We have a bunch of 15-year-old Sonos gear that doesn’t comply with the new Sonos S2 religion. I thought it might be nice to upgrade the whole house, especially because the 10- and 12-year-olds don’t have phones with which to control music in their respective bedrooms. They could use a Sonos Era 100 or Era 300, for example, with voice control. (Senior Management quickly realized that there was a flaw in this plan, which is that Sonos doesn’t have parental controls. The 10-year-old could select gangster rap, for example, from the typical streaming service or SiriusXM.)
I picked up a $479 Era 300 as an experiment and used a Sound Level app on my phone to try to make sure that the volume level was equalized between the Era 300 and the legacy gear.
The Era 300 is Dolby Atmos-compatible, which sounds great until you realize that the popular music streaming services don’t generally provide Atmos content (it’s more for video?). A listening panel of two adults and two kids was assembled and concluded that a single Era 300 in my home office doesn’t sound obviously better, though maybe brighter, than an old Sonos Gen 1 Play:5, which has an eBay value of about $100. For listening from a desk chair, both of the magic Sonos devices were easily defeated by a pair of 13-year-old desktop Audioengine P4 speakers ($250) driven by a 10.5-year-old Windows 10 PC via optical S/PDIF through a NuForce Dia desktop DAC/amp with a mighty 18 watts of power (maybe the heir to the discontinued NuForce would be the USB-driven 50-watt AudioEngine N22?).
Admittedly, the near-field monitor comparison isn’t fair since the Sonos devices are intended to fill a room with sound. That said, I wonder if Sonos’s best idea wasn’t Sonos’s first idea: a networked DAC/amp that drives conventional bookshelf speakers. If one is content with the deprecated S1 gear, these amps, e.g., ZP120, are available on eBay for about $100 vs. $800 for the functionally similar latest version. The Era 300 weighs 10 lbs. and it’s what the typical person would stop at in one room. The old Sonos ZP120 is 5 lbs. A cheap Sony bookshelf speaker weighs 10 lbs. So it’s 10 lbs. of gear vs. 25 lbs (10+10+5).
(The latest amp is 125 watts/channel vs 50 or 55 watts on the older units, a difference of just over 3 dB in SPL. You could either content yourself with the roughly 100 dB max SPL that you’d get with an low-sensitivity speaker (85-87 dB) and 50 watts or get some high-sensitivity speakers (Klipsch, JBL, Triangle; I got some Klipsch outdoor speakers rated at 95 dB for our modest back yard).)
I also tested the Era 300 against a 20-year-old Sonos ZP100 amp driving 30-year Radio Shack Optimus LX5 bookshelf speakers, which have ribbon tweeters (!) and are available on eBay for $50-80/pair (originally $200-300/pair). The Radio Shack speakers, each of which weighs just 7.5 lbs., were separated by about 6′, which no doubt helped. The $150ish combination of decades-old used gear absolutely crushed the fresh-from-the-box $479 Era 300.
If you had the space, you could buy a used ZP100 or ZP120 and a couple of brand new tower speakers (about 100 lbs. total) for less than the cost of two of these wimpy Era 300s.
Maybe it’s worth paying $5,000+ to upgrade a house from Sonos S1 to Sonos S2 because the voice control, which runs locally on the device, is so convenient? Sadly, no. It failed at simple requests, such as “Hey Sonos, play Mozart string quartet” or “play Beethoven Pastoral piano sonata”. It works for volume up/down, but so do the physical buttons on legacy Sonos S1 gear.
Maybe it’s worth paying $5,000+ to upgrade a house from Sonos S1 to Sonos S2 because the S2 app is so much better than the S1 app? In my limited trial I didn’t find anything to love about the S2 app. One purported selling feature for the latest Sonos devices is that they can function as Bluetooth or AirPlay speakers. But if your primary use case is Bluetooth or Airplay there are much cheaper options than Sonos.
