The Sonos Five: First Look
Announced last month along with the all-new Arc, Sonos revealed that they would be revamping two of their most well-loved products: The Sonos Sub and Sonos Play:5. The new Sonos Five is set to replace the older Play:5 from June 10th, and we’ve taken a look into what makes it different from its predecessor by examining its features, internals and updated design.
Sonos Five vs. Play:5
Since its first iteration released all the way back in 2009, the Play:5 has been beloved by Sonos fans for its deep, powerful bass and masterful handling of mid-range and high frequency responses. So why fix something that isn’t broken? You’ll be pleased to hear that the Five boasts the same great sound quality, with three woofers matched by a trio of tweeters for the best sound separation between high-frequency vocals and resonating bass notes. The Five retains the Play:5’s phased speaker array design, offering a wide and detailed stereo soundstage.
Despite being tuned by eminent music producer Giles Martin, you are still able to tailor the new Five exactly to your room and listening requirements. Trueplay tuning will map out the room that you’ve positioned the Five in and ensure the sound output is matched precisely to the space. You also have full control of the EQ settings within the Sonos App, putting you in control of your music listening experience.
Updated Features, Internals and Design
The main differences between the Play:5 and new Five is not, therefore, the audio quality and speaker performance but rather an updated set of features and internal software making the user experience even better than it was before.
The quad-core 1.3GHz CPU processor ensures that playback is quick, minimising any delays. Inbuilt BLE and NFC compatibility make set-up pain free, removing the need to connect the speaker to your router via ethernet when initially configuring your speaker.
One of the most noticeable differences about the Five is it’s updated appearance. Sonos’ move into monochrome reflects newer offerings in the Sonos line-up, such as the Beam, Arc and others. The Sonos logo is embedded into the speaker for a sleek and effortless appearance, ensuring the Sonos Five will look timeless in any modern apartment, home or office. We can’t tell whether we love the all-white or all-black design more.
How do we see the Five being used?
Like the Play:5 before it, the Five has a dedicated line-in (3.5mm jack) meaning you can connect any other Hifi Source into the Five. Vinyl and CD enthusiasts will be pleased to know that the Five can be connected to a turntable or CD Player providing a gateway between older Hifi and the Sonos system, granting you the best of both worlds. The line-in feature on the Five allows you to play this hifi audio not just on the speaker itself, but across any other Sonos speaker you have as part of a multiroom set up.
When positioned on its own, Five will automatically separate the left and right sound channel of your music source to create a stereo sound from a single speaker. If stereo paired with another Five, this left and right separation will be extended across the two speakers to give you a richer stereo output. Like the Play:5 before it, you can also use a pair of Fives as surround rears to a Sonos soundbar, diversifying use and control.
We hope you find this overview of the new Sonos Five useful, but of course if there’s anything else we can assist with please get in touch.
