The SONOS Experience

Sonos speakers have been around for almost 15 years now. Usually I am quick to jump on new technology, but this is one example of something I waited to purchase. I have been using various Sonos speakers throughout my house (and my office) for almost 2 years now. A lot has changed over the past year in regards to the software and even hardware available from the company.

This is how Sonos defines itself:

Sonos speakers are beautifully designed to fill your entire home with music. Use one simple app to stream different tunes in different rooms. Or send one amazing song all through the house.

How I Became Hooked

Where to begin…

As mentioned above, a lot has changed with Sonos over the years. Until recently Sonos was limited to just a few speakers. In the past few years, they have introduced some new speakers and features to allow the “price of entry” to be lower than it was originally.

After the PLAY: 1 was introduced, I decided to finally give Sonos a shot. The price was reasonable and from what I had heard, the speaker sounded great for it’s relatively small size. I finally made the jump into the Sonos eco-system. I became instantly hooked. Luckily (or maybe unluckily?) for me, about a week later, some great deals came up with the Play: 3 range of speakers. So obviously I jumped on that, and the need for more just kept getting worse.

Over a span of a month or two, my Sonos speaker count rose quite a bit. Throughout my house I now have 5 Play:1 speakers, 2 Play:3 speakers and the Subwoofer. And for good measure, I have a Play:1 in my office as well.

The Experience…

Ever since purchasing the Sonos speakers I listen to music a lot. Much more than I did prior to purchasing them. With the availability of services now like Apple Music I can stream basically anything I want anywhere in my house. Either all together or separately in each room.

One good thing about a Sonos speaker is it’s ability to be moved around easily, or paired with other speakers of the same type. For example, I originally purchased a Play:1 for my bedroom. I thought I would use it more, but it turns out I was never listening to it in there. I realized I played music a lot more in the “Den” as it’s labeled in my Sonos system. So I created a stereo pair in there. I have to say, a stereo pair of Play:1 speakers is drastically better than a single Play: 1, and even better sounding than a single Play:3 speaker.

A feature addition that was added during the past year is Trueplay. Walls, furniture, where you position your speaker – they all impact the acoustics in a room, and the sound quality of your music.

Trueplay makes your Sonos speaker even smarter. It uses your iPhone or iPad to analyze the room, then literally adjusts how each woofer and tweeter produces sound.

So you hear the music you love, custom tuned to the room where you’re listening.

The change in quality is drastic after tuning your system in each room with Trueplay. I was actually very surprised. At first I thought it was going to just be some sort of gimmick, but really, it’s not.

Speaker Options

There are 3 main speakers to choose from, if you are using the Sonos system for music.

They also sell a soundbar and a few other devices, but I have no experience with those so I have left them out of my article.

As you can see, there are slight differences between the 3 models. For smaller rooms the Play:1 is more than sufficient. So if price is a limiting factor for you to make the jump into the Sonos eco-system, don’t be fooled by the need for the more expensive models.

Conclusion

If you have a large music collection, or even a small one but use one of the many streaming options available, Sonos speakers will greatly increase your listening. The ease of use is amazing, and the setup is as simple as could be. You can literally have it up and running in just a few minutes. Sonos also recently announced that in early 2017 they will include Alexa integration to add another dimension of speech enabled control to the system.

If you have any comments or questions regarding Sonos speakers, feel free to comment below and I will try my best to answer any questions you have.

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