Best value sonos gear

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mpvincent

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#1408486 18-Oct-2015 06:25

dafman:
mpvincent: Thanks very much for all the advice. I went into Harvey Norman today and they had the lg system at half price which looked like a pretty good deal. The guy was saying it's was almost identical till the sonos but much much cheaper.

Anyone got the lg model?

Mike.

Hi Mike - do you really want to make a long term purchase decision based on a shop salesman's recommendation? Read the Guardian review I posted above, there's good reason why the LG are a lot cheaper than the Sonos.

Thanks. I have read through the review and I took from it that yes the sonos is the best however that was when the lg was costing around the same. There obviously becomes a point where the price of the lg is so cheap that it becomes a better proposition as value for money.

Lg sound bar plus sub plus 2 surrounds plus 1 mid size for another room is around $1700-2k vs sonos almost $4k.

Mike.

Handle9

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#1408490 18-Oct-2015 07:24

dafman:
mpvincent: Thanks very much for all the advice. I went into Harvey Norman today and they had the lg system at half price which looked like a pretty good deal. The guy was saying it's was almost identical till the sonos but much much cheaper.

Anyone got the lg model?

Mike.

Hi Mike - do you really want to make a long term purchase decision based on a shop salesman's recommendation? Read the Guardian review I posted above, there's good reason why the LG are a lot cheaper than the Sonos.

As an owner of the LG speakers I don't find that review particularly accurate. The sound isn't anything close to "AM" for what I am using it for its perfectly acceptable, who ch is consistent with what I found when I was trialling the system. It does what it does reasonably well and it works.

To the op, download the music flow app, and go and have a play in store and make up your own mind with your own media. I've found the h3, h5 and h7 to be fine. Occasionally I need to restart a speaker as it vanishes however 95% of the time it's fine and the multi room functionality works well.

I don't have the soundboard as I run a 5.1 setup in the lounge but for a good value solution it's not bad.

Dunnersfella

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#1408782 18-Oct-2015 19:34

CYaBro:
hyperman:
mpvincent: Thanks very much for all the advice. I went into Harvey Norman today and they had the lg system at half price which looked like a pretty good deal. The guy was saying it's was almost identical till the sonos but much much cheaper.

Anyone got the lg model?

Mike.

only one reason that the sales rep would be suggesting the LG ..they make more money!

The reason you don't see price differences on Sonos is because the margins are so razor thin.

Actually it's due to the nz distributor, playback, being very strict on who can sell Sonos and where.
They limit the resellers to mainly specialist audio installers and even jb hifi doesn't have all of the Sonos products available do they?
They don't discount the Sonos gear because they don't need to, you can't go down the road and buy from someone else because the prices will be the same.
Margins are pretty good actually.

I've NEVER heard anyone say that the margins are good... nowhere near as high as loud speakers, amplifiers, cables, AV furniture etc. Better than TV's, sure...
The margin is the same to everyone... so with mass market retailers, they have no margin available to the sales people as the companies rebate is included in the margin. Hence, the sales people have no room to move.
Going off the importers website, they sell to over 90 businesses (including JB's + HN), many of whom are sparkies / installers, so the chances for a cheeky deal are very real.
The key would be to let your fingers do the walking (phone + e-mail) to see who will cut the best deals to move some stock - it's business as usual there really.
You should get a Play 5 nice and cheap as the replacement should be here soon enough... unless the new one goes up in price, making the old one better value.

CYaBro

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#1408918 18-Oct-2015 22:59

Dunnersfella:
CYaBro:
hyperman:
mpvincent: Thanks very much for all the advice. I went into Harvey Norman today and they had the lg system at half price which looked like a pretty good deal. The guy was saying it's was almost identical till the sonos but much much cheaper.

Anyone got the lg model?

Mike.

only one reason that the sales rep would be suggesting the LG ..they make more money!

The reason you don't see price differences on Sonos is because the margins are so razor thin.

Actually it's due to the nz distributor, playback, being very strict on who can sell Sonos and where.
They limit the resellers to mainly specialist audio installers and even jb hifi doesn't have all of the Sonos products available do they?
They don't discount the Sonos gear because they don't need to, you can't go down the road and buy from someone else because the prices will be the same.
Margins are pretty good actually.

I've NEVER heard anyone say that the margins are good... nowhere near as high as loud speakers, amplifiers, cables, AV furniture etc. Better than TV's, sure...
The margin is the same to everyone... so with mass market retailers, they have no margin available to the sales people as the companies rebate is included in the margin. Hence, the sales people have no room to move.
Going off the importers website, they sell to over 90 businesses (including JB's + HN), many of whom are sparkies / installers, so the chances for a cheeky deal are very real.
The key would be to let your fingers do the walking (phone + e-mail) to see who will cut the best deals to move some stock - it's business as usual there really.
You should get a Play 5 nice and cheap as the replacement should be here soon enough... unless the new one goes up in price, making the old one better value.

