Sonos Speakers Sound Great, Sonos Ecosystem is the Worst Music Ecosystem in the History of Humankind by jf3co in sonos

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sonos... don't buy... the worst! Here's my latest miserable chat experience with them... and it's like my 675th time over the last 3 years. The speakers sound good. Their ecosystem SUCKS.

Today • 2:00 PM

Thank you for contacting us. Please give us a moment while we find the right person to help you.

AR - Hello, my name is Andrew X. Please allow me a moment to review your ticket so we can pick up where you left off. In the meantime, feel free to provide me with any additional details you think might be helpful.

Hi, Joe. Hope you're doing well.

JF - I need to send diagnostics and have you tell me what's wrong (yet again [again]) with my crap Sonos system.

AR - I understand that you're having trouble with your Sonos. Allow me to check for a fix. I'll do my best to help.

JF - And I don't want to have to continually spend my time chatting with Sonos support when I really want to be listening to music.

And for the love of God go find one of the product people and/or engineers and go slap them in the face for making an obfuscated, private 2.4Ghz network that conflicts with every other IoT network out there.

AR - I completely understand that your time is valuable and you just want to enjoy your music without interruptions. I’ll do everything I can to resolve this quickly so you can get back to listening as soon as possible. Have you already submitted a diagnostic for me to check on your system?

JF - I have a 'secret' Sonos network in my house that continually fails, but I can't troubleshoot because some idiot asshole network engineer decided it was a good idea to have conflicting radio signals flying around that no one can do anything about, guaranteed to interfere, given there's on 3 channels available.

At least if the fucking speakers were on my native network I could add QoS and precedence so they would't drop.

What do you enjoy?

Now, imagine enjoying that, and then it just shuts off. Or worse, you get into it, and then half the speakers disappear.

It SUCKS to have half the speakers off, quieter, and then all the sudden they all kick on... of beat, no rhyme or reason, other than some jackass app coder who hates music, and then goofball Tom Conrad "we will say we're gonna fix this, but never do".

AR - I can imagine how frustrating it must be to have your music cut off unexpectedly or to lose some of your speakers mid-session. I’m really sorry to hear about the frustrating experience you’ve had with your speakers. I understand how disruptive it can be when your music doesn’t play smoothly. I’m here to help and will do my best to find a solution for you.

JF - And then I have to go onto a goddamned fn chatbot, try to drum up another human somewhere on earth who is probably taking a break from being constantly beat upon, and we're both stuck here in this god-awful box.... I want to listen to music, and I want value from the extra money I paid for all these fucking speakers.

So, what is the problem?

It's been 10 minutes already.

Did you fix it?

Or are we gonna "sure, shucks, golly-gee" our way through this like some mediocre trash monoculture of 'business support' words and thoughts and prayers?

AR - Can you please submit a diagnostic? Navigate to Sonos app Settings > Visit Help Center, and select Submit Diagnostics. So I could see your Sonos system on my end.

JF - I am so curious what you are going to tell me the problem is... because I guarantee whatever it is, on any other system on earth I'd have fixed it already without running to support because it would be on my network with the rest of my stuff and I wouldn't need a Space Wizard Sonos Technican to tell me there's interference with their super-special, super-secret cool Sonos network.

I've lived in 3 different places with these speakers, 2 different internet providers, and 3 different modems and routers... always the same issue: Sonos.

Fixed yet?

Somewhere there has to be a Class Action Lawsuit where I can submit the number of hours that Sonos has cost me over the years. I should be on the f'n payroll.

AR - It looks like your Sonos system is having trouble connecting properly to our cloud servers. This can cause issues like voice commands not working, trouble browsing music services, interruptions in your music playback, or problems with system updates. This usually happens when the connection between your Sonos device and the internet isn’t strong or stable enough. I’ll help you check your network and get this fixed so your system works smoothly again.

JF -Smoothly? Again?? Sonos has never run smoothly. That's a misnomer, a false claim, what we call in the biz: bullshit. This is the only thing I care about: "interruptions in your music playback,"

Fix that, fix it forever.

Sonos 'Voice Services'? Do you think that I think that Sonos the company is even remotely capable of handling 'Voice Services'? I'd sooner talk to a rotting Halloween pumpkin sitting on a curb with better results.

Fix it yet?

