More first world problems….. I have a Sonos system of 3 linked speakers in different room. They are brilliant for spotify and used to be brilliant for my own library, which resides on i-tunes (I know) on my MacBook. 60k tracks. Earlier issues I had were, I thought, down to my old 2012 dying MacBook, but, since up getting a new one this year I cannot play from my own library thru’ the speakers: it says my library is too big……
Reading around the issue it seems that Sonos cunningly make no mention of their limited capacity at time of purchase and consider people with that size of personal collection to be niche and of lesser concern than the streamers, who make the bulk of their market. My 60k means, again apparently, that either my tags are too big(?!) or that my wife buying me a smaller 3rd sonos speaker for the kitchen, a couple of years back, has stymied me. (The 65k may be smaller with smaller units, the trio then subject to the smallest component….)
Solutions? So far they seem to be use Plex, whatever that is. How? And would it help?
Or to transfer my i-tunes to i-cloud? Having read horror stories of how apple substitute stuff as/if/when you do, and they don’t have it, despite the info saying they upload, from your system, tracks they don’t already have within apple music, I am afeard. Should I be? If “safe”, I guess I ditch spotify and sign up to apple music for the same subscription. Or would i-tunes match be a better bet, for the £24 p.a. outlay?
(Advice around filos or ditching i-tunes are not going to help, be warned. I trialled some i-tunes alternatives and found them a ghastly faff, given the amount of ripping and burning I do, which were far from straightforward elsewhere, as well as necessitating keeping on i-tunes for said purpose.)
What would be best, would be the trick that spotify, through spotify on my mac, rather than sonos streaming spotify, can apply, and access other speakers available, including the sonos and, intriguingly, the telly. But there seems nowhere, when on i-tunes, to play through other than the MacBook itself. (Unless there is. Or is that where Plex comes back in? Or other options?)
No long words or programmer speak, it goes over my head. Just a simple answer, please.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.

Speak slowly and clearly, please.
No iDea.
I use Roon to stream the music from my library (about 130K tracks) to my main Hi-Fi (which is an Oppo disk player) but it can also see and stream the SONOS one speakers my younger son has in his room.
My set up has my library on an external drive connected to a MacMini. Whilst the Mac mini does have the library running in iTunes (for the Apple TVs around the house), the Roon software runs independently of that and you just point it to where you music is (can be multiple locations). It than continually monitors those to add to the library.
You can add multiple zones / speaker systems / Hifi components / computers / iPads to its playback choices and then select any one (or multiple) when you play a track. The Roon core can run on any computer on the network (usually the one attached to where you music is) and the clients can run off iPads / phones / computers etc etc
Its expensive (they’ve changed the pricing but I got a lifetime membership at about $500 – I think its now about $700 with a monthly $10 option) but is both a superb database and a very high quality streaming software. You can try for free and it WILL NOT mess up any of your music databases / libraries.
https://roonlabs.com
I’m a Roon/Sonos boy too – Roon plays nice with Sonos, and works independently of iTunes (sorry, Music). It doesn’t care what format the music is in, it just hoovers it up. You can mess around with metadata to your heart’s content.
In other news, I’ve just ditched Music because of its infuriating habit of splitting albums for no reason at all. I’m tinkering with QuodLibet, which is working well so far, and handles FLAC and such, unlike Music. Anybody else used it?
By the way – what’s point of that “Sonos” thing? Other than that it plays your music in rooms that you’re not in.
Asking for a friend.
This might seem shallow, but it’s quite pleasing to go into the kitchen from the sitting room and find the same music playing. But mostly I use the kitchen Sonos when cooking or washing up, and the sitting room Sonoi when I’m sitting in there.
Different people in the house can also play different music in different rooms at the same time as well.
You’re also getting the same quality wherever you are in the house
Well, you can create Sonos playlists, ie combinations of music from whatever streaming services you use and your own music library. Plus it just works. The mesh network it creates is extremely stable. Sound quality is excellent although if you’re a stickler for 24 bit/lossless/whatever, you might find better solutions elsewhere.
I used to have my Sonos speaker plugged into my TV, making the TV sound way better. And if I wasn’t watching TV I could stream music through it, as my hi fi set up was elsewhere.
Thanks for profound answers to a not entirely serious question. 😉
Seems I’m not missing anything.
I have my record players (vinyl, CD, cassette, minidisc), TV and Mac plugged into my Hifi system. No need for any »combinations of music from whatever streaming services you use and your own music library« though, and if I want to listen to an album while cooking or taking a bath – there’s always a wireless headphone nearby.
If I want to listen to a playlist there’s iTunes and its fabulous cross-fade features. And no-one berates me about my record collection being “too big”.
Fair enough. Everyone’s musical needs are different and I’m not sure that there’s a lot of point in investing in Sonos if you’re not into streaming.
