could switch from one song to another in comparison to Sonos. Do you confirm ? Now I'm a bit confused whether i should stick with Spark (which by the way should see new improvements with upcoming firmwares) or if i should go Sonos.

Go for spark

I cannot believe what I see   I have been using Sonos for many many years.
I daily use Spotify, Tidal in my car, and I don't have the latest Spark up-date but in my book and probably 9 out of 10 also other users would say that Sonos is GREAT and the Benchmark of the Industry. No you don't get the full function of Spotify or Tidal or...but you can mix music from different playlists even different sources on the fly and the Sonos search function includes ALL sources you have. I NEED the multi-room functionality ) and many times  I use the Spotify Connect feature to the Phantoms WAY better than the Spark have even been. The App going into sleep-mode all the time and take ages to wake-up just e.g. to change a song. But what do I know ?... only listen to +5000 songs a year

[Damon]

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I cannot believe what I see   I have been using Sonos for many many years.
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Hang on, stay calm. Nobody is saying the Sonos is garbage, or has no benefits or strengths. You seem to find my criticisms a problem in particular. I was simply giving my opinion of the interface, and that is clearly related to the way I use it, and what i want the interface to do. Clearly others will have different expectations and have different opinions. But we're giving our opinions to the OP as part of this discussion. I personally wish that I had know about the interface limitations before I bought the Sonos; that was not something that was evident or explained to me.

Like you, I also need the multi room capability of Sonos and I think the sound quality is by and large fine. At least for me, at least for now. I don't have Spark, so made no comment or comparison.

I thought all the posts in this thread would be helpful to the OP. Different opinions and different perspectives. Nobody is starting a fight here.

[McChicken]

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I thought all the posts in this thread would be helpful to the OP. Different opinions and different perspectives. Nobody is starting a fight here.
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I agree sorry if I came out too strong ... Have a nice wk-end
Ps. If you have issues with Sonos then never try the (before yesterday) Spark app

[Damon]

No worries at all.

Following on and thinking about the Sonos interface, Thumb5 uses a modded Sonos, and he indicated that most of his listening is sourcing music on his computer/ other hard drive. And I agree with him that the Sonos interface is really good at using a music source like iTunes (or whatever). And you mentioned that you do lots of playlist listening, using a variety of sources. I think that Sonos is good at that as well. Me personally, I rarely use playlists, but go to a source for an entire album. It just doesn't do what I wish it would do in terms of full navigation facility.

I've never even seen a Dialog or the spark app, but I imagine, or hope, that it would do everything that the Sonos system does with full interface functionality. That is just my pie-in-the-sky idea. Dialog with two wired or optical outputs; one into my D120 and the other into another amp to drive the kitchen speakers.

It is sort of amusing; I have occasional grief with my Sonos, which is by almost all accounts, a very stable system. But I never had AIR issues. Go figure.

Cheers.

[streamy]

Spark has its weaknesses. But since the last update (ver. 1.6.2) it became quite stable and useful. Spotify connect works really well. Spark allows to stream from local drives (up to 24/192k without drop-outs), streaming services (I use Qobuz,which works really well in cd quality streaming), and internet radio. It is extreamly fast in building up the catalog. Much faster than any upnp servers I have experienced since 2003. In the beginning (March 2015) I still needed airplay via optical in, then chromecast audio, also optical in. But now, both airplay and anything using chromecast are buggier and less responsive. So besides spotify connect and a Raspberry PI with optical out and a MPD interface I don't use anymore other streaming tools than Spark. The RPi allows me to use room correction with brutefir. My favorite player on the RPi is the moode player.
To Spark: It features now global search function, global playlists, song, artist and album catalogs, but unfortunately not yet genres. Also a folder structure would be my preference instead of a flat list. Then more infos from the metatags would be an important feature to know at least the audio format. As temporary fix I have added the audioformat to the song title. My local library consists of ALAC and mp3, mostly. I have chosen ALAC over FLAG because Spark was much more responsive to ALAC when skipping songs or jumping to another location within a song. All operations take less than 1s, often are almost instant. Airplay got much worse when they introduced a 2s buffer and therefore such a long delay except when you turned on screen sharing. Similar buffering in Chomecast audio.
I have no experience with Sonos, but have read that it cannot handle hires audio, which is important to me and works very well in Spark and on the RPi, not at all with airplay and very buggy with Chromecast audio.

[Lolo90]

Spark has its weaknesses. But since the last update (ver. 1.6.2) it became quite stable and useful. Spotify connect works really well. Spark allows to stream from local drives (up to 24/192k without drop-outs), streaming services (I use Qobuz,which works really well in cd quality streaming), and internet radio. It is extreamly fast in building up the catalog. Much faster than any upnp servers I have experienced since 2003. In the beginning (March 2015) I still needed airplay via optical in, then chromecast audio, also optical in. But now, both airplay and anything using chromecast are buggier and less responsive. So besides spotify connect and a Raspberry PI with optical out and a MPD interface I don't use anymore other streaming tools than Spark. The RPi allows me to use room correction with brutefir. My favorite player on the RPi is the moode player.
To Spark: It features now global search function, global playlists, song, artist and album catalogs, but unfortunately not yet genres. Also a folder structure would be my preference instead of a flat list. Then more infos from the metatags would be an important feature to know at least the audio format. As temporary fix I have added the audioformat to the song title. My local library consists of ALAC and mp3, mostly. I have chosen ALAC over FLAG because Spark was much more responsive to ALAC when skipping songs or jumping to another location within a song. All operations take less than 1s, often are almost instant. Airplay got much worse when they introduced a 2s buffer and therefore such a long delay except when you turned on screen sharing. Similar buffering in Chomecast audio.
I have no experience with Sonos, but have read that it cannot handle hires audio, which is important to me and works very well in Spark and on the RPi, not at all with airplay and very buggy with Chromecast audio.

I used a ZP90 for a while until I discovered Roon. Now using a roon endpoint (initially Sonicorbitor SE but now a raspberry pi with hifiberry digi+). I don't notice a difference between either endpoint and Roon's interface is amazing and streams HD audio and integrates seamlessly wirh Tidal lossless.  Highly recommend Roon as you can make an endpoint for less than $100 and use the savings over a few sonos zp90's to fund lifetime subscription.  I also Roon endpoint into Oppo HA-1 with Hifiman HE-1000 headphones which is also great plus a few others for distribution to various rooms in house.

[McChicken]

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I used a ZP90 for a while until I discovered Roon. Now using a roon endpoint (initially Sonicorbitor SE but now a raspberry pi with hifiberry digi+). I don't notice a difference between either endpoint and Roon's interface is amazing and streams HD audio and integrates seamlessly wirh Tidal lossless.  Highly recommend Roon as you can make an endpoint for less than $100 and use the savings over a few sonos zp90's to fund lifetime subscription.  I also Roon endpoint into Oppo HA-1 with Hifiman HE-1000 headphones which is also great plus a few others for distribution to various rooms in house.
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Have also looked at Roon, but as I'm using streaming to 100% ( Tidal + Spotify + Radio) and more or less NEVER listen to the ripped music on my NAS, since maybe a year since I had to change the whole WiFi network I could not get my NAS hooked up easily again, and honestly I don't miss it as my thing is to mostly listen to new music and not dwell in nostalgia.
What is the Positive and Negative, Sonos vs Roon when using streamed services

[Nl88]

Anyone has any deedback on Denon Heos as it seems to stream hi res files ?