After several years of using Sonos speakers, ironically, the thing that changed my mind
about them was actually Google.
My journey with Multi-room audio started off when the first Google Assistant powered speaker
came out: the Google Home.
It was pretty inexpensive at around $100 US dollars, which made it easy to buy multiple
speakers to put in different rooms.
They were easy to group together in speaker groups and play music from Google Play Music
and then YouTube Music.
And then Google came out with the Google Home Max, which to me at the time, sounded better
than any other speaker I had bought previously.
So what changed?
Well, first things started breaking.
I would get cut outs when playing music over Cast groups, or random speakers would just
ungroup themselves and as I added more speakers into my home.
And then Google got sued by Sonoso for patent infringement, which eventually caused Google
to nerf their own music controls for speaker groups instead of paying Sonos money to keep
that functionality.
Now when you play music across a group of Google Cast enabled speakers, you can no longer
control the volume of the speaker group with your voice,
using the Google Assistant.
Google: “Sorry, I can't control the volume on groups of speakers.
You'll need to set each device's volume separately.”
Or even using your phone's volume rocker to control the group volume.
Google's decision to nerf certain functionality with speakers that I had already paid a pretty
good amount of money for at that point was pretty disappointing, and that's when I started
to look elsewhere.
Sonos was previously a brand I never really looked at because I thought their speakers
were too expensive compared to Google’s.
But a speaker system that had the functionality my Google speakers now lacked and that one
that promised to sound better was pretty enticing.
So I put the Sonos one on my Christmas wish list for that year.
And once I opened it and tried it out, I learned two things.
One, the speaker certainly wasn’t perfect, the Google Assistant on it seemed slower at
playing music, but the second thing I learned was how much I had been missing out on a great
audio experience from a speaker this size.
The Sonos One sounded remarkably better than the google speakers I had of similar size.
Once I switched over to Apple Music, which I was reviewing at the time, I noticed music
through the speaker seemed to sound even better.
Plus after switching back to an iPhone around the same time, I could also take full advantage
of the Sonos One’s AirPlay support and speaker control through my iPhone.
The Sonos One I got it didn't seem to overpriced at all, it seemed like it very quality item
and I know some of you will point out, well, you can get a pair of bookshelf speakers by
this company, and they're going to sound just as good, but i often find many of those speakers
to either be too big or bulky for where I wanted to put my Sonos One or there aesthetic
just doesn't feel as nice as what Sonos offers.
And after i got one Sonos speaker, well you know how this is going to go, I got another
one.
I got another Sonos One to stereo pair with my previous Sonos One because stereo paired
speakers almost always sound better than a single mono speaker, which these Sonos One
is.
Sonos also has a larger variety of speaker options to choose from compared to the major
big tech brands like the Sonos Roam which is a battery powered bluetooth and wifi speaker
that I use in my shower to play music, or the Sonos Move which is weathered for outdoor
use and you can easily move it around your home to different rooms.
And after buying all of these Sonos speakers, I realized I now had enough of them plus a
few AirPlay 2 HomePod Minis and HomePods to replace my Google speakers for music listening.
And AirPlay 2, while not perfect, had the speaker group volume functionality I wanted
and overall worked more reliably for me in my home than Cast did.
Plus the speakers I bought not only supported the Google Assistant, but also Alexa and then
later-on, Sonos’ own Sonos Voice Control.
And since switching my speakers to Sonos and Airplay, I haven't really looked back honestly.
Google doesn’t seem to be that interested in high-quality audio hardware or software
for that matter considering YouTube Music still can’t do lossless or a better codec
that sounds as good as Apple Music.
Google hasn’t really released anything new on the speaker hardware front and they still
have nerfed speaker group controls.
Now, Sonos isn't perfect.
I wish they did support Google Cast for Android users And support the Google Assistant on
the new Era 100 and 300 speakers.
I wish that Apple Music through Sonos’ Voice Assistant had Autoplay turned on, when you
ask for a song it just plays that song and then stops which is annoying.
And Sonos’ Voice Assistant right now still supports few services, I’d love to see it
support Spotify and YouTube Music.
But even with all of those downsides, right now the entire purpose of multi-room audio
is to have a fantastic listening experience.
And Sonos is the company right now that provides the best multi-room audio experience and also
includes smart speakers in their lineup.
Compared to speakers from Google, Apple, and Amazon, Sonos gives you the most flexibility.
Their newer speakers not only support Wifi, but Bluetooth as well.
Plus the new Era 100 and Era 300 speakers support line-in, you can use Sonos’ own
grouping system or AirPlay 2, and Sonos has committed to supporting their products for
the long term and some products as old as 15 years now are still supported.
And I like they’re committed to making their speakers more repairable and have parts that
are easy to replace, like the battery on the Sonos Move.
That's why I’ll be sticking with Sonos.
And if you want to hear more about my individual experience with a particular Sonos speaker,
like the Sonos One, Sonos Roam, or Sonos Move, make sure you click on this thumbnail here
that will take you to all of the Sonos videos that we've done so far and make sure you subscribe
to the channel for upcoming videos on Sonos products, like the Sonos Era 100, and Sonos
Era 300 speakers.
For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Teder, thanks for watching.