I used to love Sonos and recommend their products to friends and family.

But as time passed, far more options for playing a digital music library, or from streaming services, have appeared. Meanwhile, Sonos devices have got even more expensive, and they've tried to make some very popular earlier units obsolete.

I guess I expected too much by treating Sonos gear as 'hi-fi products' - expecting the devices to last essentially forever if not abused. At the end of the day, they rely on a lot of software, and in particular rely on being controlled by mobile apps, where the idea of 'backwards compatibility' is simply not a thing any more.

So it's very hard to justify Sonos prices, knowing that there'll be an artificial limit to the lifespan of the devices (even if it's a pretty long one by tech standards, it's short by hi-fi standards)

I got the Sonos Arc, which was (a ridiculously expensive IMHO) £799, and I was expecting to be blown away after reading glowing reviews. Instead, it's just... OK. Using the app to calibrate it to the room made a big difference. I might be spoiled by my obsession with headphones, it obviously won't match the fidelity of my e.g. Focal Clears. Still better than the built-in LG CX speakers, and good enough for the occasional movie or Switch game. It also looks pretty good.

I’ve got the Arc, sub and two Ones for rear speakers. It’s way better than the Beam was but there’s far better sounding speakers out there.

What I do enjoy is the simplicity and small number of wires for speakers throughout my house.

I’m setting up a recording studio and going very high end with the speakers there- for video games otherwise this is good enough most days

Ugh, I have a half-height Marantz A/V which struggles to drive my 5.1 B&W 600-series speakers. Since moving to my new home, where the couch doesn’t face the wall, I was inclined to ditch the set up and get Arc+Ones. It looks fantastic... but:

- no DTS:X encoding. What? Many UHD blu-ray movies only come with DTS:X tracks and no, getting your player (e.g. XBOX One) to do the conversion doesn’t do the trick because for object-based audio formats (DTS:X and Atmos), it has to be done by the processor, which has data of where the speakers are. And I disagree the future of 4K movies is streaming (which favor Atmos, according to Sonos), because the difference of any streaming 4K movies and an UHD disk without all the ridiculous compression os night and day - this is not a problem exclusive to Sonos, but no brand does anything to help with cable management. Yes there are less wires with soundbars, but the rears are where the main problem is. With wireless rears, you’re just trading speaker wires for power wires (with the exception of one soundbar brand selling battery-powered rears, but forgot which now)

So, with all that and considered the price, I couldn’t justify getting the Arc system.

Even though there is still a wire, that wire can be plugged in where it is, and not wrapped around a room.

Interesting, I haven't heard a Symfonisk, we use a beam and a couple of play:1 units. I like the sound, but it definitely could use a sub, and I agree those are very pricey.

Maybe when I move house and get a decent media room...