I have a Plex server pre-installed on a Western Digital NAS so that, in addition to my Sonos Music Library (approx 50k tracks) I have another 55k on Plex. I have tried Roon but swopped it for Plex. Nothing to do with the Roon software, which is excellent, but more because the Mac I had it installed on was too far from my router. Now the NAS with Plex on it is right next to my router and everything is fine.
Personally, even though I am in the Mac eco system I wouldn’t touch Apple Music with a bargepole. Another option for storing your own music is to subscribe to YouTube Music which allows uploads of your own stuff, as an add-on to your Sonos music library. This used to be the service that Google Play Music offered but that has been switched to YT Music. I’ve also heard good things about iBroadcast as a means of uploading your own music. It also works with Sonos.
I have used Plex for home theatre video use and found it unreliable and a PITA.
Never used it for audio.
Conversely, I’ve never used it for video and have no plans to do so. For music, though, it’s pretty good and reliable. The interface is decent, if not as nice as Roon, and it has been stable so far. Plus it’s way cheaper than Roon.
Funnily enough it was the only one I could get working for video having tried Mezzmo and Kodi.
You just never know, do you. I’ve been using Plex for video, streaming from a NAS via ethernet and multiple switches and I can honestly say in 3 years it’s never put a foot wrong.
…and I’m talking 4k HDR in some cases as well.
Anyone got anything positive about Apple Music and/or i cloud?
Yes. The big plus of Apple Music for me as a streaming service is that it integrates seamlessly with your existing iTunes / Music library. From your OP I surmise that you have a Spotify account and your iTunes library and you’re switching between them depending on what you listen to. Apple Music will put it all in one place. I’ve not encountered any of the substitution issues you allude to either, and I have some pretty obscure alternate versions and live recordings in my collection. I can’t say anything about Sonos, but I have a Marantz amp in my hi fi set up that sits on my wi-fi network, and my MacBook and iPhone connect to it easily and play anything in my library via the big speakers on the wall. Or at least they do until I’m told to turn it off or the dog gets up and leaves the room.
Thanks, @kid-dynamite : that’s what I sort of hoped. And, yup, your tastes are, shall we say, way nicer than mine!!!
I use it because it’s the only pain-free way I know of to get my music library onto my iPhone. Everything goes into iTunes and then I copy the iTunes library to a NAS so that Sonos uses that in the house.
Apart from support for higher res files (unless I use ALAC) that set up work seamlessly.
I use Squeezeboxes via Logitech Media Server. As they are not made any more I have quite a few spares. However in the last week or two, 3 seem to have died (!) and another is acting up, am thinking I need another solution.
I also have issues with my wireless network at home and it is not unusual to suddenly lose the signal and/or the computer that the music is on goes unresponsive or crashes. A pain in the backside basically.
Have also used Plex to stream films or TV shows mainly and have similar problems. Yesterday I took an external hard drive and plugged it into my TCL Roku TV set and tried with the Roku Media Player, it worked ok (at least for some video formats) This may be the way to go avoiding messing around with leaving computers on all the time plus the afore mentioned network difficulties. Could work ok for music too, plus I have old fashioned things like CDs, LPs, DVDs and Blu-rays which work without hard drives, computers and the internet. Much less frustrating.
I once had three Squeezeboxes and two failed after power cuts. Turns out it was the wall-wart power supplies at fault both times. Five quid PSU off eBay fixed both.
I tried a couple of different power supplies. Maybe both are faulty. Ta
First world problems as you say – but I think I might be able to help. I am in a similar situation – SONOS speakers littered around the house – and I keep my music on Apple cloud – I do use Apple Music. When I use the SONOS app – then go into Apple Music and ask to stream “My Library” – the whole library – then I get an error – I have presumed its just that the playlist you want to play is too big for the app to get its little head around. If I play playlists or any other music from “My Music” all is good – but I have had an issue before with a large curated playlist – I suspect it starts at playlists over maybe 1000 songs – but I have not tested.
I have found the way to get around this – is to use AirPlay to one of the compatible speakers (Beam, Move and I think the latest ONES do it) – then take that input and use SONOS to send to other speakers. Obviously its not quite as elegant as the SONOS app directly – and I don’t know about quality – but when you want to bother EVERYONE in the WHOLE HOUSE with your WHOLE record collection – its PERFECT!! Why yes – that is an uploaded Thomas Lang vinyl recording from 1983 – do you like it??
Hope that helps.
Weird: I have just started to look at a 3/12 free apple music and, lo and behold, my music library has loaded on Sonos, and seems present and correct. Playing John Prine (and Miranda Lambert) singing Cold Cold Heart as I type. First time since I changed my mac. Good-o, for how long, I dunno, but good-o. Thanks all.
When we bought our first Sonos units back in 2010, the 65K limit on tracks was certainly shown on their website (although it might have been via the forums).
One of the main reasons that there are now two different Sonos network types is that the newer units (and future ones) have more memory so they can leave legacy restrictions behind.
Your library database is what’s taking up the space.