Sonos turns patent war with Google up a notch with fresh lawsuit timed to coincide with Pixel, Nest jamboree Sonos has taken its patent infringement case against Google up a notch by filing a second lawsuit on Wednesday to coincide with the web titan's launch of more Nest, Chromecast and Pixel products that Sonos claims infringe its intellectual property. The music-streaming outfit alleges [PDF] Google is ripping off no fewer than …
But it doesn't synchronise music playing across multiple units so that they are all in time, which is what the journo claimed Sonos were first to (maybe the wording could have been clearer):
it was the first company to perfect music streaming across speakers
That has always been Sonos's selling point - just keep adding boxes and they all work together.
This is not true. I use the open sourced server and player software on Raspberry Pis and you can definitely group players for synchronisation.Sonos might have been the first it's been around for a long time in Squeezebox setups.
Slim Devices (Squeezebox) had multi-room level sync for as long as I've known them (15+ years?), but sync isn't tight enough to use a separate client for each of left and right speakers. They were founded a couple of years before Sonos, and onto their 3rd generation hardware when Sonos released their first. Sonos raised the bar for sync, at least in the consumer space; Pro audio had CobraNet years before either of them were founded.
Dumb speakers sound better. Speakers, and how they work in your room, are the most important factor in the sound quality of your system. It's a pity that so much research goes into how to get superficially good sound from cheap plastic boxes with tiny drivers, or skinny, glossy-veneered towers with horrible baffle step. All doomed because, physics. Get back to good quality sound - realistically sized drivers and boxes, and we now have the tech to make promising past innovations like the Philips Motional Feedback Speaker work properly.
I understand what you’re saying and I would never have a Sonos speaker system as my primary music source, but a Sonos connect plugged into my hi fi to stream off a NAS, and additional speakers scattered around the house is very convenient. I don’t need audiophile quality while I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner. That requirement is for when I’ve finished dinner and sat down with a glass of wine.
While sonos speakers can sound as good as headphones when using "low" quality sources such as spotify. for "true" audiophile quality i would recommend a headphone setup (or more expensive speakers) here is what i use:
I use a Samsung s20+ connected via usb-c (with an adaptor thanks to Samsung removing the audio jack).
To an oppo- ha-2SE paired with sennheiser HD600 headphones (open back so everyone around you can hear what you are listening to so no good for public transport)
The app i use on android is called "USB audio player pro" which costs around £6 on google play (for full MQA decoding you need to buy a £3 add-on in app purchase it also supports Tidal streaming but not downloads.)
USB audio player pro supports FLAC files out of the box.
To keep the dac and phone together you can use a rubber band.
using the oppo ha-2 SE and usb audio player pro I can play MQA tracks at 88.2khz 24bit which is higher than cd quality (cd's are "usually" recorded at 44.1 kHz)
and FLAC files at 48khz 24bit.
The oppo-ha2 SE also has an internal battery so can be carried around in a pocket with the phone :)
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