For those who are passionate about social justice, the big advantage of the latest Sonos gear is that one can listen while being 2SLGBTQQIA+ (photo from the Sonos home page):
One can also listen and set up while being Black:
I’ll try to end on an uncharacteristically kind note. I’ve probably purchased about 20 Sonos devices over the past 20 years and I think only one has died. On the third hand, this solid reliability record makes the latest $700 Sonos more vulnerable to competition from a $100 previous generation device sourced via eBay.
Related:
Phil, off topic here, but wondering what is happening in your adopted homeland of Portugal? I saw this today and I am confused.
https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/1977378879602827303
For the love of dog, why can’t we take one day off from politics? A much more interesting off-topic would be what is the status of Phil’s PC? I mean it is October, and we are all wondering what he is doing post Windows 10:
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2025/09/07/building-an-amd-based-pc/
I almost enjoyed thinking about Sonos rather than the Muslim Brotherhood for a while.
Pauli, I share your thoughts but am nonetheless very concerned about our dear friend Phil, not having hear back from him. Thinking someone should call the authorities in Portugal to do a Wellness check, but not sure if there is anyone to call (said authorities having been attacked by Marauding Muslims etc.). After reading your wokipedia profile, I concluded you would be ideal to travel to Portugal and check in on Phil (hoping you have a jet pack that can allow you to travel there more expeditiously than ordinary Parot speed?). I would have suggested hitching a ride with Donald Hitler Trump, but I think he just departed. In any event, hoping we can rescue Phil and bring him back to Cambridge, where Paul Toner and the other Cambridge City Councilors continue to support a very Diverse and Inclusive community.
@Bibi, regarding your video, second policeman is the man. But he needs to work on his punches, with his weight advantage he had to floor first attacker with hist first punch. By the way, why the policeman did not use his service handgun? Before mass – deporting random folks, it would be nice if he thinned the heard of actual attackers. Why he did not do that? Maybe @Paulie can advise. The only reason I could find was philosophical: he did not want to improve quality of enemy population by removing worst its representative from the gene pool. But I doubt that this is what was in his mind at that moment.
Thanks, Bibi, for your concern. Portugal was not merely “mostly peaceful” but entirely peaceful during our June 2024 visit!
Phil said: > “Emperor Sonos S2”
With all due respect, with the money you are outlaying on this gear, YOU are the emperor here. As poor top 10%-ers, we bought several of these:
https://www.amazon.com/JVC-Portable-Bluetooth-Resistant-Microphone/dp/B0CZM7Y4PP
Check out the specs. Inside/outside. NPR over the air. I’m listening to Public Enemy on it right now. The Bluetooth works well, and the fidelity is surprisingly good. My wife has a ’05 iPod she plugs into the 1/8″ phono jack. I can switch to my computer’s output if a good AOC clip is on. Can be used as a portable boom-box on my shoulder with gansta rap to blend into our ‘hood. Has a decent battery to charge devices when the power is off.
I can also plug my guitar into it and jam. Or do karaoke. Encourages white and black bonding:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71MLT9xR8tL._AC_SX425_.jpg
If they break, I can integrate something else in. Vendor lock-in is teh suxor for realz. As an engineer with a Ph.D., if you think outside the box, you could roll your own much better, flexible non-Sonos solution. I’m not a commie, but standards like IEEE and AES created are our friends.
PP: I think the original post covers the simple Bluetooth speaker idea if the goal is to play music from a phone. It isn’t a complete solution, in my opinion. In fact, I don’t think that a typical phone can even drive two headphones at the same time. Apple has an “audio sharing” feature that lets you drive a couple of AirPods at the same time, but two is the limit and even a peasant house in the U.S. usually has more than two rooms.
One does not make enough money to afford hundreds of smart speakers by having a discerning enough ear to care about a class A amplifier with 3 way speakers. At least not outside China.
Greta Thunberg wants you to save the planet by refraining from class A amplifiers! Class D is the Gaza flotilla’s choice.
For the original Sonos gear, consider that a defunct capacitor replacement adventure might be part of the journey. My ZP120 doesn’t reliably stay on the network and I suspect that is the problem.
