SONOS and wireless dropping

[smastroyin]

OK, I got a new SONOS Play 3 and for Christmas.  I quite like it.  I know it is not audiophile level sound, but in terms of just playing music in my bedroom it's more than fine.  I also know that some people prefer the greater flexibility of higher end bluetooth speakers but while the SONOS isn't great music quality, it is way way better to my ears than similarly priced BT speakers.  So, beyond telling me to return the thing and get something better, I actually need some help from any SONOS owners.  I am in the middle of going through SONOS online support, but maybe someone here has better info.
 
First, my wireless set-up.  I share internet with my neighbors (same house).  The incoming internet comes into their place, then we have a cable running from their router to mine.  This lets my router set its own network and own IP addresses, etc.  It is secured with WPA.  Because of the footprint of the house, I also have a wireless extender.  Right now what is happening is I end up with the occasional conflict where the extender will drop out.  All of my devices will then prompt for a login to the wireless.  Not a WPA password, log in to the wireless extender.  However, once I try to use any app other than the SONOS controller, it will connect, and then after re-establishing that connection the SONOS works fine again.
 
The router and extender are both Linksys, both 802.11n.  Neither is listed on SONOS site as having conflicts.

 

[Pesky Pole]

This probably won't help but I had a similar experience with my Sonos when I got a new wireless modem/router. Even though you would imagine you could reset the Sonos to the new network setup, it didn't really work. It would connect and hold but a few days later, it would drop. I ended doing a reset and starting over with the whole install (from a Laptop). It worked fine once I did that and I haven't had issues since. Not sure if anything similar could have happened on your end but worth a shot.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

Your wireless setup sounds like one Rube Goldberg would approve of.

If that were the sand box I had to play in, I would look into connecting the Sonos box over a powerline network adapter. I last used them 10 years ago before I moved into my suburban house (which has cat 6 everywhere), but I've read here that they've only gotten better and cheaper.

 

[cgori]

I think there are two ways for Sonos to have wifi connectivity.  It can use its own mesh network or it can run "on top of" your wifi.  I forget if you need a Connect (Bridge?) box to have the two options or not.
 
You might look to see if you have those options and can switch from one to the other?
 
EDIT: this is what I'm talking about

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

I think there are two ways for Sonos to have wifi connectivity.  It can use its own mesh network or it can run "on top of" your wifi.  I forget if you need a Connect (Bridge?) box to have the two options or not.
 
You might look to see if you have those options and can switch from one to the other?
 
EDIT: this is what I'm talking about

If he's got a single play3, he's running it on top of his existing wifi.

 

[smastroyin]

Yes, it's a single play 3.  Part of wanting to figure this out instead of just dealing with the occasional annoyance is that I want to make sure I can add more speakers without making the problem, whatever it is, worse.  
 
It really just a weird thing.  The wireless setup normally works pretty well.  I have a bunch of devices (phone, 2 tablet, desktop,laptop, Ps3, Ps4) and it is fine otherwise.  I know that might lead to people thinking I can't generate enough IP addresses but that's not the case, and this problem only happens with the SONOS and it doesn't matter what else is hooked up.  As for the set-up my tenants have an expensive combo cable package but only take $25 per month off the rent to let me share their internet so it's worth it to have the strange set-up. 

 

[Yaz4Ever]

smas - if you decide to give up on it, feel free to send it to me.
 
Anyone with a Sonos Playbar, subwoofer, and another Play 3 can do the same.
 
That's my dream home theater system.

 

[Drocca]

smas - if you decide to give up on it, feel free to send it to me.
 
Anyone with a Sonos Playbar, subwoofer, and another Play 3 can do the same.
 
That's my dream home theater system.

This 100%

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

Yes, it's a single play 3.  Part of wanting to figure this out instead of just dealing with the occasional annoyance is that I want to make sure I can add more speakers without making the problem, whatever it is, worse.  
 
It really just a weird thing.  The wireless setup normally works pretty well.  I have a bunch of devices (phone, 2 tablet, desktop,laptop, Ps3, Ps4) and it is fine otherwise.  I know that might lead to people thinking I can't generate enough IP addresses but that's not the case, and this problem only happens with the SONOS and it doesn't matter what else is hooked up.  As for the set-up my tenants have an expensive combo cable package but only take $25 per month off the rent to let me share their internet so it's worth it to have the strange set-up. 

