• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Friend got a quote for Sonos Install

Tim 700

Tim 700

Active Member
He's got new construction, the perfect time to run lots of beautiful speaker wire IMHO.

He's bringing in a professional going all Sonos except for two ceiling speakers.

Sons Ark Dolby Atmos Soundbar
Sonos Amp 125 watt per chan amp with tV audio abilities
Sonos Sub Gen 3

A couple other things in there like T.V. brackets etc. approx. $5,500

He's asking my opinion and I don't know anything about Sonos, I do my own home install and firmly believe in wiring all speakers and running everything through an AV Receiver like a fat Marantz SR8015

Can this great community help describe Sonos and if it's a good way to go?

I know there are lots of threads, thanks for you patience with a new one.
 
Last edited:
Register to hide this ad
My sister tried the Sonos system but had trouble getting the Sonos to work with her brand new TV. She really wanted to love it but in the end it was too frustrating trying to get it to work right . She said it sounded amazing at the store . Also very expensive.
 
billyz said:
My sister tried the Sonos system but had trouble getting the Sonos to work with her brand new TV. She really wanted to love it but in the end it was too frustrating trying to get it to work right . She said it sounded amazing at the store . Also very expensive.
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
Considering the availability of wire raceway, I have no idea why people always seem to latch on to stuff like Sonos. Every part of it needs a power cable regardless. You can run the raceway anywhere, and it can painted to match the wall color.
 
Nixxuz said:
Considering the availability of wire raceway, I have no idea why people always seem to latch on to stuff like Sonos. Every part of it needs a power cable regardless. You can run the raceway anywhere, and it can painted to match the wall color.
Click to expand...
You can but running raceway everywhere is not the proper way to run wires. To me, painted raceway looks only slightly better than exposed wires.
 
That seems like a lot of money for basically no work. You can buy all of those components and hook themselves up yourself for far less than $5,500. The only thing needed in the new build are the ceiling speakers and the contractor can do that probably for free. Other than the cost, Sonos is good quality, works well, and generally sounds pretty good for an AV system.
 
I used to be a Sonos dealer for years so I can give some insights. There must be other items, other than a TV bracket (and mounting service) on the estimate, to get us to $5500. The Sonos components listed would total $2350+tax.

For the layman, the allure of Sonos is that it is very easy to operate, and that is what people want. They do not want technical jargon, constant technical issues, gobs of wires, etc. They want to open the Sonos app on their phone, touch a couple buttons and have music playing throughout the house. In addition to that, Sonos is a modular architecture so he may start out with 1 or 2 rooms of audio now, but then a year from now, he can add another room or more by plugging in his new Sonos components into a 110v outlet, let the app guide him through adding it into the system and within 15 minutes, he's up and running.

With the conventional way of running wires everywhere, installing a 12-16 channel amp, some sort of controller (such as Elan, Control4, Savant, etc), source components, etc. with lots of tech and heavy gear involved, and then being stuck with the initial wiring infrastructure, it gives non-techy people hives just thinking about cutting holes in drywall, running wires, paying boatloads more money all for a system they can barely use due to the installer not setting up the control system in an easy-to-use manner.

Sonos does work if deployed properly and is reliable. It isn't cheap and the margins aren't that great for dealers, but it sells itself due to its ease-of-use and good performance.
 
dcgibby said:
That seems like a lot of money for basically no work. You can buy all of those components and hook themselves up yourself for far less than $5,500.
Click to expand...
Sounds like his quote involved hanging tv’s as
kwkshift said:
I used to be a Sonos dealer for years so I can give some insights. There must be other items, other than a TV bracket (and mounting service) on the estimate, to get us to $5500. The Sonos components listed would total $2350+tax.

For the layman, the allure of Sonos is that it is very easy to operate, and that is what people want. They do not want technical jargon, constant technical issues, gobs of wires, etc. They want to open the Sonos app on their phone, touch a couple buttons and have music playing throughout the house. In addition to that, Sonos is a modular architecture so he may start out with 1 or 2 rooms of audio now, but then a year from now, he can add another room or more by plugging in his new Sonos components into a 110v outlet, let the app guide him through adding it into the system and within 15 minutes, he's up and running.

With the conventional way of running wires everywhere, installing a 12-16 channel amp, some sort of controller (such as Elan, Control4, Savant, etc), source components, etc. with lots of tech and heavy gear involved, and then being stuck with the initial wiring infrastructure, it gives non-techy people hives just thinking about cutting holes in drywall, running wires, paying boatloads more money all for a system they can barely use due to the installer not setting up the control system in an easy-to-use manner.

Sonos does work if deployed properly and is reliable. It isn't cheap and the margins aren't that great for dealers, but it sells itself due to its ease-of-use and good performance.
Click to expand...
Ive owned a wiring business for 20yrs and don’t really agree with most of that. For starters, $2350 worth of material could easily come to $5,500 after markup and labor since it’s sounds like there is more than one tv to hang. Also the majority of home systems DO use wires, the large majority of them so saying people don’t want “gobs of wires” might be accurate but it doesn’t change the fact that most system have just that, gobs of wire.
 
I know that $2350 could become $5500, but we need to know what else was included in the estimate. That info wasn't provided. Or did I miss it somewhere? We don't know the labor rate, if there was additional markup over retail on the Sonos gear, price of the ceiling speakers, (are they Episodes or are they James Loudspeakers, something in-between?), tax rate, etc. We would need more information to give an opinion on the total price of the scope of work.

