SONOS PLAY:1 Smart Wireless Speaker, Black

Product Information

Sonos’ support technicians are very helpful (we know, we had to call them), and one way or another you will get up and running in the end, but in our experience it’s not always the super-simple process that Sonos sells it as. The Five is the biggest and most powerful wireless home speaker in Sonos' range, and it sounds every inch as detailed and musically pleasing as we've come to expect from Sonos. This flagship iteration (released in June 2020) adds increased memory, snappier processing and a new, er, wireless radio feature. Not a huge upgrade then? Head into the drop down menu at the top of the screen labelled ‘Room Settings for’ and choose the speakers you’d like to pair

Everything works seamlessly together over WiFi. Start with one room and simply add more when you're ready. One great thing about Sonos speakers is that if you buy two you can set them up to blast your favourite tunes in stereo. But what do you do if your speakers refuse to work together? In fact, rival soundbars and soundbases that accept almost any signal via HDMI and then send the video to your TV are arguably more simple, as they don’t require you to particularly think about the sound formats being used at every link in the chain. You can also set alarms using the app, although as there’s no snooze function you’d better be good at getting out of bed. The Sonos Play:1 is the most accessible Sonos speaker. It offers all the convenience of its streaming brothers in a smaller, cheaper form.The left and right tweeters are in horns, directed out to the side to help give a wider sound. These measure 20mm, while the central tweeter is slightly bigger at 23mm. That rich bass response is even more emphasised in this set-up though, so you may find a visit to the EQ settings might be necessary to level things out to a more neutral playing ground. You can also use two of them (in the upright position) as rear surrounds for a home theater set-up with a Sonos Arc–though, to partner the smaller Sonos Rayor Sonos Beam 2nd Gen, we'd suggest a pair Sonos One SLunits instead.

The Sonos Play:1 is not like most other small wireless speakers. It doesn’t use Bluetooth, is not portable and won’t even take a 3.5mm plug to accept a non-wireless source. So it may raise an eyebrow to learn that what hasn’t changed is the Play:1’s distinctive charm – you still won’t regret finding a spot for one (or five) in your home.The other major advantage that the Playbase has over almost any other rival (barring the Beam or Playbar of course) is that it’s got the full breadth of features that you’d get with any other Sonos speaker, namely seamless, simple multi-room integration and almost limitless musical options. We expect most will be fine, even if your TV and Playbase are in a corner or you have more air on one side of the room than the other, but we did try it in one room that had floor-to-ceiling fabric blinds that soaked up way too much sound and left us with a wonky presentation. It looks and feels different to the original, but fits in perfectly with the company’s other more recent additions, such as the Sonos One and Sonos Beam. See those little feet –on the side?! It can be positioned upright too, you see, to create a stereo pair comprising two Fives or as part of a home theater system with a Sonos Arc, say. (Image credit: TechRadar) Sonos Five review: Sound quality