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Sonos Systems Are Engineered To Be Multi-Zone, To Play The Same Audio On Different Speakers Round The House .

I’m a big fan of Sonos, thanks partly to the loaner Play:5 in my kitchen. I use it more than the attractive Marantz receiver and classic Tannoy speakers in my living room, not simply because it’s in a rather more central location, but as it gives access to much more music. My Sonos plays my music library from a networked hard disk, as well as Spotify, Pandora, and local and global radio stations. It’s truly a fantastic audio machine.

With the advent of the lower-end Play:3, it seems that Sonos is gradually moving down the market. Perhaps, I thought, the company is going to lower its prices more, so I could afford put a Sonos box of some form in my living room. Maybe, even, when it is time to upgrade my receiver, I can be able to get one with Sonos built in. I called Sonos founder Tom Cullen to ask when that’d be.

The answer wasn’t what I wanted, but it led straight to an engaging look at Sonos ‘ and home audio generally. In short , according to Cullen, “We do not accept receivers are long for this world.”

Cullen announces that audio receivers made sense “before the digital world,” when you needed a box for big amps and for swapping between a large amount of sources. As more entertainment comes over the Net, Cullen asserts, “We think the concept of switching between physical sources will be seen as old fashioned. Instead of putting Sonos into receivers, we are going to make receivers unnecessary.”

He adds, “We play in a market full of corporations that haven’t made meaningful changes to how they do sound in 20 years.”

This Sonos vision certainly sounds correct, as a vision. Right now, home audio (and video) users do have to cope with multiple hardware sources : DVD players, game machines, TV or cable or satellite signals, and the like. Granted, more of the content is going to the Web, to both remote cloud services like Spotify, Pandora, and Netflix, and to local network storage. But you cannot yet run a full entertainment system without having some way of jumping between physical signals in addition to your IP streams.

Cullen maintains that you continue to don’t need a receiver. The modern TV, he says, can do the job of source switching. And Sonos system can can take input from a TV’s output, for when that is required.

OK, I claimed, so maybe Sonos will get built into Televisions? Because I also need to upgrade my Television. Again, Cullen asserted the company is sticking to speakers (and one dear speakerless, ampless product for folk who aren’t prepared to throw away their receivers), and that it won’t do a software version for PC owners or TELEVISION vendors. The issue is sound QC. Sonos systems are designed to be multi-zone, to play the same audio on different speakers around the house. Doing that so it sounds excellent requires actual timing of the audio output so the sound waves don’t interfere with one another and muddle the sound. On non-Sonos hardware, the software cannot do that reliably, and Sonos does not want to risk lowering quality by making Sonos work, but only technically, on other platforms.

Maybe Sonos will make a soundbar product for Televisions? Cullen asserted that could be a possibility. (Although I don’t think that’s what Cullen meant when he said of the company, “The goal was always to be more horizontal.”) I think a soundbar product might be a real breakout for Sonos.

The company was started in 2002 with the belief that “traditional A / V brands were exposed to the digital transition.” Cullen claims the founders studied Bose, which also started by making high-end products back in 1964. “We saw an opening, we believed there was room for a new Bose.” At first, Sonos sold $1,200 systems over the phone. If it is a sign of how you can move a brand from the high-end to the mid market, Cullen points out that Bose is now making iPhone and iPod docks at costs similar to Sonos ‘ offerings. But he says the dock market is not long for this world. Music is moving off of dedicated MP3 players (iPods) and onto phones. “People won’t leave their iPhones in a dock.”

I admire Sonos for sticking to its vision over what was has turned into a long lifetime for a customer tech start-up. The Firm has never surrendered to flipping its top-end brand into immediate share of the market. Instead it’s purposefully and rather slowly moving into bigger markets, juggling its selling message and brand position while conscientiously riding the wave of the growth of networked audio, neither falling behind nor rushing too miles ahead of the curve. Sonos does have good technology but for what this company is doing, timing is crucial, writes tagza.com.
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