Sonos has always managed to make great products for multi-room audio (though, not necessarily always great apps). But the problem with making seemingly indestructible speakers is that the lack of planned obsolescence means that eventually, people will have enough speakers to fill their home. That is, presumably, why Sonos has spent the last few years making speakers (and headphones) for users to take out of their homes.
The Sonos Move 2 is a great speaker, but one you wouldn’t want to carry too far. The Sonos Roam is a good little speaker, super portable, but not really enough to fill a garden party; it’s more for those people you hate at the beach.
The Sonos Play is here to be the Goldilocks of the Sonos portables. It’s not too big to carry around, but not so small that it lacks the details. But, is it any good?
Table of contents
- First impressions
- Specifications and price
- Wi-Fi performance
- Bluetooth performance
- Portability
- Who is the Sonos Play for?
First impressions
I was surprised by how compact the Sonos Play is. For some reason, I pictured something a bit larger. It looks like someone artfully cut a Sonos Play One in half.
Taking it out of the box was a pleasant experience, and it was easy to set up through the Sonos app. However, what surprised me is that there is no wall plug in the box. I can understand the justification for phones not coming with a wall plug — most people are upgrading from an old phone and already have a charger. Headphones, I can even almost forgive because they don’t have to be plugged in all the time.
However, a speaker that’s likely going to be plugged in most of the time, so people can listen to music indoors? That needs to come with a wall plug. Not including one in the box is a cheap cop out. Especially since the Play doesn’t seem to easily charge on any old wall plug — my review unit has had issues with two of my plugs so far, because most older plugs cap out at 15W. This, frankly, isn’t good enough on a $500 speaker.
Sonos Play specifications and price
| Price | $499 |
| Warranty | One year in addition to your Australian Consumer Law rights |
| Official website | Sonos Australia |
| Battery | 24 hours battery life Battery is user-replaceable |
| Waterproof rating | IP67 |
| Wall plug minimum requirement | 18W |
| Amplifiers | Three Class-H digital amplifiers |
| Speaker drivers | Two tweeters, one mid-woofer |
| Dimensions | Height: 192.3 mm Width: 112.5 mm Depth: 76.7 mm |
| Weight | 1.3kg |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6 USB-C (works with line-in adapter) Apple AirPlay 2 Bluetooth 5.3 |
All those specs look great. But I really want to highlight that the built-in battery is user-replaceable. It’s not one designed to be switched out all the time, but when the lithium battery inevitably stops being able to hold a charge, you can just get it out with a screwdriver and chuck in a new battery in around five minutes, judging by the manual.
Sustainability is all about not just making new landfill, and I’m so pleased to see a brand that doesn’t want users to just chuck their product in the bin when it starts to slow down. It’s sad that a $500 device being easily repairable is something to be praised for, rather than the norm, but that’s just where we are at the moment.
Wi-Fi performance
I’m really impressed with how the Sonos Play sounds. It’s such a small speaker, and yet it puts out such big, detailed sound.
They’re pretty versatile, too. In Wi-Fi mode, a single Play can be used on its own, it can have a line-in connected to connect a CD or record player, you can use two as a stereo pair, or you can use them as rear speakers in a home theatre system. You can also then put them in Bluetooth mode and take them outside, but I’ll cover that in the next section.
Going to my testing playlist, it’s obvious that this is a small speaker. The bass isn’t as rich as I’d usually like in a $500 speaker. However, it sounds much fuller than I’d expect for a speaker this size. On “Simmer” by Hayley Williams, I’m getting enough of the emotional punch, even if I do have to turn it up really loud to get proper detail on the snare ghost notes.
The song from my testing playlist that sounds best is, surprisingly, “Georgiana” by Dario Marianelli. It’s a piano song that’s bright and joyous, and the emotion and subtleties come through beautifully.
“Maybe You Saved Me” by Bad Suns & Pvris is a song full of layers, and each of them shines here much more than I’d ever dare hope from a speaker this small. I can only assume Sonos has made some kind of bargain with a deity to make it work this well, and frankly, I think it was worth it.
That said, it is easy to hear the difference between the Sonos Era 100 and the Play. This soundstage is much smaller, there’s less bass, and the hi-hats sound tinny by comparison in “Paralysed” by Conquer Divide, for example. If I wanted a speaker that would only stay in one place, I would save the almost $200 and just buy the Era 100. It’s similar with the Move 2, and were I only taking it outside very occasionally, or not very far, and I had the cash to spend, I would get the Move 2, to enjoy the punchier bass.
But for what it is and the purpose it’s designed for, I think the Play makes surprisingly few audio concessions to find the right balance.
Bluetooth performance
As expected, the audio quality takes a bit of a dip when taken out of Wi-Fi and onto Bluetooth, because it’s getting a lower bitrate version of the song. It’s actually a great example of why audiophiles go on and on about CD quality and why wired and Wi-Fi are always better.
The first thing I notice is that some of the layers of “Maybe You Saved Me” evaporate. Yet still the speaker has so much more oomph (and better tuning) than the UE Boom and Beats Pill.
Again, it’s a small step down from the Move 2, and an absolutely massive leap up from the Sonos Roam.
Being able to group it with multiple Play and Move speakers on Bluetooth means that chores in the garden, beach parties, and backyard barbecues don’t just have to have one spot that’s way too loud and diminishing returns on the music throughout the rest of the space. They can be placed more evenly for better sound and happier guests. Testing it with a couple of Plays, I am extremely impressed with how easy it was to set up and enjoy.
The Auto TruePlay meant that no matter where I moved the speaker to, within a few minutes, the speaker was automatically tuned to make the best of the environment. TruePlay is Sonos’ technology where you set up your speakers and then walk around the space with an iPhone to calibrate how the echoes and surfaces affect the sound so the speaker can adjust for it. Auto TruePlay, which uses the built-in microphones to automatically calibrate periodically, isn’t as precise, but it is still extremely effective and doesn’t require you to actually do anything. And I love not doing anything.
Portability
The Sonos Play really does strike the perfect balance between good audio and being small enough to carry around without really having to think about it. The Sonos Roam is so easy to chuck in a bag and take anywhere, but it requires a lot of concessions for the audio. The Move 2 sounds better, but it is big and heavy and represents a commitment if you have to carry it often or a long way.
Play, however, is just 1.3kg. It’s a bit too heavy to carry around every day or on a multi-day hike, but not so heavy that you wouldn’t want to take it camping. It’s also not going to take up the whole cavity of a backpack; it’s compact enough that I would feel comfortable taking it in my carry-on on a plane to use in a hotel.
The way the dock is designed, it makes it even easier to just pick up the speaker as you leave the house, and then put it back down to charge and be used as part of the general home Sonos system as soon as you get back. Wireless charging is hardly new, but it really makes sense for this product, and I’m surprised not to see more portable speakers taking advantage of the technology.
Who is the Sonos Play for?
This is the perfect speaker for people who want to kill two birds with one stone: It’s great for listening at home, and then so easy to take out and about. It is a speaker for a specific need, though. If you want a pure Bluetooth speaker for using outside the home, there are cheaper speakers with comparable sound quality. If you want a speaker purely for home use, the Sonos Era 100 is a better call.
But for those who want a speaker that often seamlessly transitions from inside to outside, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, that is actually portable, then I strongly recommend the Sonos Play. If you don’t have a Sonos system yet, this is still a great choice and a perfect way to start one.
The post Sonos Play review: A great speaker in a small package appeared first on GadgetGuy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment