Sonos home theater review 2019

We usually advise homeowners to wire their loudspeakers and subwoofer rather than use wireless speakers. But in some circumstances, a wireless home theater makes more sense. Wireless sound systems are neater no tangle of cables and easier to assemble in existing homes. Wireless speakers are also more flexible for those who may want to start small, frequently move, or rent their San Francisco, CA home. Read on to discover how Sonos wireless speakers work and how to connect them in your private cinema! Sonos lets you sync up to 32 speakers!

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Content:

• Sonos Move review
• Sonos Amp review: all kinds of power
• Which Sonos home cinema speakers should I choose?
• Sonos Playbar review
• Ikea Symfonisk speaker review: Sonos on the cheap
• 18 Best Wireless Surround Sound Systems In 2021
• The Complete Sonos Buying Guide: Every Speaker, Soundbar and Amp Explained
• Sonos Arc long-term review: the highs and lows
• Sonos Move review
• Sonos Arc review: The all-in-one Atmos soundbar to beat

WATCH RELATED VIDEO: Sonos Arc Surround Sound System In Depth: Watch Before You Buy

Sonos Move review

Despite all the advancements in picture performance over the years, the quality of TV sound has actually not made much progress. In fact, as TVs have gotten thinner, so has the sound. Without a lot of cabinet depth and space for the speakers to resonate, most TVs - even expensive TVs - can sound anemic and weak. In light of this, we've been witnesses can I get an "Amen? A sound bar takes over the sound duties from a TV, providing fuller richer sound from sources such as live TV and streaming apps.

Soundbars make good solutions for some. If you have a place on the wall you can mount it, or if it fits in front of your TV without blocking part of the screen, you're good to go. But if your TV is sitting on a stand or credenza, a sound bar just might not fit. In these cases, something called a sound base, or a speaker base, can be a better fit.

A sound base is similar to a sound bar, but instead of sitting in front of the TV, a sound base sits directly beneath it. Sonos, makers of whole home music systems, recently introduced their version of the sound base, the PlayBase. In addition to providing better sound for TV shows, movies and sporting events, the PlayBase also includes the power of the Sonos wireless music platform.

It can access virtually all of the popular digital streaming platforms as well as local digital music files within your home network.

It's also expandable. You can add a Sonos sub for deep rich base and add on a pair of smaller Sonos speakers like the Play:1s for 5. Setting up a PlayBase is pretty simple. As far as wired audio video connections, it has only one: a fiberoptic digital port. It comes with a 6-foot fiberoptic cable, but if that's not long enough, any fiberoptic cable will do.

Just connect it from the back of your TV into the PlayBase, and you're done, at least as far as cables go. If your TV does not have a fiberoptic output though most do , you might want to look for a different solution to your TV sound woes. Of course, those speakers don't include the Sonos platform, so that's something else to consider.

It turns out that getting TV sound into the PlayBase is really only half the story. Like any Sonos speaker, the PlayBase is a part of the Sonos wireless music platform. With Sonos, you can play music from Spotify, Amazon, I Heart Radio, Pandora, Deezer - currently over 70 different music services - right from your phone or computer to a speaker in any room in your home.

Why does this matter? It doesn't. Unless you like music. In which case it does. It really does. With Sonos, you can put speakers anywhere in your home and play your music on any or all of these speakers just by clicking around in the Sonos app. To set up the PlayBase with Sonos you install the Sonos app on your PC, Mac, Android or Apple device, click on the "Add a new speaker" link inside the app and press a button on the speaker. On the PlayBase, that button is on the left side of the speaker.

If it's your first Sonos speaker, it's a little more complicated that that - and you may need to plug your PlayBase directly into your router temporarily - but it's really pretty straightforward.

Once you've got all the accounts set up you can mix and match music among various sources. A single playlist can take some songs from Spotify, some from Amazon Music and some from your own personal collection of digital music files e. From the Sonos app you can play music on all of the speakers in your home, or just one or two. Also, your kids can listen to something in their room without interfering with your listening in the living room.

I have found that my music listening increases substantially when I have Sonos products in for review, and that's a very good thing. Sonos say that people who listen to music out loud are generally happier and even have more sex , but I have no comment on that. You want simple? The Sonos PlayBase has no display screen and only a single button, which you only ever have to push once.

During the set-up of the PlayBase, Sonos will also ask you some questions about what TV or cable box remote you're using. This will allow the PlayBase volume to be adjusted from your current TV or cable box remote. This is sort of important as the PlayBase does not come with its own remote control. It doesn't really need one as its volume can be controlled in the Sonos app or by your TV remote. But if you skipped that part, you can find out how to do it here.

For our testing, we controlled the volume using a Harmony remote, but we also tested it with an Epson projector remote: both worked fine for volume control.