For a new home especially, feel free to find me a wife that wants or even doesn't mind seeing wires, stacks of black boxes and a dizzying interface that isn't a simple app on the phone that's glued to her and the families hands. I used to do this for many years myself and one of the keys to the success of Sonos is just that it is easy to use for the whole family, doesn't require lots of boxes and wires, as those are kept to a minimum with their design and provides good performance for the average person.
 
Sonos is probably the way to go if someone is intent on having upgraded sound from the 10 TVs they simply must have in their home. The tradeoff of course is you won't experience the best in 2 channel stereo audio but Im sure most people would find it acceptable.

I just dont need surround sound AV stuff. There are 4 LED flat panel TVs in my home (3 too many if you ask me) and only one has a soundbase on it. The others just have the crappy stock spkrs but I can hear just fine.

Your friend can always set up a dedicated listening room down the line if he wishes but he may not care. He may be perfectly content with Sonos theough the whole house. Let him get yhe $5K Sonos package and throw it into the mortgage. He'll never see it and he'll probably enjoy it.
 
I like wired, especially in new construction. Newer Denon receivers have Heos (similar to Sonos). It seems that the best setup would be conventional wired speakers to the receiver wherever one knows speakers will be installed. One can then use Heos for the rest later. I really don't see the benefit of having Sonos for an HT setup. A friend has such a setup, and it sounds pretty good, but my wired 7.1 system with SVS subwoofer blows it away and still provides two additional zones for cheaper. A remote control with macros makes it all easy to control. Even using things like Echo Links would give a similar ease of access, if one is ok with using Alexa.
 
kwkshift said:
I know that $2350 could become $5500, but we need to know what else was included in the estimate. That info wasn't provided. Or did I miss it somewhere? We don't know the labor rate, if there was additional markup over retail on the Sonos gear, price of the ceiling speakers, (are they Episodes or are they James Loudspeakers, something in-between?), tax rate, etc. We would need more information to give an opinion on the total price of the scope of work.

For a new home especially, feel free to find me a wife that wants or even doesn't mind seeing wires, stacks of black boxes and a dizzying interface that isn't a simple app on the phone that's glued to her and the families hands. I used to do this for many years myself and one of the keys to the success of Sonos is just that it is easy to use for the whole family, doesn't require lots of boxes and wires, as those are kept to a minimum with their design and provides good performance for the average person.
Click to expand...
There are literally hundreds of thousands of house that are wired for home audio, and hundreds of thousands being built with wires. For a new home, feel free to show me a house with exposed wires. If you have e exposed wires then you paid the wrong guy. Are you under the assumption that most homes have wireless audio? Because the don’t, not even close. Eventually it will be, but as of now it’s not even close. Also tell me how you hide the big power cord that all these speakers need.
 
The big power cord? It's not a 10/3, it's just a tiny 18/2. :rolleyes:

I'm well aware that no audio is truly wireless. Like I stated in my first post, I was a Sonos dealer for years, offering their products alongside hard-wired centralized systems from just about every manufacturer; Elan, Savant, Control4, Russound, etc.

Is Sonos better than hardwired, centralized systems? Maybe, maybe not. Is it better for the end-user? That's up to them. But audio performance is just one facet of the equation for end-users these days, along with convenience, cost, aesthetics, ease-of-use and reliability. If those weren't real world concerns for millions of users, then Sonos, MusicCast and Heos wouldn't exist. However, in that space, Sonos is the big player and the biggest reason has been their App. It just works and users enjoy that, albeit at the expense of better fidelity that may be offered by more complicated systems that users deem unnecessary in their own minds.
 
I don`t have any experience with wireless audio distribution, but I have nothing but complete and total SQ satisfaction and signal reliability since having my house`s 5 rooms hard wired using Cat 6+ (Belden Media Twist and passive baluns to convert the balanced Cat cable to RCA connectors at each end point which has their own stereos since 2009.
One of the best totally trouble free investments in HQ home audio distribution I`ve ever made.

And 4 separate type video signal s Cat. 6 +/balun feeds to the 5 room`s flat screen TVs, as well.

No ground loop hum, interference, or electrical noises due to the isolation from the baluns, and all stereo systems output sound are in perfect sync with each other within small split seconds ( acoustical delay, primarily when in the right place from multiple systems playing) of any other playing.

No drift, dropouts, or interference, just consistent HQ sound or video (original source recorded quality dependent) .

FWIW, just my over decade of experience.
 
Strictly none of my business what other people do. I'm old, and little AV experience.
Seems like quite a commitment that Sonos is going to be around and compatable components are going to be available and supported in future. What's the life cycle of this company or its technology? Tech Companies do go belly up in a hurry.
Just me, to spend $5500, I'd want a plan B system that could run off the wiring infrastructure I have installed in a new house.
But I'm not building a new house at my age. And Sonos may out live me, and the owner of that new house. That may be pocket change to that owner.
 
Sonos just doesn’t offer stand-alone speakers. They also offer an amplifier and another device called the Port. The Port allows Sonos to integrate with legacy systems such as a turntable, stereo receiver/ integrated amp, etc. The previous generations were called “Connects” and had similar connectivity flexibility.

So if you have Sonos throughout a home, you can connect a turntable in one room and share that music to all the other rooms simultaneously, with no lag. Pretty cool.

Sonos essentially owns the space and they have been around the longest. I doubt they are going anywhere anytime soon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom