Sonos Five – Black – Wireless Hifi Speaker

My second best speaker purchase.. after Harman SB 26 soundbar for the living room, we needed something that can be moved around for other rooms.

The need was compact with big sound.

Sonos meets both.. sound fills the house and bass shakes the windows.
If you are an audiophile with feline hearing and want to hear odd frequencies, this is not the speaker for you.
If you want something that produces big sound with deep bass.. go for it!

Please note these are not Bluetooth.. but you need to connect through app to enable them, after that you can connect Spotify etc and play from there.

I have owned a Sonos 5 for years and it is a fantastic piece of work. I bought another one for my daughter’s new apartment. She loves it too!

I have had high end speakers all my adult life. I like the sound of a quality speaker. My stereo speakers are Sonus Faber Grands. So when I picked up the Sonos 5 I didn’t know what to expect. I use it in my office to stream music while I work. The sound that comes from that little speaker (small but solidly built) is amazing. Wide sound field with impressive separation. Worth the price!

The setup was not easy: 25 minutes of befuddlement trying to get it to connect to the Wifi. (it does not connect to bluetooth at all) At the end of this setup I resented the hubris of Sonos for trying to replace the Spotify app with their crappy app. One of the primary reasons one uses streaming services is to tailor the music to your tastes by liking or unliking songs – Sonos’s app doesn’t let you do this!!! All you can do is play from a static list. Internet research revealed that you can actually use the Spotify app directly. So I did that. However, when playing from WiFi you cannot use the equalizer part of Spotify. A major bummer! I don’t care how good you think your speaker is, there is no substitute for tuning to perfection the way you want with an equalizer. Finally, the connection dropped out every 20 minutes or so for no apparent reason. Had to reconnect my phone every time.
With those beefs out of the way, the overall sound (based on many hours of listening and spanning almost every genre) was good. (which it should be for $500) So how did it compare with the competition?
Well all three were close and I could be happy with any of them. But to drill down deeper into the nuances of the sound: The Beolit17 had the best bass, hands down. Although the Sonos did actually reach a bit lower in certain songs, but it did not have near the impact/weight of the Beolit.
The Addon had the most precise, crisp sound (maybe 5% better than the other two?) but it did not have a sufficient low end. However It did have a subwoofer output so if you have the inclination to set up a sub then it would be the best sounding choice of the three. (this is what I ended up doing since I am fanatical about the sound quality above all else) But that might not be a fair head-to-head comparision.
I should mention that the Sonos5 had a kind of three dimensional quality to it with sound seeming to come from 8″ to one side of the speaker at times. (the only speaker to do this) Also should point out that the Beolit was the only battery-powered unit in the mix and this didn’t seem to compromise the sound quality at all.
In summary, my choice between these three would be the Beolit17 as the best overall package, then the AddonC10 (if you use a sub) then the Sonos5. (the technical issues and inability to adjust the sound made it the last choice for me)

In planning to replace my 20+ year old stereo system, I wanted do eschew the traditional stereo components and take a more modern approach. There were a few requirements I set for consideration of my new audio system.

– A compact footprint to fit our downsized living space.
– A system built around music streaming services.
– Ability to play audio from my television, turntable and multiple networked devices.
– Keep within a modest budget.
– Audiophile sound quality.

I found a solution that meets all the above requirements in a single box. The Sonos 5 is a wireless powered speaker. The enclosure contains six class-D amplifiers powering three mid-woofers and three tweeters. The woofers are placed on a curved surface, projecting the music to a wide soundstage. Two of the tweeters are placed at sharp angles, throwing the sound to either side of the room, with the other facing center. This configuration results in an impressive room-filling sound coming from a single enclosure. Although the Sonos 5 attempts to give you a stereo experience, you don’t really get true stereo separation from one unit. For that, you can add a second Sonos 5 for a full stereo separation effect, but that can be a bit pricey.

The primary input is from your Wi-Fi network. The Sonos S2 app available for most mobile and desktop devices, allows for set-up of the Sonos 5 on your network, fine tuning the speaker for the room (TruePlay) and playing music streamed from your devices. The application lets you consolidate all of your streaming services into a single app from which you can search and play your music across all services. Besides the app controls, you can also control volume, play/pause and skip tracks using the elegant touch controls on top of the speaker cabinet.

Other than using the Sonos app, if you are steeped in the Apple ecosystem, as I am, you can send audio from any application on your Apple devices using Airplay. This allows me to send the audio from my Apple TV, iPhones and Macs using any application. The system lacks a bluetooth receiver, as this would result in lower fidelity. In addition, there is a single wired analog input that can be used to hook-up your turntable, CD player or other non-networked device.

If you are looking for a new stereo system and are willing to try something somewhat unconventional, I’d recommend the Sonos 5 for its high fidelity sound, compact design and integration with Apple networks and devices.