Not the Sounds of Silence (A Sonos Review)

There are many wireless speaker systems out there. The most recent ones that have been gaining popularity are the Amazon Echo and Google Home systems. These are a new breed of smart speakers that offer more than just music playback. But that's for another blog entry. Today will be for a more traditional wireless audio system, the Sonos. Specifically, the Play 1.

Sonos has been around for quite a while. And their product lineup hasn't really changed much. It offers less functionality than smart speakers, but the multi-room capabilities and the simplicity of the app are what really make it shine. Their app came at the heels of people playing music locally (stored on your computer or local hard drive) mostly through iTunes. But now that streaming services are more popular, smart speakers have become the weapon of choice for most people. Why should you still pick Sonos over the others? Two main reasons. Simplicity and Multi-Room capabilities. Sonos isn't the only one with this capability. Bose would be the closest match, but I didn't like their app interface. Then there's Google Chromecast Audio which can do something similar but not quite and still relies on streaming services.

Playing music in separate rooms isn't a simple task. Wiring up your home to a central amp and music server takes time, planning, and a lot of work. Doing it the wireless way isn't that simple either. Synchronizing playback and centralizing your source isn't for the average user either.

Sonos does this quite simply and elegantly. My main consideration for the Sonos was "How easy would it be for anyone in my home to access my music and playback what they want". I needed something that could easily access my local music library as well as streaming services. Something that wouldn't be crippled if my internet connection went down (this is always a consideration of any tech I invest in). No other system offered ease of use like Sonos did.

And for those that actually care about sound quality, Sonos sounds great. Disclaimer on my statement, it is NOT meant to be a listening room system. It is also not meant to be the solution for just a single room (there are others that can fulfill that need at a lower price point). It is meant for whole house, multi-room music. And it does that job extremely well. Even against larger more traditional systems, the Sonos Play 1 can hold its own. It's very easy to conceal, and it's also moisture-proof if you want music in your bathroom!

Sonos is supposedly working with Amazon to integrate Alexa into their control UI, that would be an excellent combination and one that would bring Sonos back up to the front of the smart speaker pack. But even without it, Sonos is still one of the better multi-room systems available today. The ease of use and audio quality make it perfect for anyone in the home to enjoy great sound. It also helps that they have a wide array of products to suit your specific needs. From the easy to conceal Play1, to the Sound bar and wireless subwoofer for decent movie audio, Sonos is a great product family all around.

iTunes is smart, but it's no genius

Time for a hymn?  Today's Tech Gospel is about a feature in iTunes that not many people take full advantage of.  The Smart Playlist.  I don't know about most of you, but I think the "Genius" feature in iTunes feels more like a retarded monkey clicking away at my playlist with bizarre song choices.  It works most of the time, but every now and then, it feels like the DJ fell asleep at the booth.

I prefer having a little more control over my playlists, but I'm personally too lazy to always change songs.  I do like hearing songs I haven't played in a while, but I also have a set of favorites that I always like listening to.  So what's the balance between manually selecting songs, your favorite few, random (aka genius), and adding new songs?

Smart Playlists

This isn't a new feature of iTunes, but one that is often overlooked.  It's much simpler to just drag a song into a new playlist or create a new one with songs you already like.  That's fine if you only have a few songs.  Once your library passes 500, it kinda gets messy.

A Smart Playlist is a playlist that can sort songs given certain rules that you define.  For example, I have master playlists of each genre that I like, Alternative, Rock, Metal, etc.  But Christmas songs that also fall under these genres are NOT included in these master lists since I want those under just one Christmas folder.

Songs can be cross posted under different SPs as well, like if a song is classified as both classical and instrumental, it can be sorted into two SPs.  A classical and an instrumental one.  The Instrumental SP may contain other genres as well, not just classical music.

You can also create a SP that sorts all songs recently played, or most often played.

Favorites:
for each genre
or artist.

Most often played
or least often played.

Latest added (this is a default Smart Playlist in iTunes)

Or almost anything else that you prefer.

And even if the older iPod Shuffles can't handle playlists, that doesn't mean they can't benefit from Smart Playlists.  I have a Smart Playlist just for my 2nd gen Shuffle.  It automatically loads 1GB worth of songs, distributed in 100MB per genre.

It takes a while to define the rules.  You can have more than one, and sub-rules for every main rule.  For example you can tell a Smart Playlist to include all songs by John Mayer that you recently played, but not from his Room For Squares album.  Then limit it to the last 100 songs that fit that description.

The advantage of Smart Playlists vs regular ones is that with the right set of rules, you don't have to keep making new playlists.  They constantly change, update, rearrange, add and remove based on what you tell it are your listening habits.  Not a 'best guess' effort.