Play:1

Let me join the chorus of positive reviews here. I had previously suffered with various Bluetooth and AirPlay speaker systems. They were all unreliable, and frequently dropped the signal. Pairing the devices was also a hit or miss affair, and the sound quality was dubious. Enter Sonos. Lots of people at work have been raving about Sonos, so I finally took (a modest) plunge into their ecosystem. I bought the Bridge (even though I technically didn't need to for my initial system) but I wanted it for future expansion capability. I also bought the lowest-priced Play 1. The Play 1 is HEAVY, and very nicely designed. It has a relatively small footprint and seems very at home in our modernist living room. The hardware setup was very easy. Comprehensive QuickStart instructions were well illustrated and clear. It was mostly about the sequence of plugging in cables. One VERY nice touch is the additional pass-through Ethernet port on the Bridge. I had run out of ports on my two routers, and needed on for my new NAS (that I was setting up as a media streamer.) Plugged it straight into the Bridge and it works flawlessly on my network. I then downloaded the Sonos app from the App Store, launched it, and followed very simple on-screen instructions. The instructions included clear illustrations showing which buttons to press on which devices to complete the pairing, and what the illuminated light sequences on those devices meant. Within a few minutes, everything was connected and working. I added my Spotify and Pandora accounts quickly, and within a few minutes I was streaming music to the Play 1. My expectations for sound quality were a little tempered by the fact that I had the smallest Sonos speaker, and it was in mono. But I was not at all disappointed when I started playing music from my Spotify playlists. I have Spotify set up to stream higher quality bit rates. This probably helps. The sound can be turned up VERY loud. We have it in a living room which is easily filled with rich, separated highs and lows. I do notice on some tracks, however, the bass end can get a little muddy, but only on certain songs (Beyone's Halo, for example, is one of those.) This might be a factor of the mono sound, as sometimes tracks are not mixed and engineered that well for mono; they rely on a greater stereo spectrum for better listening. The beauty of being able to expand this system to other speakers and rooms, and the fact this is operating on a rock-solid wi-fi network, only adds to appeal of the Sonos system. I was so impressed by it all, that I immediately ordered a second Play 1 to add to the first so that I could set up stereo sound (it hasn't arrived yet.) Again, this seems easy to do (based on reading a thorough explanation on the Sonos Web site.) It's just a matter of a few clicks in the App, and pressing one button on the speakers to indicate which is left and which is right. By the way, the Sonos support Web site is superb - clear and helpful instructions and troubleshooting. One additional thing I love is having every Mac / iOS device in the house loaded with the Sonos App, each of which can control the system. That includes four iPads, four MacBooks, two iPhones, and an iPod touch. All the apps control the system flawlessly. You can pickup the currently playing track if you move from one device to another. Spotify integration is OK, but not great. Your playlists are visible, and you can search for any track in Spotify via the Sonos app (and make it a favorite in Sonos, or add it to a Spotify playlist), but it does not show all the artists and albums that you have stored to "My Music" within Spotify. My answer has been to create separate playlists for each member of our family. I am in the process of setting up a NAS server with around 60GB of music. Giving Sonos access to it was as easy as entering the (fixed) IP address of the server and the music share volume. It found it immediately. My server is a Synology 1-bay drive. I have just finished copying all the music to it, the Sonos system can see, but I am waiting for the Synology system to finish indexing all the files before I call them up on the Sonos system. I don't expect any problems, but if there are any, I will update my review. Altogether I am extremely pleased with the system, and am looking forward to expanding it throughout our home in the future. I recommend abandoning sketchy Bluetooth and Airplay speaker systems, and go for the best; especially as the entry level Sonos system is now highly competitive price wise.

