Speaking of surround sound. What is the best surround sound nowadays? I used to be a big Sonos fan but I've waned on them over the years since. What are folks doing nowadays?
Bonus if its wireless and supports Airplay 2, but not required
What do you mean by "best sorround sound"? The typical high end "best" setup is still getting a Dolby Atmos capable 7.1.2 AV Receiver (from Denon, Maranz, Sony or Onkyo) and connect a Dolby Atmos configuration to it (7 sorround speakers, 2 ceiling speakers and a subwoofer... you can get away with 5.1.2 or just 5.1 setup as well). For speakers, brands like Klipsch are good value for money... but there's a whole flamewar to be had there.
All receivers these days will do AirPlay, Spotify and Bluetooth on top of HDMI and other inputs.
But... somehow I doubt that's what you were thinking of with "best"? Something cheaper maybe? :)
Technically best - dedicated AV receiver that supports as many channels as you're interested in (5.1, 7.1.2?), if you're looking at anything above bargain bin this probably includes Airplay 2. Dedicated hard-wired speakers for each channel, making sure to get a set that has good frequency response and focus on a subwoofer that provides adequate range to prevent roll-off.
Advantages: incredibly broad options, can go as high or low-end as you want. Independently up-gradable, most components are very repairable, often this provides the lowest latency possible, generally has the least amount of "magic" in the software stack.
Disadvantages: high price floor relative to a lot of consumers, usually lots of wires (wireless options exist for satellites, but add disadvantages of latency and software messiness). Adds lots of boxes to a room (front LR pair usually kind of large, center channel kind of large, receivers are often pretty large).
Aesthetic best - Broadly speaking, soundbars. Sonos is the name to beat generally here. I like the Sony HT-A9 as it breaks the mold a bit, I think there's probably a lot of disagreement as to what stands out in this space. I think Samsung stuff is generally well regarded, the HW-Q990C is spoken highly of.
Advantages: very few wires and very few boxes. Usually fairly affordable.
Disadvantages: lower overall quality and customization. If anything breaks, you're at the whim of the manufacturer.
I've recently gone the route of the dedicated receiver and it _is_ great. I'm pretty sensitive to audio qualities in ways my wife isn't, but it's made a world of difference to me just upgrading from an old 2.1 system I'd used for 15 years.
With a traditional dedicated receiver setup, you can reduce the price floor if you go with used equipment. Speakers that haven't been abused continue to work for decades. Receivers are less bullet proof, so it helps if you can test/demo the equipment before you buy it. But there's several recent tiers of obsolescence that mean you can likely get a bargain on quality early equipment from someone who upgraded. Pre-HDMI surround receivers with coax/optical SPDIF is still a pretty good baseline, IMHO. Depending on your sources, you might be ok with an HDMI receiver won't pass 4K, or will only pass some flavors of 4k. If your TV and your receiver support ARC, you can cable higher resolution sources direct to the TV, and then pass audio to the receiver from the TV; with ARC that gets you Dolby Digital Plus which isn't available via SPDIF, with eARC (if supported), that gets you full fidelity audio. A few sources have separate HDMI outputs for audio, but that seems pretty rare / mostly for higher end devices, in which case you're likely not skimping on a receiver.
If you go with a receiver which will do Atmos/TrueHD etc but won't pass 4K (or won't pass newer formats eg Dolby Vision/HDR10+/etc) then the easiest route is to go with a splitter which allows you to send the audio to the receiver separately. You need to be careful to get one which won't downgrade the signal to "lowest common denominator". You can also find splitters which will will convert ARC/eARC audio into a standard HDMI signal if you have a TV which supports ARC/eARC but your receiver doesn't.
The only real downside of this is you won't see any OSD information from the receiver when using the splitter.
A splitter would also help if your source can decode TrueHD/DTS-MasterAudio, your receiver can accept multichannel PCM (I think most can?), and pass through / eARC isn't an option.
No OSD is unfortunate, but certainly usable. You'll miss out on volume and source indicators if you can't see the receiver's screen, but you can connect a cable for receiver menus, and usually once you get things setup, you don't need to spend much time in receiver menus.
Bonus if its wireless and supports Airplay 2, but not required