Mitch: the capacitors in the power supply? I guess that would limit the life. On the third hand, you could just keep buying new boxes on eBay for $100 each! I haven’t cracked a Sonos open, but I assume that everything inside is surface mount? That makes home repair a lot tougher!
@Philip, You and your family are living in the past! These days, everyone wears Apple earbuds 24×7. Thus, the music follows you, not the other way around!
I find the AirPods uncomfortable due to the constant pressure of the noise canceling. The latest Pro 3 version actually seems worse than the original Pro (1).
@philg ” I assume that everything inside is surface mount”
No. These are the big electrolytic capacitors in the power supply which can dry out after a decade or two. So through hole.
https://youtu.be/1kppWehxMek?si=HxO_M79J5DFs0eXF is a video of diving into a Sonos AMP (not sure how old this one was). Looks like it would take at least 30 minutes just to get to the underside of the power supply board where the big caps are!
@philg “Looks like it would take at least 30 minutes”
Indeed. My reply was a caution; not a recommendation.
A friend is bailing out on the Maskachusetts 9 percent income tax and moving down to Florida. He’s got about 7 Sonos S1 amps that he’s going to give me. So I think I can survive quite a few capacitor failures!
@philg
I think we have our solution: hand-me downs from rich friends! (Mine typically *sell* me their used stuff, so your friends are nicer or richer, I guess.) Refurbed gear from eBay also might make Greta T. happy, for the e-waste savings. “Out with the new and stay with the old,” could be a slogan for the repair/reuse movement. ♻
It might be a fun idea to give your kids their own personal systems, a powered speaker and an MP3 player. Separate out the parental control issue. Have them build a personal collection of music that they own forever rather than streaming. I don’t know if Snoop Dogg agrees, but streaming is wack, yo, and just what “The Man” wants us to do. Good luck!
Paulie: As noted above, I don’t think these old Sonos boxes are worth more than $100 each and that’s after going to the trouble of photographing them and listing them on eBay and shipping them, etc. My friend will probably save $100 every 8 hours by not paying Maskachusetts state income tax and Maskachusetts electricity rates! (He didn’t get in on the rooftop solar scam when it was truly great (making working class renters in MA subsidize wealthy homeowners, which is still possible to a lesser extent).)
If you’re considering another solution, look at WiiM
I have multi room HD audio controlled by phone in my house for waay cheaper than Sonos. Use whatever speakers you like.
https://www.wiimhome.com/ looks interesting. Thanks! Looks like they’re stuck on WiFi 6 and call it “new”. It also looks as though they have a limited number of music services compared to Sonos, but they give you a screen on their little amp ($529 for their 100W/channel version that is most comparable to Sonos’s $800 125 watt/channel). If you can live with 60 watts/channel and maybe some second-tier features, the no-screen WiiM Amp is $299. I tried out AudioPro and didn’t love it. Looks like they’ve done what Sonos did. They have the “W generation” that requires a new app. They never made an streaming amp so you’d have a forest of cords to deal with (line-level output from their streamer and then plug in some speakers with built-in amps).
https://www.crutchfield.com/g_385750/Wi-Fi-Multi-room-Audio.html shows a ton of different brands. You’d think that Denon would have stuff that totally crushes Sonos, but apparently they don’t for either price or performance.
> The 10-year-old could select gangster rap, for example
By the way, for those of age who enjoy lyrical gangstas, Apple Music offers the 37 episode “The History of Hip-Hop 1979-2019” by mix-masters “The Rub” (log-in required for explicit lyrics):
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-hip-hop/id1093904558
I often find myself squawking and dancing along. 🦜
Also reminds me of something a prominent record producer (his name escapes me) once said about audiophile gear. An interviewer asked him what kind of amazing high-end system he had at home, and he said, “Oh just whatever they had at Costco. The Chinese make products that are indistinguishable from the studio gear I use these days and are much cheaper.” 🔈 🧍