So connect your router to a powerline adapter, then connect your Sonos PLAY3 to a powerline adapter. Now your Sonos is a wired device, but your iPad or Android device will be able to control it via wifi.

SumnerH had an adapter he thought highly of, IIRC.

 

[SumnerH]

smas - if you decide to give up on it, feel free to send it to me.
 
Anyone with a Sonos Playbar, subwoofer, and another Play 3 can do the same.
 
That's my dream home theater system.

Your dream home theater system has a soundbar and a subwoofer? Whatever floats your boat, but that's weird. Soundbars are invariably pretty shitty compared to decent speakers in the same price range. A sub is more understandable, but they are essentially a poor man's patch for main speakers that lack a strong low end--they make sense in a budget or mid-range setup, or even a pretty nice one with budget constraints. But for a dream system I'd definitely go with speakers that have good bass response and skip the sub. By the time you're spending $250 or so on the main speakers, you're better off bumping their quality up than spending the difference on a separate subwoofer IMO.
 

SumnerH had an adapter he thought highly of, IIRC.

Trendnet TPL-406E2K. That was a year ago, they still work great but there might be a newer version worth investigating.

 

[Saints Rest]

Have you tried calling Sonos tech support? I spent about an hour online with them and they were incredibly helpful and friendly as we tried multiple variations to get the best setup. (I have one Play3 and three Play1's and a bridge.)

 

[Yaz4Ever]

Your dream home theater system has a soundbar and a subwoofer? Whatever floats your boat, but that's weird. Soundbars are invariably pretty shitty compared to decent speakers in the same price range. A sub is more understandable, but they are essentially a poor man's patch for main speakers that lack a strong low end--they make sense in a budget or mid-range setup, or even a pretty nice one with budget constraints. But for a dream system I'd definitely go with speakers that have good bass response and skip the sub. By the time you're spending $250 or so on the main speakers, you're better off bumping their quality up than spending the difference on a separate subwoofer IMO.

Yes, this is my dream system in that it's easily expandable/upgraded, completely wireless, the sound quality is excellent, the speakers can be easily moved around throughout the house and outdoors to create a nice music flow when entertaining and within seconds brought back to their home theater configuration, and when we decide to move it'll be easy to bring along with us.

 

[Riconway3155]

Smas - If you are still having tons of trouble, please let me know and I can get you in touch with my brother in law. He works in the Cambridge office and I'm sure could be of some help.

 

[smastroyin]

Thanks everyone so far.
 
Turns out using any extender other than the SONOS bridge is an "unsupported" configuration, but I have gotten some tips that I will try.  So if I can't get this working what I'll probably end up doing is getting the SONOS bridge when I expand and then running the SONOS network separately.
 
The reason I resist the powerline is that as I expand I don't want to have to dedicate two plugs to each speaker, and because the router is in a room that is still knob and tube and is a separate breaker regardless.  I have heard that these things can affect the performance, although I guess for the SONOS it isn't going to use much bandwidth.  As well, the bedrooms are on AFCI (one half of the apartment is all new wiring, I will be replacing as I renovate rooms), and there are reports that Powerline can cause nuisance trips of these circuits.

 

[SumnerH]

Yes, this is my dream system in that it's easily expandable/upgraded, completely wireless, the sound quality is excellent, the speakers can be easily moved around throughout the house and outdoors to create a nice music flow when entertaining and within seconds brought back to their home theater configuration, and when we decide to move it'll be easy to bring along with us.

 
But that's my whole objection: it's not.  Have you listened to it in person with a CD you're familiar with?  It's pretty poor sound quality for what's supposed to be a high-end piece of audio equipment.  Everything sounds kind of defocused/blurry on it.
 
As CNET's review said:

The sound lacked excitement, and we noticed again and again that the Blu-rays and DVDs we use as test discs in many reviews sounded very different through the Playbar. The Playbar relies heavily on sound processing to achieve its expansive sound, which is at times pleasant, but it's far from what the films' sound mixers wanted us to hear. The same goes for two-channel music, which often sounded soft and lacked clarity, while also sounding very different from a traditional stereo mix.

 

[Couperin47]

 
But that's my whole objection: it's not.  Have you listened to it in person with a CD you're familiar with?  It's pretty poor sound quality for what's supposed to be a high-end piece of audio equipment.  Everything sounds kind of defocused/blurry on it.
 
