Bringing an old thread back... After thinking about it for years, and being pushed a little by a co-worker who has a full house setup and loves it, I purchased a Bridge and Connect a few months ago with the idea of ripping all my CDs to play over the network. I have a few hundred, nowhere near as many as some here and a fraction of all the LPs I used to have, but it was still a chore! I used dBpoweramp to rip to FLAC. It didn't get all the track titles right, but handled the majority, and I'll fix the rest as I find them. I finally finished a few weeks ago and got around to hooking up the Sonos system last weekend. I am using the Connect's audio outputs though plan to use the digital output after I switch receivers (had the new one a few weeks, just no time to put it in).
Not really using anything like this before, I found the interface a bit quirky but very easy to use. I had no problem getting the Bridge to work and then adding the Connect was really easy. I had nightmares about fighting network issues for days/weeks trying to get everything to work but it was literally a few minutes. While I bought a wireless media adapter to hook up the new receiver, I stuck with the Sonos mesh network for the Connect (figured it was easier and safer to let it use its own network). It was easy to map my music library (ripped to my notebook then synched to a WD MyCloud NAS; I have a Synology RAID NAS and drives in boxes that will take over, eventually) and after years of my wife telling me how great Pandora was I finally tried it (and it is pretty nice). One goal accomplished: very easy to set up and get playing!
The sound is OK, at least to me. I have not listened long enough or hardly at all the past few months so have lost much of my basis for comparison (my Oppo broke down last fall and I haven't gotten it repaired yet). I was disappointed to read Sonos only supports 16-bit but not a killer since I have very little hi-res stuff anyway. My goals were good sound with ease-of-use since a large part of why I have not been listening to my CD collection is that, with so little time to listen, it was a hassle if I wanted to listen to say five different Maynard Ferguson
songs from different albums. I used to listen to an album at a time, but anymore I tend to have a few songs in mind, often different artists and CDs, and getting up to swap CDs every few minutes just wasn't worth the effort when I was often working at the same time or only had an hour in the evening to listen. A world-wide customer base and 24/7 connectivity may be a great thing for employers, and customers appreciate the support for their time zone, but it is a lot of work for employees. Last week I picked up a 2-pack of Play 1's, one for my office and one for the family room where my wife lives, and was surprised at how good they sound for a little speaker. Would not likely ever be a primary speaker, but for casual listening and background music they are really good, and my wife likes the sound (still have to introduce her to the UI).
The speakers ("players" in Sonos-speak, which is actually more accurate) are a bit pricey, but they do include amplifiers and a network interface, so aren't really out of line if you add up the pieces and supporting technology. I have read mixed reviews about Sonos support but they were good to me before and after the sale. And the sound from the little Play 1's is better than I expected. Maggies they ain't, but they aren't bad! I kow Sonos has been compared to Bose but my very limited exposure to both has me thinking the Sonos players sound better than say the Bose Cubes. As for price, I think the various Wave players are pretty expensive for what they offer.
I plan to get a Play 5 for our basement game room for when we or the kids are down there playing pool or whatever. Unfortunately the Play 5 is the only player with a line input for the kid's iPods and such (really wish Sonos would add that to the cheaper speakers!) We had the house pre-wired for speakers but never followed through, and after ~20 years the guy who wired it is long gone and we have no hope of tracking down the wires, so Sonos is replacing that system. Bottom line is I am happy with it and wishing I had done it years ago. Would've also been fewer CDs to rip...
FWIWFM - Don