One thing you sometimes give up when you opt for the simplicity of a sound bar or sound base is surround sound. But with Sonos, you don't have to. Like the Sonos PlayBar and their newest bar the Sonos Beam, the Sonos PlayBase can be expanded from a traditional speaker to a real multi-channel surround sound system. You can add a pair of Sonos Play:1s or Sonos Ones or use a Sonos Amp to power a pair of in-wall speakers in the rear of your room. You can also add a Sonos sub if you want deeper more powerful base - something that really enhances the whole home theater experience.

Most of our listening was done with the full 5. You might ask how the PlayBase can work with streaming music sources, streaming video apps, cable boxes, etc. And that's a good question. The answer is "intelligent engineering. When the PlayBase detects a signal from a video source like a TV or cable box coming over the optical cable, it automatically turns itself on and switches to that source. If you go into the Sonos app and decide to play music on the PlayBase, then it automatically switches to that source.

And if you have multiple video sources like a Blu-ray Player, Roku streaming box and a cable box, simply plug these directly into your TV and let the TV handle the audio switching for you. We've been using and reviewing Sonos speakers for years, yet we continue to be impressed with how full and rich the sound quality is that comes out of these fairly small boxes.

Sonos uses a clever folded port design inside the PlayBase to effectively increase the internal cabinet volume. This allows the PlayBase to reproduce lower base frequencies than one would expect from a box of this size. They also experimented with different sized perforation holes in the speaker's front screen to come up with the best sound quality without exposing the internal drivers to the discerning viewer apparently speaker drivers ain't sexy to some folks.

I installed the PlayBase in our basement home theater, paired with an Epson 4Ke projector on a inch screen. This wasn't exactly a match made in heaven - from a set-up standpoint - as the projector doesn't have the fiberoptic audio connection required by the PlayBase.

So I had to add in an HDMI switch with its own fiberoptic audio output, plug my sources into that and pass the fiberoptic output from the swtich to the PlayBase. It worked as expected, but things are definitely simpler when you use the PlayBase with a regular TV. You might think this little speaker would have trouble keeping up with the action on such a massive projection screen, but you'd be wrong.

I've had esoteric multi-thousand dollar discrete 5. The opening sequence of "Gravity" on Blu-ray Disc is a torture test for audio. The complex and dynamic soundtrack of the film really puts a sound system through its paces. Right from the beginning, the sound slowly builds to a deafening level ending abruptly in stone cold silence. And from that silence, tiny sounds begin to emerge as we hear astronauts on a space walk communicating with each other, with the Space Shuttle Crew and with Mission Control.

The Sonos system doesn't support the height-enhanced Dolby Atmos soundtrack which is available on the Blu-ray Disc, but it does a nice job with the companion Dolby Digital 5. As the shuttle and astronauts come into closer proximity, individual voices are placed in discrete points in the room so you can make out the conversation easily as it builds toward the foreground. As astronaut Matt Kowalski George Clooney pipes country music through his comms, the tunes follow his precise position in space as he jets around in his prototype propulsion pack.

Later in the film, when spoiler alert the International Space Station is shredded by high-speed orbiting shrapnel, the sonic cacaphony that results can help you to imagine the panic that would be felt by astronauts trying to survive the onslaught. It's madness and mayhem on screen, and the sound helps draw you in. Another fun movie for audio testing is "The Fifth Element. While Leeloo kicks the crap out of the Mangalorian soldiers, the Diva's dulcet tones evolve into a throbbing, bass-heavy, multi-octave-spanning techno overture.

This segment can really give your speakers a workout, and the PlayBase system does a fine job here. Moving to music, I noticed a slight sibilance on vocals in the Eagles "Hotel California" track on the DVD-Audio album of the same name, but it was not excessive. Bass is solid and instruments sound natural and detailed.

A live performance of "Imagine Dragons" on Blu-ray also sounds enjoyable on the Sonos system with nice vocal precision and a wide and deep soundfield. Crowd sounds surround the viewer giving you a real "you are there" feeling while watching and listening. The Sonos PlayBase can be matched up with a Sonos sub and a pair of Play:1 bookshelf speakers for true 5.

Moving onto pure music listening in the Sonos app proved equally enjoyable. Modern alternative tracks with female vocals like Ellie Goulding's "Burn" and "Lights" sounded fantastic with solid, palpable vocals and nice use of the rear channels for ambience. Lorde's "Royals" was similarly enjoyable with the subwoofer providing deep solid extension without being too boomy. But sound quality did vary a bit. Tracks like Rush "Red Barchetta" and "Limelight" from the remaster album lacked some depth and width and sounded just slightly thin overall.

It was still enjoyable, particularly for a "sound bar," but it did sometimes make me miss more traditional and generally more expensive discrete surround sound systems. Sound quality can and does vary, depending on how compressed the source is. Pandora's free service uses a bit of compression which leads to a slight loss of detail and harshness.

But higher quality streaming sources such as Deezer or lossless local digital music files offer a much richer sonic experience. Unfortunately, Sonos doesn't support playback of high res music files anything above 16 bits or 48 KHz sampling rate , so if that's important to you, you might need to look elsewhere. We did notice one sort of bizarre audio behavior with the Sonos PlayBase that took a little investigation to resolve.