As CNET's review said:

 
I'm staying out of this because, I have finally come to understand. When I was growing up I was a hi-fi tech nerd before transistors were even available for pocket AM radios. It turns out that once the pops and clicks of records were gone, and solid state and Dolby made hiss disappear, the bulk of the population don't much give a shit about music quality.  These days elimination of the horror that are wires is more important than what it sounds like.  If you force people to a direct A/B comparison they can, for the most part, immediately perceive the difference...otherwise they mostly don't notice and don't care. Serious audio is back to where it was when I first met Saul Marantz in Brooklyn back in 1959, a fringe niche activity, once again half populated by high end charlatans pandering to folks with far more disposable cash than sense or a decent understanding of the physics involved. I peruse the pages of The Absolute Sound and just cringe.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

The reason I resist the powerline is that as I expand I don't want to have to dedicate two plugs to each speaker, and because the router is in a room that is still knob and tube and is a separate breaker regardless.  I have heard that these things can affect the performance, although I guess for the SONOS it isn't going to use much bandwidth.  As well, the bedrooms are on AFCI (one half of the apartment is all new wiring, I will be replacing as I renovate rooms), and there are reports that Powerline can cause nuisance trips of these circuits.

If you have one wired Sonos device, you can run their dedicated wifi to get to all the others, so you won't need a bridge. The powerline connection would give you one wired Sonos.

I don't know AFCI.

 

[smastroyin]

If you have one wired Sonos device, you can run their dedicated wifi to get to all the others, so you won't need a bridge. The powerline connection would give you one wired Sonos.

I don't know AFCI.

 
Ah, that's useful to know, thanks.  
 
As for the wireless discussion, I hope the idea isn't just that "wires are bad" because of purely aesthetic consideration.  It is expensive to have someone wire your house for sound (or time consuming if you do it yourself), and even then you need a controller, pre-amp, and then dedicated amp for each different signal that you want to send.  Obviously you can just play the same music throughout the house and that doesn't require as much.  Of course if you are building a dedicated home theater or if you only ever listen to music in the conservatory then yes, the sound quality advantages far outweigh the horror of wires.  But I would suggest that even with the best of systems, a perfect sound in the living room from a nice system isn't going to sound as good three rooms away as just having a "crappy" sounding SONOS type thing dedicated to that room.  
 
FTR, I also plan on a dedicated home theater/listening room in the future, and there I will not care about connectivity to the rest of the system, or wires, or anything other than the sound quality/price.  But that's a ways away.

 

[NortheasternPJ]

Thanks everyone so far.
 
Turns out using any extender other than the SONOS bridge is an "unsupported" configuration, but I have gotten some tips that I will try.  So if I can't get this working what I'll probably end up doing is getting the SONOS bridge when I expand and then running the SONOS network separately.
 

 
In my experience it is because wireless extenders are a giant dumpster fire (at the consumer level). They're an attractive solution for super rich people in 4,000 sq ft houses. Our house is smaller and ended up running a pair of hardwired DD-WRT routers in a bridge configuration and it's been great. 
 
I've done 10-15 wireless extender deployments (granted this was like 6 years ago) and they were awful and all had the experience exactly you described. 

 

[NortheasternPJ]

 
I'm staying out of this because, I have finally come to understand. When I was growing up I was a hi-fi tech nerd before transistors were even available for pocket AM radios. It turns out that once the pops and clicks of records were gone, and solid state and Dolby made hiss disappear, the bulk of the population don't much give a shit about music quality.  These days elimination of the horror that are wires is more important than what it sounds like.  If you force people to a direct A/B comparison they can, for the most part, immediately perceive the difference...otherwise they mostly don't notice and don't care. Serious audio is back to where it was when I first met Saul Marantz in Brooklyn back in 1959, a fringe niche activity, once again half populated by high end charlatans pandering to folks with far more disposable cash than sense or a decent understanding of the physics involved. I peruse the pages of The Absolute Sound and just cringe.

 
I'm staying out of this because, I'm going to write full paragraph on why I'm staying out of it.
 
I used to be a huge audiophile. I have a good turntable, hate the way many Vinyls are now produced with the volume being maxed out, used to buy the DTS only version of DVDs for the better sound, however being in my mid-30's with a wife and kids, I honestly can't be bothered. I just went from a full 5.1 surround system in my living room to a ZVOX sound base (that's another discussion but for the price point and what it offer, it's excellent) when we removed the carpet and did hardwood floors. The ZVOX provides good sound, without the wires. It's in our living room and spending $4-5k plus on putting in in-wall  speakers, running cables, plus decent equipment wasn't worth it. With a 10 month old, I'm lucky to be listening on anything but minimal volume at night.
 
