You are having a laugh!

At least the Sonos software worked!

I remember the BeoSound 5, every customer who bought one liked the look of it but hated the operation.

So that’s a 100% failure rate in my book.

It points out one of the unfortunate things about the modern world, the hardware architecture becomes unable to support the complexity or features of new software. Like trying to run Microsoft Office on an old Commodore 64. Since the market thrives on and requires ever increasing options for improved performance or different features sooner or later a company will have to cut their losses and dump old platforms. This is made even worse for companies that didn't design in any buffer or excess capacity in their designs but cut corners so that they are barely functional when first released.

Not a lot of future proofing going on.

The devil is in the details (of which there are none yet).  

@Begin(rant)  Had Sonos offered this "ancient/modern split-system OS fork" BEFORE they bricked all my CR100 controllers, I would have taken it!  Back then, it would have allowed customers to continue playing their own local music libraries, which is all they originally purchased/"bargained-for".  This would have been to the exclusion of new Sonos Play:N speakers, and many/most of the modern streaming services.  At that time, they decided not to fork, apparently in order to juice ongoing sales of new speakers at the expense of foisting updates onto their oldest customers.  It would be nice if this time were different.  One "devilish details" fear is that they will turn off the 30% trade-up discount for any customers who maintain their devices in legacy mode, forcing them to choose, before they see how (or how long) they can live with no updates.  

Aside, this is my problem with Roon also: when your subscription ends, or their company fails (or they simply change their minds on what they wish to provide) you don't get to keep the data you happen to have accrued about your local music library.  If your Roon license doesn't check in with their servers at least once a month, it stops working.  It won't even play your local music using their bare controller software without the licensed content.

Similar, but not as bad, is Dirac:  Calculations are performed on Dirac-owned servers, and your PC is merely a gathering-point for the input data and holding-point for Dirac's output calculated results.  (In some cases your holding-point ships Dirac's output results to another local device, e.g.MiniDSP.)  Yes, if Dirac goes under or changes their mind to increase profits, you might lose the ability to re-do the calculations based on new data -- but at least your local device will continue to apply the correction curve you have shipped to it, allowing your current speakers to continue performing in your current room, for as long as the hardware lasts!  @End(rant)

While the current spotlight is on Sonos, as trackbeo's rant suggests, this is really an industry wide problem.  As long as your equipment requires some external entity to operate, you are at the mercy of this entity.  Because most external entities exist to generate a profit, at some point, this entity will decide that continued support for your device is economically unfavorable.  Some of us have already experienced this with the dropping of Spotify support in the BS5, as well as the dropping of the ML/NL converter.  All I can say is choose wisely and get used to it... or just enjoy your LPs and CDs and forget about this fancy tech.

Stan

Very true.
I put a record on and press play.
No worries.

Martin

ed7 wrote:

May be this will bring good news for B&O?!

⁷

trackbeo wrote:

The devil is in the details (of which there are none yet).  

@Begin(rant)  Had Sonos offered this "ancient/modern split-system OS fork" BEFORE they bricked all my CR100 controllers, I would have taken it!  Back then, it would have allowed customers to continue playing their own local music libraries, which is all they originally purchased/"bargained-for".  This would have been to the exclusion of new Sonos Play:N speakers, and many/most of the modern streaming services.  At that time, they decided not to fork, apparently in order to juice ongoing sales of new speakers at the expense of foisting updates onto their oldest customers.  It would be nice if this time were different.  One "devilish details" fear is that they will turn off the 30% trade-up discount for any customers who maintain their devices in legacy mode, forcing them to choose, before they see how (or how long) they can live with no updates.  

Aside, this is my problem with Roon also: when your subscription ends, or their company fails (or they simply change their minds on what they wish to provide) you don't get to keep the data you happen to have accrued about your local music library.  If your Roon license doesn't check in with their servers at least once a month, it stops working.  It won't even play your local music using their bare controller software without the licensed content.

Similar, but not as bad, is Dirac:  Calculations are performed on Dirac-owned servers, and your PC is merely a gathering-point for the input data and holding-point for Dirac's output calculated results.  (In some cases your holding-point ships Dirac's output results to another local device, e.g.MiniDSP.)  Yes, if Dirac goes under or changes their mind to increase profits, you might lose the ability to re-do the calculations based on new data -- but at least your local device will continue to apply the correction curve you have shipped to it, allowing your current speakers to continue performing in your current room, for as long as the hardware lasts!  @End(rant)

Dirac works perfect in my Nad M10

But the Curve must be tweaked.

If you take the curve from Dirac the sound is boring.

I am assuming the hardware will keep working but won’t support the newer software features. No different than buying a 4K TV that won’t support Dolby Vision or some other standard because it is missing the hardware etc. This is par for the course I am afraid. The hardware still be able to do what it did when you bought it...