Using iTunes to control a Sonos system

[L3OONY]

Have just invested in Sonos having been a devotee of iTunes and airport express for years, in the hope it might help with my lack of wireless connectivity.

Very pleased with the Sonos product, especially the quality of the S5 but don't really care for the Sonos application and wonder whether there is a way to utilise the Sonosnet yet use and control my music via iTunes?

Have read that an AE can be plugged into the back of a zoneplayer but dont understand whether that allows me to ditch the Sonos application and revert to iTunes.

I guess I want the best of both worlds on this one!

Any help greatly appreciated,

Regards

Ian

[buzz]

L3OONY,

First post! Welcome to the forums.

As you have noticed, I tinkered with the thread title. I thought that this title would attract a little more attention than the original title.

Full disclosure: I'm not an iTunes user.

User interfaces are very personal. Since you have been using iTunes for a while, anything else will introduce a degree of culture shock. The worst part of the transition for most iTunes users is the SONOS Queue. As one plays a track, it is added to the Queue and the Queue keeps growing until it is manually cleared. While this is a great feature for me (and lack of a Queue is a major reason why I always disliked iTunes) this is an irksome feature for many iTunes users. And, the way that playlists are generated and managed is different.

Anyway, in answer to your question: the only way to use the iTunes user interface is to plug the Express into the S5's Line-In. Unfortunately, you'll be back in the wireless soup that brought you to SONOS.

The iTunes program and the SONOS desktop controller are fundamentally different animals. iTunes is a music manager, and it pushes music data to the computer's sound system and an Airport Express. The SONOS controller tells the ZonePlayers what to do and the ZonePlayers fetch music files and data from streaming services on their own. In the SONOS context, the computer is optional. iTunes is a closed, Apple ecosystem and SONOS is a mostly open ecosystem. If Apple wanted to, there is nothing stopping it from controlling the ZonePlayers from iTunes. This is why an iPhone/iTouch or an Android device can be used as a controller.

Give the SONOS user interface a few more days. Hopefully you will warm to it or at least be able to tolerate it. But, I won't be mean if you cannot. I certainly have not warmed to or been able to tolerate the iTunes interface. It's personal.

[L3OONY]

Buzz, hi.

Thanks for taking control of my title; happy to accept any changes that improves my situation!

Completely understand your comments re: the applications and as I use the Sonos App more I am appreciating it more...

My two main grudges are that a) I have spent years rating my music based on the 5* rating system in iTunes; something that appears to be missing from Sonos and b) appear unable to randomly add music from the queue to a previously created Sonos playlist.

I can accept that the rating system is missing but am struggling to move tracks and therefore create my playlists which is hugely irritating.

I was playing around with it this evening and heard a tune that I wanted to add to my playlist (I currently only have one in the Sonos playlists) and whilst I could pick it up, I couldn't put it anywhere. Any ideas why/what is the method behind this half-option?

Overall I am sure that I will grow to love Sonos; I've spent enough on it to make it almost essential; my wife however is less enthralled...

Thanks again, and look forward to hearing from anyone that can offer me some insight.

VBR

Ian

[jgatie]

The admittedly awkward method of adding to a playlist is to load the playlist in a queue, add the track, then resave. However, as an iTunes user, I find it much easier to use my iTunes playlists, edit those, then reindex. The only use Sonos playlists for playlists I don't want on an iPod, or playlists that use online tracks from online providers.

[optionshift]

First of all, congrats to Sonos for making a system that sounds great is relatively painless to install.

However, the Sonos software controller isn't as intuitive or elegantly functional as Apple's iTunes.

Mac users are loyal to their user interfaces for good reason, and not being able to control the Sonos via iTunes is causing me massive buyer's remorse right now – to the extent that I'm likely willing to incur the penalty of a significant restocking fee at the retailer.