Customers have been embracing SONOS PLAY speakers since the line was first announced. The multinational music brand (founded in 2002) makes wireless speakers and home audio products that make it easy for everyone to listen to the music they love in every room of their home with the highest sound quality. Their speakers are buildable and customizable and work seamlessly together, or you can split them off into different rooms or groups for individual or en masse listening. Read my overview of the whole SONOS system for more on the collection and how it works.
SONOS announces the PLAY:5
Now, a new SONOS speaker has been announced. SONOS PLAY:5 is said to create, “a listening experience that is closer than ever to how every track was mastered in the studio”.
SONOS PLAY:5 has six synchronized, custom-designed drivers, plus three powerful mid-woofers to churn out sounds from mid-level to deeply resonant, and all the way up to high-pitched tingles. SONOS says the new PLAY:5 “produces a soundstage that is much wider than expected in a single speaker, creating room-filling sound with precise separation of vocals and instruments.” All with no wires.
Technically SONOS PLAY:5 is an existing product, and was the company’s first all-in-one solution for wireless audio, but with this incarnation, SONOS has gone back to the drawing board with its original, and made it better.
What makes SONOS PLAY:5 different?
SONOS says the new-look speakers, for the first time, have three orientations. This flexibility, combined with what SONOS calls “Trueplay tuning”, enables the best soundscape via any placement, in any room with a single speaker. Add another, and together the SONOS duo will crank out “top-of-the-line stereo sound with a focused and intense sweet spot, and an immersive, room-filling listening experience,” according to SONOS’ press materials. (Don’t worry, we’ll review them as soon as we can and give you the straight goods!)
New look too
Gone from the old version (top photo, at left) is the pedestal base, making this new speaker (bottom photo, at left) much more sleek and streamlined. Softer corners and edges make it much less boxy too. Doing away with that pedestal also means they can be used either vertically or horizontally.
Another new feature is described by Engadget: “a new capacitive control panel, which relies on gestures and taps rather than physical buttons for controls. It sounds like a small change, but this enables three things. First, you get a cleaner, sleeker-looking speaker. Second, you can change tracks directly from your Sonos for the first time. Third, the controls are not orientation dependent. That means skipping tracks and turning the volume up or down work as you’d expect no matter the speaker’s orientation.”
The new SONOS PLAY:5 also utilizes SONOS well-known technology to ensure the music remains in perfect sync across all speakers, without dropouts.
SONOS has added a couple colour combinations to this arsenal: both a matte black and matte white with black speaker cover.
Preorder begins at Best Buy October 27th. Meantime, check out the rest of the SONOS line here.
