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Post by jra on Jan 23, 2020 13:15:21 GMT -5
Anyone else here watching the meltdown over the Sonos announcement ?
Here's what I posted on that thread over there.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate..”
I’m affected by this to the tune of 3 Play:5’s and 3 Connect’s, so I’m not a disinterested bystander.
Trying to take a step back and look at this - I think the fundamental mistake Sonos have made here is that they thought they were an electronics device company. But they are selling devices that allow people to connect to *music*. That makes things different to a phone or a TV, which are essentially seen as replacable and upgradable objects.
Music is different. Music affects people on a deep emotional level. The best audio brand names get this. They sell an *experience*, not hardware.
I think Sonos used to get this, but maybe the upper management have changed to people who thought they were in the electronics business. They are not, and they are about to discover this fact very painfully. I doubt the company will survive this. People are perceiving this, rightly or wrongly, as Sonos trying to take their music away (I know that is my gut reaction too).
They should have hired ex-Apple execs. Apple would never have made this mistake. They understand what they sell and it’s not hardware.
What's that got to do with Emotiva I hear you ask ? Good question :-). I can't help comparing the level of service Emotiva is providing for old products with what Sonos is doing over there. I have many more Emotiva products than Sonos, some of the Emotiva stuff purchased second hand, and the level of support I've gotten for them from big blue E is night and day compared to Sonos. I've had *direct*, friendly and helpful advice from Emotiva *engineers* who actually build and support the products they sell. Emotiva have gotten some stick in the past over delayed releases and some bugs in software, but my goodness I'd rather work with (and "with" is the right word here, it's never adversarial) Emotiva people any day then other companies I could name.
I've got 3 XMC-1's and even though they were touted as "expandable" which never really happened beyond the new HDMI video board, I'm still really happy with the upgrade paths offered for them by Emotiva. When I get tired of them or they finally expire I'm going to go either XMC-2 or RMC for sure.
As for Sonos - I'm going to transition out of their ecosystem. Probably go Bluesound to replace the Connects and Play5's, or if I can get more Emotiva Airmotiv 4's, 5's, 6's or Stealth's pair them with second hand Google Chromecast audio's. (All already discontinued products :-). The difference is between all these companies is that Emotiva still stands behind the Airmotiv's, even second hand I can get 'em repaired and maintained. Anyone else invested in Sonos ? What are you planning to do ?
I just wanted to give Emotiva some credit where it is due.
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Post by jra on Jan 23, 2020 20:04:56 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm feeling really dumb for encouraging family and friends to buy Sonos :-(. Well at least some of them bought Emotiva at the same time, so even if they have to move off the music source, their speakers will still work :-).
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Post by monkumonku on Jan 23, 2020 21:04:28 GMT -5
I received this clarification in my e-mail today:
***
We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:
First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work just as they do today. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.
Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.
While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.
Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn't exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day.
If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Patrick
Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos
***
Not much different than Microsoft discontinuing support for Windows 7. I bought my Sonos gear well before Windows 7 was released.
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Post by vcautokid on Jan 24, 2020 2:29:49 GMT -5
Gad Windows 7. Don't get me started. One OS I won't miss. Audio support as good as a Chinese Fire Drill. UAC 2 support. How long folks did it take Microsoft to finally effing get it? Android, IOS, Linux and so on gave support out of the box and plays nice. No not Windows 7 or before. I get Sonos and such and many of my buddies do fine with, and will continue to do so. What lies ahead? Who knows. I love legacy stuff, most of my audio is the mix of the old and new. Some things are plain obsolete though, and Windows 7 is one of them. Being in I.T. I am not sorry to see it go bye bye. I still want to build a Linux music box just for giggles. Doing anything music with Windows 7? Hell no!
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klinemj
Emo VIPs 
Official Emofest Scribe
Posts: 15,088
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Post by klinemj on Jan 26, 2020 15:50:18 GMT -5
The Sonos communication sure did start a firestorm. I never got any emails from them - which surprises me given the number of units I bought from them directly.
I'm glad they will continue to work (for now), but the day they don't I'm likely replacing them all with RPi's running Roon all over the house.
Mark
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Post by Soup on Jan 26, 2020 16:05:14 GMT -5
Reminds me of when Western Digital stopped supporting their WD Live TV. Lame move.
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Post by jra on Jan 28, 2020 0:43:46 GMT -5
Reminds me of when Western Digital stopped supporting their WD Live TV. Lame move. Yeah, all the TV boxes seemed to stop supporting playing of local media at the same time. I'm just glad Kodi boxes still exist. The thing I really need Sonos to keep supporting is playing media from an SMB share. Still, Bluesound do that too (but they are also expensive). |
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