• I have Sonos all over the house and have yet to need to ‘refresh’ a single unit

    But they really really want to make you do so: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sonos-speaker-legacy-software-update

    They only relented because of the massive outrage, but you know they will be doing this very slowly over time.

    HiFi should last decades, there's nothing in modern smart systems or streamers that has proven longevity yet. The closest anything came to longevity is the Squeezebox which at least lasted 11 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_player) and for a full solution that's pretty good. Chromecast is coming close at 9y old, but there's not been any meaningful improvement or new products on the audio side and there are no more updates.

    Sonos has already indicated that they want to no longer support old things. My issue with Bluesound is that by jumping very far into connected network streamer all-in-one speakers they've put themselves on the Sonos path... but like Sonos, they don't actually own all the things they connect to: Roon, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, MQA, Plex, etc, etc. So they can't actually make any long term promises.

    Plus, where are their incentives? It's not for software support unless they get you to pay a subscription, it's in hardware sales. The incentives are not aligned in your favour here.

    I'd rather pay to get the software support, i.e. Roon stands out. But the Roon reviews are awful, I'm not sure anyone truly loves it (someone on here will say they do!). Plex software is good, the reviews are all awesome, and I love it too, I'm just lacking a bit of hardware to play it on.

  • Plex is good but some of their recent stuff (providing their own streaming channels, getting rid of the home theater software, which got reversed, Discover, etc) do make me wonder about the direction they want to take

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