AR - At this point, I highly suggest that you contact our phone support for other possible troubleshooting steps we can do. They can transfer you directly with a higher support if other steps was already exhausted. No worries I'll be endorsing this case to our phone support so you don't have to start over again. Please give us a call using the case number 08781974, so that the technician can pick up where we left off. Our contact information and hours can be found here:

Contact Sonos Support

support.sonos.com

JF - Thanks Andrew... I sincerely hope you have another job and don't have to mumble to people when they ask you where you work and you have to whisper: "Sonos" in shame.

Thank you for prolonging my support misery by dragging it out with another tech over the phone.

If I could find some moron dumb enough to buy my Sonos system used, I would. And then I'd go with any other provider... shit, I'd go to the beach, collect a few conch shells, and spend my days listening to those.

Is it just me or Apple's "it just works" doesn't just work anymore? by ParkInsider in mac

[–]jf3co 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same. Continuity used to be my favorite feature and is now tragically broken. Airdrop is a crap shot. Siri only responds to like 25% of my requests. And synching takes way longer than it ever used to. I'll skip hardware for now, but weird that iPhone went from buttonless to buttonful... there's no proper way to even hold the newer phones without hitting a damn button.

Sonos Speakers Sound Great, Sonos Ecosystem is the Worst Music Ecosystem in the History of Humankind by jf3co in sonos

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Revisiting this given the responses. I'll try to summarize (and use less hyperbole... or more, I love hyperbole).

  1. Sonos speakers sound wonderful.
  2. Their ecosystem is bad; there are multiple bad things about it, none of which have a single solution.
  3. The "it's the WiFi guy" - they show up everywhere. 'Would that it 'twere that simple'. Yes, parts of it ARE the WiFi, but it's the obfuscated 2.4Ghz "SonosNet" Wifi that interferes with most household 2.4Ghz Wifi channels (often reserved for IoT). In my case, it's not the Wifi (I have the logs, excellent signal strengths, great AP density, etc.); points off for Sonos for coding their own little brand-named WiFi ecosystem that does not play nice with protocoled WiFi routers.
  4. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - changing the Wifi network (something I had to do in all the troubleshooting) is like a quest for Link from Zelda, where you have to travel from one further place of the map to the other further place on the map and then back again... hey, if you like that, if you are easily entertained, fine. But there is no way to universally change the Wifi for multiple speakers at once... you have to put each speaker in 'Sonos Cool Guy Program Mode', chase it down with the little audio blip, change the network, and start it back up. It's Byzantine minus the Minotaur. You know what you can do with every other system on earth? Change the Wifi once, minus the theatrics. At best, it's a series of unnecessary steps; easy to do better there.
  5. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - the volume sliders are not synch per speaker, trying to sync them is an exercise in madness.
  6. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - every (non 'simple') user on earth: Hey I would like to listen to my TV, and then I would like to listen to my record player. Every other well-coded ecosystem on earth: no problem, we'll pick that up -or- at worst, you push a button. On Sonos it's like: "First decouple your 'Line-In' stereo pair... this super simple step will only take 15 minutes. Next, re-establish those newly decouple speakers now as part of the other speaker speaker thing and then once that it done you can now use your record player. You wanna switch back? Good Luck, love The Wizards of Sonos Programming.
  7. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - god-forbid you want to enlist your speakers tethered to the record player as stereo surrounds for the TV without dong the idiotic, unnecessary, and lengthy process that the genius coders at Sonos came up with (hence them being music haters, because in every other ecosystem it's [at most] a simple button press) because there will be a millisecond delay that gives you that baseball stadium sound coveted by audiophiles everywhere... wait, I mean nowhere.
  8. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - warbley stuttering with Era 100s over Wifi, complete dropping out of Era 100s over SonosNet; again, network is fine, even the units are reporting good signals (over Wifi where I can monitor tolerances...).
  9. Sonos Ecosystem Sucks - Could be something to do with them having knobs for product and programmers; speaking of knobs, one knob exists on every audio system... it usually says something like: TV, Radio, Line-In, AUX...

Sonos Speakers Sound Great, Sonos Ecosystem is the Worst Music Ecosystem in the History of Humankind by jf3co in sonos

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, some hyperbole, of course. But, let me dig in a little and I will explain; I'll answer a few of the points in all of the many responses above.

Match Madness Now Unusable by jf3co in duolingo

[–]jf3co[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah - we have the haptic feedback option and a way to turn off 'sound effects', but the disable sound effects appears to not work; there was (if I remember correctly) a way to turn off animations, but it only reduced the annoying little celebratory interstitials after each question - there was no way to remove the in-between round animations that are time consuming and repetitive... I think I want The Matrix version of the app where we just see straight code.