We used to have a Denon receiver with full 5.1 (actually 5.2 since we had the 3 foot floor standing speakers with built in subs) and it was unbelievable, but at this point in my life, there's no benefit.
 
We also have a Sonos 1 in the kitchen, a Sonos 3 on our screened in porch and a Sonos 3 in my home office.
 
It's simply not worth the cost, domestic disputes (and my wife is awesome about almost everything, so she's not a driver in this but I can't run wires all over the living room) plus the ability to stream to multiple rooms, move speakers indoors and outdoors and control it all from an iPhone.
 
It'd be a waste.
 
If I had a in home theater or a house so big I could watch movies at a decent volume at night, with bass, and not wake up everyone then it'd be a different story. 

 

[Yaz4Ever]

 
But that's my whole objection: it's not.  Have you listened to it in person with a CD you're familiar with?  It's pretty poor sound quality for what's supposed to be a high-end piece of audio equipment.  Everything sounds kind of defocused/blurry on it.
 
As CNET's review said:

To my unsophisticated ears, the sound is just fine.  If I can't discern the oboe from whatever the hell sounds close to but not exactly an oboe, I'll still sleep well at night.
 
I guess, more to your point, technically I'd dream a little higher and get the best possible system out there, but for the money, convenience, and good-enough-for-me sound quality, I'd still love to get this setup for my home theater setup.

 

[LoweTek]

...It turns out that once the pops and clicks of records were gone, and solid state and Dolby made hiss disappear, the bulk of the population don't much give a shit about music quality...

I would argue the "don't much give a shit about music quality" pretty much correlated with the advent of MP3, compression and the (free) music downloading revolution. I don't think vinyl pops or Dolby had anything to do with it.

And where are you finding $250 speaker pairs with a low end good enough to eschew a subwoofer (poor man's patch, seriously)? I've never come across anything close to $250/pair which held their own much past 120Hz or so. Did you mean to say $2,500/pair?

There is a vast middle ground of excellent quality in between Sonos or the typical Bluetooth speaker and what tends to be featured in Absolute Sound.

Wire will be necessary; apparently unfortunately.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

  But I would suggest that even with the best of systems, a perfect sound in the living room from a nice system isn't going to sound as good three rooms away as just having a "crappy" sounding SONOS type thing dedicated to that room.

I don't know what's crappy about Sonos sound if you have your library ripped in a lossless format and send the digital audio output from a ZP-90 into a decent amp and speakers. If someone can explain why CD's would sound better, I'd love to know.

And if you are already redoing your electrical wiring, have you considered putting Cat6 into the walls.

 

[NortheasternPJ]

[QUOTE="Hriniak]
If you have one wired Sonos device, you can run their dedicated wifi to get to all the others, so you won't need a bridge. The powerline connection would give you one wired Sonos.

I don't know AFCI.
[/QUOTE]
They frequently put the bridges on sale for free as well.

 

[SumnerH]

I would argue the "don't much give a shit about music quality" pretty much correlated with the advent of MP3, compression and the (free) music downloading revolution. I don't think vinyl pops or Dolby had anything to do with it.

And where are you finding $250 speaker pairs with a low end good enough to eschew a subwoofer (poor man's patch, seriously)? I've never come across anything close to $250/pair which held their own much past 120Hz or so. Did you mean to say $2,500/pair?
 

 
The Monoprice 8" studio monitors ($254/pair) are credible well below that (their 8" kevlar woofers are rated down to 45Hz +- 3dB; they're essentially Monoprice's implementation of the M-Audio BX8).  
 
I think you misinterpreted and/or I misphrased, though:  I'm not saying that most $250 speakers have a good low end, I'm saying that if you're spending more than $250ish on speakers you're better off taking what you'd spend on a sub and putting into the speakers instead.  For instance, you could drop $200 on a sub that'll help the bass but nothing else.  I'd rather take that money and move from those Monoprice 8" monitors up to Tannoy Reveal 802s (which will get you into the high 30s Hz with a lot more clarity than most subs, and are generally just awesome) or something like that, which will help the bass and also help across the rest of the spectrum.
 