If you're reading this review, you're probably where I was a few months ago. I had two burning questions in my mind: (1) how good is the SONOS system (is it worth it?), (2) which speakers should I get (what does my initial/total investment need to be)? SHORT ANSWER: IT IS WORTH IT. As to the first question: it is fantastic. Yes, it is expensive. But there's absolutely no doubt that SONOS delivers exactly what it promises. You can play music wirelessly anywhere that your wireless reaches. It just works. It took about two minutes to set up and it was incredibly easy. (See below) A PAIR OF PLAY-1s SOUND FAN-F-ING-TASTIC Two Play 1s, in stereo sound great. (Turn loudness off, set treble up to 70-80%.) I stressed this so hard. Initially I thought, man, can I even get two Play 3s or do I have to get two Play 5s? Play 1 did not enter my initial considerations at all. I read too much from serious audiophile folks. So here's what I did: I bought two Play 1s and 1 Play 5. After listening for about ten minutes, I returned the Play 5. The Play 5 sounds fantastic, don't get me wrong. But unless you have a big space to fill, two Play 5s would just be overkill. Meanwhile, the two Play 1s in stereo arguably outclass the Play 5 for the same price. (You'll see debate on this point on the SONOS forums.) If you want to get started, a single Play 1 still sounds better than almost any bluetooth speaker you care to mention. So your initial investment can be simply a single Play 1 and a bridge. You will be hooked, I'm afraid. I now have four play 1s and a PlayBar. (A separate review may follow for the Playbar or be amended to this--suffice it say for now that my only complaint is that it would be nice to be able to set separate volume levels for tv and music playback, otherwise it works amazingly well. I do not use a sub and don't think it is necessary, though I may add it at some point when the pocket book allows.) APPLE HARDWARE, MICROSOFT SOFTWARE SONOS is all Apple on the hardware end and all Microsoft on the software side. If you're the literary sort, you could say that the hardware is the fox and the software is the hedgehog--the fox knows many things but the hardware knows one big thing. The speakers are elegant looking and everything just works. On the flipside, tech geeks will point out that you pay a style and performance premium. Yes, there are other solutions that are cheaper and I'm sure deliver better sound. And much harder to set up, much buggier, and more frustrating. On the software side, things are not quite as elegant. Are the software guys the big dummies or Achilles' heel of the SONOS operation? No. The software actually has amazing challenges and does some amazing stuff. It's just ugly. The SONOS software integrates every conceivable music source. SONOS supports Amazon Music (formerly Amazon Cloud Player), Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, Rhapsody, pretty much anything you can think of, including, now, Google Play. Better: it allows you to create playlists from multiple sources.So, I can pull tracks from Amazon Music, Google Play, my iphone, any networked drive, and have it all play together. Great stuff. SONOS also has sleep and alarm/wake functionality and a few other little bells and whistles. The problem is that by stuffing so much stuff under the hood and trying to be jack of all trades, the SONOS controller is almost unavoidably clunky. SONOS recently updated the software controller, preserving all the functionality, but attempting to streamline and make the controller less ugly. It didn't really work. It's a little annoying, but still works fine. I hope further updates will be coming because intuitiveness has taken a step backwards, unfortunately. INTERFACE AND OPTIONS Would be nice if you could set volume levels and other specs for each music source. For instance, Sirius plays at a level lower than Amazon Cloud Player. SETUP Initial problems trying to use one component but once I connected bridge the setup took 30 seconds. It was not obvious to me from instructions that you need to press BOTH volume + and play/pause together, either. CONCLUSION You will not regret this purchase. My wife thought I was nuts to spend all this money, but she now agrees that the SONOS system is the most life changing and awesome piece of tech we own. Highly recommended. (I usually don't make this plea, but: please vote helpful if you found this helpful. And if you're an audiophile who is thinks Sonos is not up to snuff, keep in mind this review is aimed at ordinary folks and don't downvote me on that basis, please. THANKS!)

I bought this as an expansion to my existing setup with a Play:5, which I have in my kitchen. I placed this in my living room, and it blends in nicely with the decor that I have in that part of the house. Setup: It was setup very easily, like all Sonos. Plugged it in, and then drove the setup from my phone. This includes the room sensing and optimization which happened seamlessly. I paired it to my existing setup through the app easily. Now my music is synced perfectly between the rooms. I love that I can both adjust the volume control for the group, or individually, very easily. Sound quality: I was very impressed with my first P:5, and knew that this wouldn't have as much low end. However, even with high expectations after my fantastic P:5 experience I was still surprised at how good this sounded. It's a HEAVY speaker, which to me indicates high build quality. There's more low end than I expected. But don't think that this will produce the same as a 12" subwoofer. It goes up loud without any distortion. Just sounds like a high quality speaker. Pair it with some bigger speakers in other rooms, and you won't miss the sub (which isn't as location-specific to our ears). Overall, I would definitely buy this again. I'm now addicted to sonos and want them all over my house!