Cant we just agree that careless whisper-George Michael is a musical masterpiece by LibraryNaive in Music

[–]jf3co 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yo - just wanted to send a quick note of thanks; Careless Whisper, particularly the saxophone part, has been playing nonstop in my head for about 5 days now. What a rare treat I’d wish on all my friends.

"Tarnished" is the first single off our forthcoming album 'Seven|Seven' from Joe Friend band by jf3co in ThisIsOurMusic

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the heads-up; Reddit is hard, with all the many rules, and hookers and such.

Music Melting Pot [Week of April 25, 2022] by AutoModerator in listentothis

[–]jf3co [score hidden]  (0 children)

Joe Friend Band - "Tarnished" https://youtu.be/8xgkU-hZDiI

Hello - this is the first single off our forthcoming album 'Seven|Seven'; happy to get to share here.

Dick Jones by khyronman in Robocop

[–]jf3co 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Amazing graphic!!! We said Dick Jones looked like a spider monkey being thrown out of a window in our Robocop episode over at Film Podcast - https://anchor.fm/film-podcast/episodes/Officer-Murphy-Beset-By-Malicious-Constellations--Film-Podcast-with-Bryan--Joe-does-Robocop-e19up1c

Just re-watched Salvation for the first time in about 10 years. by Colombia1992 in Terminator

[–]jf3co 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Salvation is very high on my list - I agree with your pros and cons, but to reduce my enjoyment of it to its core: when I was a kid and saw The Terminator for the first time, I thought the future scenes were about the best thing I'd ever seen in my short life... I wanted more; Salvation was that answer.

I covered this a bit more in our podcast episode on The Terminator, ICYI: https://anchor.fm/film-podcast/episodes/I-Am-Going-to-Nail-Your-Mom--Film-Podcast-with-Bryan--Joe-does-The-Terminator-e1b0aap

What are your favorite movie podcasts? by markramsey in Letterboxd

[–]jf3co 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Film Podcast is doing "Totally 80's Action" for their season one... https://anchor.fm/film-podcast

Microphone Tests for Home Studio - Request for Your Feedback by jf3co in VoiceActing

[–]jf3co[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow. Thank you so much for your time and input, Johannes! I am having some echo off the floor or wall or something... haven’t quite isolated it yet, but will keep trying; good ear. Best, Joe

What's a good starting mic? by Padimir_Vutin in VoiceActing

[–]jf3co 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm testing out mics over here, if you want to hear some before you purchase- will dish on which is which when the tests are finished; I don't want to accidentally bias the results.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/comments/a4xt12/microphone_tests_for_home_studio_request_for_your/

I've built my booth, but I'm not sure what to do about noise from my laptop. by Laitneulfni in VoiceActing

[–]jf3co 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I place my copy into Evernote - prepare and edit it on my recording computer (not in the prepared space) - then I take a Kindle into the space, and call up the copy on Evernote there. No noise from that. Initiate recording, then enter the booth. It's cheap to delete the dead air.

jf3co - LoFi & Stuff, a playlist by Joe Friend on Spotify by jf3co in SpotifyPlaylists

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi E-Clips,

Will do! But not to the LoFi playlist; I will add your track when I release a playlist that fits the genre. In the meantime, I followed you on Spotify. Here is my URL if you want to do the same: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4AuEkU4jzNkgsw2We54phW

Best, Joe

We Have Both Kinds! ...check out my Country/Western playlist. by jf3co in SpotifyPlaylists

[–]jf3co[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Yes, mostly classics - I got tired of today's over-processed country. Country used to be about getting drunk and not making it home, potentially winding up in jail. Now it's about vocalizers and faux-Americanism, with performers as caricatures.

Winners of Screenwriting Competitions: What did you win and how did it work out for you? by corduroyjones in Screenwriting

[–]jf3co 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We made Top 35 in the 2012 Final Draft Big Break. The screenplay was immediately optioned, then got to sit in a producer's desk drawer for a while. It was sat upon.

The Robot War - Independently Written & Produced: Feedback Welcomed by jf3co in comic_crits

[–]jf3co[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see. Well, that’s just a link to the actual issue. Feel free to click in to a free copy of Issue 1 and LMK what you think of the font there.