The Death of Corporate Hifi starring SONOS!

Sonos is bleeding and other corporate hifi companies struggle. Is this the end? Hopefully Not

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[vincentpedalino]

Its not my job to keep Sonos, Klipsch, etc in business. It's their job to keep me as a customer. We need to somehow get back to that work ethic. Your end comments are spot on Randy. Probably your best video yet!!

[welderfixer]

The Klipsch employees should be allowed to take over and be a respected loudspeaker manufacturer again.

[kermita]

I'm a 20 year Sonos user (first system in 2004). The app was rushed and is confusing to use.
5 Years ago, they rolled out an update that bricked 7 of my 20 units. To this day, I feel betrayed. I don't see any performance improvoements in the newer units, and it makes me ill every time I add a new unit to my system.

I don't wish death on the Sonos ecosystem, but the Sonos company is tough to love.

[mrdavisdrummer]

Man, I liked this video. Sometimes it’s cool to take a peek behind the curtains to get an understanding of some of the other non-audio related issues that impact the production of the audio gear.

[fubartotale]

What?! Sonos is going under? OH NO! I'm not sure if I can go on!
second thought, I'll be fine...

[erics.]

I like that you called out Cambridge Audio for doing things right in this landscape. I like the company, and you should all put ears on their Edge flagship. It is really good stuff.

[markwalsh]

Get ready with your TLDR. Sonos really messed up, but Sonos is pretty damn cool at the same time. I have 11 rooms, including bathrooms, my garage, and the laundry room on my sonos system, as well as additional soundbars and surrounds for tv's. I have Klipsch fives, Klipsch RP600M, B&W AM1's, and Ikea symfonisk speakers as part of the system. I can play all of the rooms with the same source, or each separately. some rooms have a single speaker, some have paired speakers, and two rooms have full surround systems. Sonos isn't audiophile, but they do sound good. Some rooms just don't need a pair of speakers, and Sonos gives you big sound with a single five or Era 300 with only a power cord needed. My B&W AM1's sound great on the patio with the Sonos amp. It's mostly a bunch of bricks if they go out of business and cannot support the servers to run the app. The release of speakers using the new Mayht technology should rebound them, but we will have to wait and see. Mayht technology sounds great on paper, and I can't wait to see what Sonos does with it. I have had complete McIntosh systems and components and speakers from Mark Levinson, Threshold, Krell, B&W, B&O, and many more. I've had other whole house setups. My whole Sonos system cost less than my Mark Levinson amp and pre-amp cost me. Even when I had the best audiophile systems I could afford, I still had speakers throughout the house for ambient sound everywhere.

[mississippirsol]

The problem in today's financial environment is that companies are being gobbled up by hedge funds that haven't a clue about running a business but buy them up to make a quick buck and then trash the company, taking the money and running. I'm afraid the small boutique audio companies don't have the capital to buy the brands you mentioned. They barely have the funds to keep their own brand afloat. I wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

[miseyrides]

You absolutely nailed it on what happens at publicly traded companies. I lived that for years and it became laughable. I once told my “new” CIO that I’ll outlive him at the company since he was just following his “good old boy club”! He lasted about 2 years and then we got the next group of worthless managers.

I’m glad to be retired from that horrible rat race!

Great video!!!

[richbulena]

I wasn't expecting a Prof G Podcast video from you, but it was a great summary of American corporate culture. "A whole lot of soccer, " hah, I've seen that too many times.

[lelandclayton]

I'm a AV Integrator by trade and I have seen and felt the drop in Hifi. The company I work has a few contracts with home builders and home buyers during the design phase come in and we sale them audio, ethernet, cameras and so on. Before covid we were selling a 5.1 or 7.1 system to almost everyone that bought a home. Had homes where people bought two systems, one for the livingroom and one for a bonus room for a "Man cave". Since 2023 I think we sell an audio system every ten houses. It has dropped big time. If I go deploy a camera system after a customer closed on their home all I see are cheap Samsung soundbars.

[mattmiller]

Sonos. My favorite palindrome.

To be fair they work great as network speakers for smart homes. Easy to automate and push text to speech notifications based on events. Or music automation. People put NFCs in CD cases and use their phone to read them and play albums.

All kinds of audio fun.
I hope there are some good deals, because you don't really need the app for some use cases.

[donjuego]

Stock price drop wipes out "market value, " not "market share."

[jnees]

I have found that without a fully functioning app the hardware is next to useless. The app shouldn’t be a challenge, but somehow it still is in 2024. I updated most of my Sonos equipment last year and in hindsight, wish I hadn’t. I have dug out my HomePods (Gen 2) from storage and am now enjoying a seamless integrated experience. I love the handoff feature from my iPhone to my HomePod, and there are many other features that Sonos can’t match. I loved Sonos, but now I’m disappointed that a prestigious brand can sink so low. Come on, SONOS, get back on track. The longer this issue goes unresolved, the more customers you'll lose.

[atomicinv]

Best ever 11:54 description of the corporate world in about 90 seconds

[fredjoel]

Exactly! Excellent analysis. Spent much of my career in the corporate world as well as an entrepreneur, part of which was in consumer electronics focused on audio. Storied brand RCA was quite the organization decades ago, not so much recently. Certainly being passionate about products and taking care of customers are key success factors. Would be interesting to explore the Harmon group of companies since the Samsung acquisition.

[mediataal]

Sonos was allready in big problems years ago. They called there speakers obsolete en asked us costumers to destroy their speakers in order to get a discount on new speakers. Since then I decided to NEVER buy sonos or other ‘all in’ boxes. So they blowed up their own market.

[cletusrobinson]

We have Sonos in 4 different rooms and we love it. It’s good enough for us in providing easy to manage choices, even for the grand kids!

[gregbartley]

I know someone who works at a big box electronics store. He tells me people (for the most part) want the biggest, not best, tv they can get a most of them don’t care about sound at all. Some will do a sound bar but almost nobody will even consider a traditional surround sound system.

[charlesengelberg]

My home is filled with Sonos speakers and a soundbar. The new app is the worst piece of S**t I've ever had to use. I still can't use the app on my phone. I can only use the web version. If there was another companies software I could switch to I would. I'm done with them.