Pros: volume goes high, very good quality sound Your phone can ring without disrupting the music at all. You can listen to a video, again without disrupting music. Cons: It’s not portable which I didn’t realize when purchased and is a huge downside for me. the app is annoying. I move it around a lot and each time you have to reload the app etc and lose where you were. And then if you want to get the best sound it’s best to calibrate it but it’s a step that is not worth while for me. So I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t planning to keep it in one place mostly. It’s very heavy in bass which can be good for some, but I feel bad in an apartment and wish I could adjust. I use Apple Music and some of the functionality of it is different or is lost when using the app It looks like the speaker wraps around for 360 sound but that’s not the case just comes out of one side. Bottom line I see the benefits. If you are in a big house and you are keeping them in one place it’s a great machine. I use it every day without too much complaint. But to be honest I wish I bought the portable Bose, the sound is a wee bit better, more clear. I have non-portable bose hooked up to my record player and they are a great combo.

I am completely satisfied with this product, with the supplier, and with the software and music ecosystem around it. Setup could not have been easier, and I did the most complex thing available, connecting two of these as a stereo pair to their mesh network device. Was a snap. Sonos helped me with a technical question that led to a return of another item (not these) and were great to deal with. I have already bought more of their products, and am planning my next purchase. Could not be happier with those aspects. Audio-wise, I am perhaps not qualified to step into the esoteric distinctions that others perceive in high end audio. As a baseline to an audiophile reading this, I have a bunch of music encoded in FLAC and Ogg Vorbis... I find the sound more than satisfactory for the large room I placed these in. Good stereo field, distinct highs and lows. Adding a subwoofer might be gilding the lily a bit, I think I will save that for the home theatre room. For the non-audiophile, easy to set up, easy to use and welcomes your music no matter where you got it or how it's stored. Software controls run best on iPad or other tablet, but phones and iPods work just fine (it's a screen real estate problem).

Con buen sonido, estética, y materiales de calidad estas bocinas hacen de la música lo mejor. Llevo unos meses con ella y es muy recomendable ( ya esta la nueva versión a este mismo precio Sonos One), este Sonos play:1 depende mucho de un dispositivo externo encendido para su funcionamiento, su app es muy bueno. Aunque solo funciona para música streaming wifi, si lo quieres para youtube o películas en Netflix no es recomendable por la tecnología que maneja las bocinas Sonos, ya no se lleva bien con la tecnología bluetooth por la mala calidad que da ¨ por lo que pude leer ¨ ( aunque intente bajar un programa para reproducir en la pc o dispositivos móviles así poder disfrutar películas y videos, el sonido llega atrasado por segundos ) tiene muy buenas criticas estas bocinas por excelente sonido y confiabilidad. En lo ¨personal¨ sigo prefiriendo mi Soundtoch 10, mas independencia de dispositivos externos aun puedes ¨tocar¨ la bocina sin necesidad de depender de un dispositivo y el sonido característico de Bose . Sin lugar a que te equivoques es una excelente compra esta bocina. Ya llevo 3 años con esta bocina.

So this product the Play:1 - doesn't really make sense as a standalone speaker. The ecosystem is pretty locked in, and will only allow streaming through iTunes and it's own app. So if you're playing media off some other player like VLC (or anything else) - it's a no no... The connectivity is decent - but if you're not using a traditional router (i.e. creating a hotspot from your machine - cause it has internet thru it's ethernet port) it's not going to work too well. Still trying to make it work - as it was an expensive purchase! but haven't been able to derive value from it yet! The seller in India - GadgetsAccessories was completely unhelpful and is definitely on my list of sellers not to buy from!