While listening to the PlayBase, on several occasions, the volume dropped unexpectedly for about 10 to 15 seconds. It turns out that the Sonos Skill for Amazon Alexa has a weird bug in it where any time anyone in the house uses Alexa to control a Sonos speaker, instead of just lowering the sound on the individual speaker, it lowers the sound on all of the Sonos speakers in the house.

Sonos Amp review: all kinds of power

Sonos as a brand is synonymous with high-end, high-quality audio products. Founded in , the American brand has consistently delivered soundbars, smart speakers and multi-room systems in sleek, minimalistic designs. Featuring Dolby Atmos, voice control via Alexa or Google Assistant, and 11 high-performance drivers for crisp sound and punchy bass, the soundbar was launched in June Not the only soundbar option from Sonos, the Arc joined the smaller and more affordable Sonos Beam. And is the Sonos Arc worth splashing the cash for?

Which Sonos home cinema speakers should I choose?

A wireless multiroom speaker system is the easiest way to listen to music, podcasts, and other audio entertainment in more than one room at a time, and we think Sonos is the best option. It supports the widest variety of streaming services, the speakers sound great, and its apps are practically foolproof. The competition is catching up, but Sonos is still the most complete and reliable package overall. The Sonos One sounds great and is an affordable entry point to the Sonos system. The Sonos Five easily fills large spaces with full-range, detailed sound comparable to that of nice bookshelf speakers. You can also pair the Five to enjoy great stereo sound. If sound quality, easy setup, and intuitive operation are your top priorities in a multiroom wireless speaker system, Sonos is our recommendation.

Sonos Playbar review

We purchase our own soundbars and put them under the same test bench, so that you can compare the results easily. No cherry-picked units sent by brands. The Sonos Beam is a 3. Out-of-the-box, its sound profile is slightly bright, but it's still quite balanced, making it well suited for listening to most types of audio content. Although it lacks some low-bass, you can improve its bass performance by adding its separate wireless subwoofer, which is sold separately.

Ikea Symfonisk speaker review: Sonos on the cheap

The Sonos Arc is an exceptional soundbar, and not just because it supports the immersive audio format Dolby Atmos. But the Arc has a couple of significant shortcomings, only one of which might eventually be remedied. You can read all about eARC in this story. Let me be up front: I really, really like the Sonos Arc—hence my bottom-line score. The first issue is that Sonos elected to not support multi-channel LPCM audio—at least not at launch. Sony supports Atmos only for the playback of Blu-ray discs and you'll need to configure it properly for that to happen.

18 Best Wireless Surround Sound Systems In 2021

CNET editors pick the products and services we write about. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. If you're looking for a soundbar with voice assistants, multiroom music and other features, the Arc will float your boat. The original Sonos Playbar was a standout product when it appeared on the market in : It was a big soundbar that offered both multiroom music and a simple one-cable connection to your TV. Its age has started to show in the seven years since, however, and I've grown to like numerous other TV speakers better, including Sonos' own Playbase and Beam. After a couple of weeks listening to the all-new Sonos Arc , I can report Sonos has once again raised the bar.

The Complete Sonos Buying Guide: Every Speaker, Soundbar and Amp Explained

Known for its wireless audio applications and seamless mesh networking of its speakers and other peripherals, the company dipped into the home theater market with the release of the Sonos Playbar in The Playbar features a nine-driver speaker array that delivers a pulse-pounding cinematic experience for living rooms and media caves the world over. Plus, the intuitive Sonos app for iOS and Android devices allows the Playbar to stream music, podcasts, radio stations, and more.

Sonos Arc long-term review: the highs and lows

The Sonos Move is a great speaker but it might not be for you. If you already are a part of or plan on joining the Sonos ecosystem then this is a great addition to your setup. Not many brands have crossed over into pop culture so successfully. For years name Sonos has been the company to beat when it comes to home audio. But how does that apply once you leave the house? The Sonos Move looks great and will blend into the design of any situation.

Sonos Move review

Sound Bar Buying Guide. Home Theater Systems Buying Guide. Home Theater Receivers Buying Guide. Home Speaker Deals. Receiver Deals. Turntable Deals. Our picks for the best subwoofers in a variety of categories: best wireless, best home theater, and more.

Sonos Arc review: The all-in-one Atmos soundbar to beat

Sonos basically invented the multi-room category of home audio, starting as a software company in the early s before integrating its Wi-Fi-enabled network into hardware a few years later. Its first amplifier which became the Connect:Amp and subsequent speakers were great, but the real beauty of Sonos is its ecosystem of audio products that make listening to music at home really easy. The magic of Sonos is the ability to group any number of Sonos speakers together, provided they are all connected to the same Wi-Fi network, and have them all playing in sync through out the house. Alternatively, they can all be playing different tunes if you'd like.