3trey3

Q: Sonos Speaker & protected music


Dear Apple,

 

Years ago I decided to invest in your company, I use your phones, apple tv, mac mini and I buy all my music through iTunes. However, now tons of my music will not play on my sonos speaker. At first I got mad at Sonos and thought I would just stop using their technology. But I have since discovered that it's actually Apple's mistake that is keeping me from playing my music. Please provide an easy way for me to convert my music so that I can play purchased material on all my devices. I hate to have to start investing in other technologies, but with my kids, I hesitate making the same mistake again. If you won't make it easy to convert my files now, what future problem you accidentally create wont you fix?

 

Thanks,

Trey

Posted on Jun 3, 2016 6:57 AM

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Q: Sonos Speaker & protected music

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  • by r2thebizel,

    r2thebizel r2thebizel Jun 3, 2016 7:18 AM in response to 3trey3
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Jun 3, 2016 7:18 AM in response to 3trey3

    Hi Trey, please be advised that the support forums are not the place to write complaints to Apple. We are all Apple users here, nothing more. I feel your writing is better directed and has better chance of being resolved in an e-mail to Apple. Having said that, I have had no issue playing purchased music through Sonos from iTunes or Apple Music so I an unsure of the issue you are facing.

  • by dwb,

    dwb dwb Jul 11, 2016 8:16 AM in response to 3trey3
    Level 7 (24,038 points)
    Notebooks
    Jul 11, 2016 8:16 AM in response to 3trey3

    As has already been noted, your note to Apple isn’t going to Apple. Try here. We could possibly help you if we knew more about your problem-specifically what music can’t you play, where did you get this music, and what codec was used? (For the codec, just find a sample file and tell us what the extender of the file is.)

     

    Everything I can play in iTunes I can play through Sonos with one exception. Apple Music (the streaming service) lets us download music to our computers which iTunes obviously can play. Sonos cannot stream these songs from your computer or iOS device to the Sonos speakers. However you can add the Apple Music service to the Sonos app and play Apple Music content through the service.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Jul 11, 2016 8:33 AM in response to 3trey3
    Level 5 (7,451 points)
    Notebooks
    Jul 11, 2016 8:33 AM in response to 3trey3

    Have you got iTunes DRM files that won't play on the Sonos?

     

    If these are old style 'FairPlay DRM' there are two options you have…

    1. Write the files to a CD as an 'audio CD' in iTunes, then you can re-rip those CD's back to iTunes to have files with no DRM (this is allowed under the terms of service). You will need to delete the old DRM files after importing the new ones, losing your play counts etc. The conversion process causes a minor quality loss but you may not notice it at all. Re-tagging the files is the major problem with this method as the audio CD format does not contain that metadata, it may be best to burn each one as a complete album & hope that iTunes gets the track metadata from Gracenote.

     

    2. Pay to use iTunes Match - it will allow you to match tracks then delete and redownload music files from the store as ones without DRM. Only files that Apple have in the store will have DRM removed, otherwise you just get the same as your original.

     

    If you are using Apple Music then you are out of luck - it has to use DRM as it is subscription service that needs to be able to stop working when you unsubscribe. The DRM makes it impossible to play on many devices.