My main exception (outside of sub-$250 setups) would be if you're going with mini Maggies (which are an excellent choice for a dream system where you want small and pretty as well as good quality audio), then you do need the bass unit--that's a little different from a standard subwoofer setup but it's a similar concept.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

They frequently put the bridges on sale for free as well.

Oh. Didn't know that, since I have all but one of my Sonos ZP90s connected to wired Ethernet.

 

[Couperin47]

 
I'm staying out of this because, I'm going to write full paragraph on why I'm staying out of it.
 
I used to be a huge audiophile. I have a good turntable, hate the way many Vinyls are now produced with the volume being maxed out, used to buy the DTS only version of DVDs for the better sound, however being in my mid-30's with a wife and kids, I honestly can't be bothered. I just went from a full 5.1 surround system in my living room to a ZVOX sound base (that's another discussion but for the price point and what it offer, it's excellent) when we removed the carpet and did hardwood floors. The ZVOX provides good sound, without the wires. It's in our living room and spending $4-5k plus on putting in in-wall  speakers, running cables, plus decent equipment wasn't worth it. With a 10 month old, I'm lucky to be listening on anything but minimal volume at night.
 
We used to have a Denon receiver with full 5.1 (actually 5.2 since we had the 3 foot floor standing speakers with built in subs) and it was unbelievable, but at this point in my life, there's no benefit.
 
We also have a Sonos 1 in the kitchen, a Sonos 3 on our screened in porch and a Sonos 3 in my home office.
 
It's simply not worth the cost, domestic disputes (and my wife is awesome about almost everything, so she's not a driver in this but I can't run wires all over the living room) plus the ability to stream to multiple rooms, move speakers indoors and outdoors and control it all from an iPhone.
 
It'd be a waste.
 
If I had a in home theater or a house so big I could watch movies at a decent volume at night, with bass, and not wake up everyone then it'd be a different story. 

 
The 'staying out" was discussion of the Sonos issue. Family has a way of reordering many/most of our priorities and I don't see you reduced to doing all your listening via earbuds and MP3's...so there's that...

 

[Couperin47]

I would argue the "don't much give a shit about music quality" pretty much correlated with the advent of MP3, compression and the (free) music downloading revolution. I don't think vinyl pops or Dolby had anything to do with it.

And where are you finding $250 speaker pairs with a low end good enough to eschew a subwoofer (poor man's patch, seriously)? I've never come across anything close to $250/pair which held their own much past 120Hz or so. Did you mean to say $2,500/pair?

There is a vast middle ground of excellent quality in between Sonos or the typical Bluetooth speaker and what tends to be featured in Absolute Sound.

Wire will be necessary; apparently unfortunately.

 
The reasons are manifold, the ones you add are all valid, I'd also add that a generation that gets almost all it's audio via earbuds is another issue (and that does relate back to the elimination of hiss....back before we eliminated that headphone/earbud transducers right at your ears with no ambiance to begin to mask that hiss was intolerable for most).
 
My go to solution for those who tinker, have a bit of patience and want a serious sub at bargain prices these days is eBay. There is a whole generation of quality subs that are now 10+ years old and a large proportion of them used foam surrounds that are now disintegrating.  The bulk of these can be refoamed at home for under $20 and with care and patience be made new again.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

I would argue the "don't much give a shit about music quality" pretty much correlated with the advent of MP3, compression and the (free) music downloading revolution. I don't think vinyl pops or Dolby had anything to do with it.

 
Clicks and pops went out with CD's, not mp3's, but CD's weren't "warm" enough for some.
 
Hiss also went out with CD's, because you could still hear it through analog Dolby on tape. So cassettes just made sense in the car, and we listened to clicks and pops on vinyl at home so we could hear the high frequencies. 
 
(Actually, hiss sort of came back in with CD's because they could reveal the limitations of the last 30 years worth of analog studio master tapes.)

 

[NortheasternPJ]

 
Clicks and pops went out with CD's, not mp3's, but CD's weren't "warm" enough for some.
 
Hiss also went out with CD's, because you could still hear it through analog Dolby on tape. So cassettes just made sense in the car, and we listened to clicks and pops on vinyl at home so we could hear the high frequencies. 
 
(Actually, hiss sort of came back in with CD's because they could reveal the limitations of the last 30 years worth of analog studio master tapes.)

 
And now we've gone full circle where music producers add in clicks and pops to make it sound more authentic / vinyl sounding. So there's that!