Ok I guess things could have changed since I used to sell Sonos but I do still know someone that does and they make good margins. However they do sell a lot so get good discounts from the importer.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

MileHighKiwi

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#1448344 10-Dec-2015 19:17

I'm thinking of buying a Play 1 for Christmas, and adding another Play 1 at a later date. Did a test at a store recently and was impressed. $349 is the cheapest I've found but as others suggested, when I'm ready to buy I will phone a few places and see what they can offer.

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#1448462 11-Dec-2015 05:00

CYaBro:
Dunnersfella:
CYaBro:
hyperman:
mpvincent: Thanks very much for all the advice. I went into Harvey Norman today and they had the lg system at half price which looked like a pretty good deal. The guy was saying it's was almost identical till the sonos but much much cheaper.

Anyone got the lg model?

Mike.

only one reason that the sales rep would be suggesting the LG ..they make more money!

The reason you don't see price differences on Sonos is because the margins are so razor thin.

Actually it's due to the nz distributor, playback, being very strict on who can sell Sonos and where.
They limit the resellers to mainly specialist audio installers and even jb hifi doesn't have all of the Sonos products available do they?
They don't discount the Sonos gear because they don't need to, you can't go down the road and buy from someone else because the prices will be the same.
Margins are pretty good actually.

I've NEVER heard anyone say that the margins are good... nowhere near as high as loud speakers, amplifiers, cables, AV furniture etc. Better than TV's, sure...
The margin is the same to everyone... so with mass market retailers, they have no margin available to the sales people as the companies rebate is included in the margin. Hence, the sales people have no room to move.
Going off the importers website, they sell to over 90 businesses (including JB's + HN), many of whom are sparkies / installers, so the chances for a cheeky deal are very real.
The key would be to let your fingers do the walking (phone + e-mail) to see who will cut the best deals to move some stock - it's business as usual there really.
You should get a Play 5 nice and cheap as the replacement should be here soon enough... unless the new one goes up in price, making the old one better value.

Ok I guess things could have changed since I used to sell Sonos but I do still know someone that does and they make good margins. However they do sell a lot so get good discounts from the importer.

I'm not sure what constitutes a 'good' margin and there's comparisons/relativities in margins for different product categories being mentioned here - but no numbers.

A couple of months ago I helped some friends choose Sonos gear for two rooms. They were able to buy it through a family member who has a business in the AV industry - not a Sonos supplier but with 'connections'. They got their gear for about 25% off the RRP. I thought that was an exceptional discount given that it's usually extremely difficult to get more than a something like 3-5% off at any Sonos retailers.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

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richms

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#1448864 11-Dec-2015 19:34

I finally got around to trying some sonos configured as a stereo pair, and while the sync was better than the LG by quite a bit, it was still not capable of imaging the audio between them. Still sounded like a horrid surround mode on an old home theater trying to make mono stuff sound better.

The LG's work great as multiroom where the 50+ ms difference in the sound doesnt matter, but forget their idea of using one as a left and one as a right. I imagine that it would be about as bad using them as rears off the soundbar but have yet to try one. JB will match the last lot of prices that harvey norman sold them for.

Sonos mesh network is 2.4GHz, when I last tried a couple of them around the house (when you needed the overpriced bridge) they turned to crap when microwaving or the wifi was under heavy use. So back they went. The LG's mesh can be on either band, so its faultless playback in the kitchen where the sonos was glitching when cooking. Strange because bluetooth from the PC above the microwave is reasonably uneffected when cooking.

The only thing missing from their range is a player to play on a proper stereo system, I have a chromecast audio which does that tollerably but has all the flakeyness of casting vs spotifys native remote playback. I was trying rdio on it which worked about 25% of the time, but that's a dead duck now, Pandora and spotify cast ok to the chromecast. Till the phone swaps from wifi to 3G and back again.

Richard rich.ms

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#1448869 11-Dec-2015 19:42

dafman: Published today. The Guardian on WiFi speakers, including Sonos and LG music flow

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/12/tried-tested-wi-fi-speakers?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech

"Guardian Pick

"The most misleading thing about Sonos is the hi-fi tag. Sonos is not hi-fi, it's just a very clever audio system. The speakers are average both in build and in sound quality so if you are looking for a critical sound quality they really don't stack up to much but that isn't really their point. For most people sound quality is much less important than lifestyle ease of use and how they fit into your general life. ..."

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billgates

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#1448871 11-Dec-2015 20:00

I will be looking at Chromecast audio. It's cheap and now does multi room audio and you can use your own speakers. Pair speakers with decent amps like Crown and it's a solid system. The only thing missing from Chromecast audio right now is that you can't play your own collection of music. It only works with certain music apps and there are not a lot of them to choose from.

Do whatever you want to do man.

kiwifidget

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#1458891 30-Dec-2015 09:46

billgates: The only thing missing from Chromecast audio right now is that you can't play your own collection of music. It only works with certain music apps and there are not a lot of them to choose from.

Oh crap, I wish I read this 2 days ago. I just bought one to play my own mp3's on a network share. Totally not interested in playing music over the internet.
Back in the box it goes.

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