Sonos Beam?

[Bruce Page]

I would like to upgrade the TV sound without going through my audio receiver’s A/V system. Can anyone comment on the sound quality? Amazon has it at $50 off right now through Feb. 3rd but it is still a good chunk of change. The reviews on it are pretty good but I’d like to hear from some hands on users.
My TV does not have the HDMI ARC feature, I would have to run it through the Optical out.

All opinions appreciated.

[Jim Becker]

I'm not familiar with the Sonos product, but I do have a Samsung soundbar with a sub on our master bedroom Samsung TV and it's been a pleasure. It replaced a very old 5.1 Sony system and "just works". I do use the optical input even though I do have ARC because I also feed an Apple TV into the Samsung TV and using optical worked out better for ease of use for some reason. These soundbar products...with or without a separate sub...have pretty darn good sound these days.

[Peter Kelly]

Sonos products sound decent but they're just a complete garbage company unfortunately. The mantra is either accept our ever-evolving TOS or we'll disable our product (that you paid for).

Sonos wants to reserve their "right" to listen in on your conversations and collect data or they'll hold your system hostage until you either agree or throw everything out. Same old Silicon Valley arrogance.

[Gary Ragatz]

Sonos products sound decent but they're just a complete garbage company unfortunately. The mantra is either accept our ever-evolving TOS or we'll disable our product (that you paid for).

Sonos wants to reserve their "right" to listen in on your conversations and collect data or they'll hold your system hostage until you either agree or throw everything out. Same old Silicon Valley arrogance.

I have the Sonos Play:1 speakers (2 in one large room and 1 in another, smaller room). I'm not an "audiophile," but I've been very happy with the sound quality - I use them primarily to stream satellite radio over my wifi.

Regarding updates to the controller app, I agree with Peter. For quite some time, it seemed like there was a weekly update and, if I ignored it for a couple of weeks, I would lose access to my speakers until I ran the update. None of the updates fixed any bugs I was aware of, and none added any features that I'm aware of. They did change the look of the interface a couple of times, which was a pain.

My speakers don't have microphones in them, so at least they're not listening in (if they had been, they'd have gotten an earful about their updates!)

[Peter Kelly]

The scam is that accepting the "updates" often includes agreeing to certain TOS changes regarding privacy. Even though the Play 1 speakers don't have built in mics certain types of usage data–listening habits, IP location, user ID are either collected by Sonos by default or there isn't any way of opting out.

The above-mentioned Beam system comes with multiple mics built in.

Also, why does Sonos need access to my phone's physical location and Siri data?


https://i.imgur.com/gDriorN.jpg

[Bruce Page]

Sonos products sound decent but they're just a complete garbage company unfortunately. The mantra is either accept our ever-evolving TOS or we'll disable our product (that you paid for).

Sonos wants to reserve their "right" to listen in on your conversations and collect data or they'll hold your system hostage until you either agree or throw everything out. Same old Silicon Valley arrogance.

Thanks, I guess I will pass. If I purchase something I want full control over it, the Big Brother aspect is not something that is acceptable to me.
The frequent ios updates on my phone are enough to make me long for the simple land line days..

[Jim Becker]

Bruce, there are lots of alternative choices that are "worthy" for your application...

[Bruce Page]

Thanks, I'm looking at them now.