Sound & Vision (2019-04)

At a Glance

Impressive versatility

Easy integration

Designed for shelf or rack

mounting

EQ limited to bass and treble

adjustments

Noticeably bright sound with some

speakers

Price: $599

800-680-2345

sonos.com

there—from the front and the back. (The
spring-loaded speaker binding posts on
the back of the retiring Connect:Amp are
so 2005....) Finally, since integrators oen
used the Connect:Amp to power speakers
for beer TV sound, they wanted the new
piece of gear to be simpler to operate
when connected to a TV.

A PACK-IN-THE-BOX

Here is what the Amp hardware team at
Sonos did in a nutshell. They replaced the
old Connect:Amp’s friendly, stubby-footed,
white-and-silver case with a sleek, all-
black chassis that’s shorter —it now fits in a
1 1/2 U space —but a bit wider and deeper.
Gone are the Connect:Amp’s pegboard-
style top and boom panels. Instead, the
top of the Amp sports a convex depression
that passively (read: no fan noise) allows
heat to flow out through the curved edge
of the indentation. The capacitance-touch
controls for volume up/down and play/
pause are indicated by minimalist icons on
the front panel, whereas the Connect:Amp
had rubberized buon caps (again, so
2005...) for the same controls. When
siing on a tabletop or shelf, the Amp’s
industrial design is striking enough to be
a conversation starter. When mounted in
a rack, either singly or paired side-by-side
with other Amps, its uncluered front panel
gives the impression of a mysterious piece
of advanced technology.
To get the amount of oomph they
wanted, Sonos developed its own output
stage, power supply, and other compo-
nents. The result is a class-D amp that
Sonos says outputs 2 x 125 was at 8
ohms and can also easily handle 4 ohm
loads and even (dynamically) 2 ohms.
Peak output current is rated at a whopping
31 amps. Amazingly, all of the amplifica-
tion parts and pieces —along with DSP,
Wi-Fi, HDMI, and streaming circuitry—are
stuffed inside a chassis that’s only 2.5
inches tall, 8.5 inches wide, and 8.5 inches
deep. Sometime back in 2018, I witnessed
a version of the Amp with a clear Plexi-
glass case. To me, it appeared so densely
packed that I thought no one should dare
take the cover off, or it would fly apart like
some self-destructing jack-in-the-box.
The new Sonos Amp’s back panel
is simple and unadorned. Although it
keeps the main connection ports from
the Connect:Amp (analog audio in,
subwoofer out, two Ethernet ports, stereo
speaker connections), they’re all recessed,
making the panel totally flat. The loud-
speaker connections accept standard
banana plugs, but Sonos includes two

custom-designed, threaded, dual banana

plug-style assemblies. These are things

of engineering beauty, with the red and

white designations printed on the side of

the plug visible when you’re leaning over

the Amp looking for where to insert cable

ends.

GOT ARC?

With just a single HDMI connection, the

Amp obviously doesn’t do video switching.

Instead, the jack is there to take advan-

tage of HDMI’s Audio Return Channel

(ARC) and Consumer Electronics Control

(HDMI-CEC) features. For instance, when

the Sonos Amp is connected to a TV’s

HDMI-ARC port, the Amp will automatically

begin playing audio from the TV when the

set is turned on —even if it had previously

been playing music as part of a group of

Sonos devices. The Amp’s volume level

can be controlled by the TV’s remote, and

the system volume level is displayed on the

TV’s screen whenever a change in level is

made, either via the TV remote or through

the Sonos app.

Sonos threw in a number of other

features worth noting. For example,

there’s an optional optical digital-to-HDMI

(female) dongle that allows you to connect

a digital audio source device, such as an

older TV that lacks an HDMI ARC-enabled

port. AirPlay 2 is supported, and the Amp

can stream AirPlay 2 audio —or audio from

a TV or a source like a turntable connected

to its analog RCA inputs—to any Sonos

speaker(s) in the system.

The Sonos Amp can also be used for the

front amplification in a 4.1-channel or the

rear amp in a 5.1-channel (mostly) wireless

home theater system. In the former setup,

the Amp powers the front le and right

speakers while creating a phantom center

channel. A variety of options exist for

wireless rear speaker setups—including

adding a second Sonos Amp to power a

pair of passive rear speakers. In my case,

I used a pair of Play:1s. If you use a pair of

Alexa-enabled Sonos Ones for the rear

channel, you can use the Alexa Sonos skill

to operate some basic controls (pause/

play, for instance), although an Echo Dot in

the room will provide the same function-

ality. A Sonos Sub can be added for a

wireless .1 channel, or another company’s

wired sub can be connected to the Amp’s

subwoofer output.

OOMPH IS AS OOMPH DOES

Here comes the fun part for someone like

me who has one of the cushiest, flippin’

awesomest jobs (reviewing A/V gear) that

any nerdist or Dudeist (yeah, look it up)

could ask for. Imagine you review knives

and swords and, maybe, saws once in a

while. Your editor gives you a Swiss Army

knife and says, “Review this!” It’s not one

of those lile knives with a corkscrew and

a nail file. This is the big one with every-

thing from a pliers to a wire stripper to a

chainsaw. Where do you begin? More

importantly, when do you end?

While the new Sonos Amp doesn’t

include wire strippers or a microwave oven

(it does come with those cool thumbscrew

banana plugs, though), it most certainly

is the Swiss Army knife-equivalent in

the Sonos product line. I couldn’t test all

of the possible configurations, but one

thing I discovered immediately was that,

for two-channel audio, the Sonos Amp is

definitely a ballsy powerhouse. It had more

than enough “oomph” to convey the strong

bass lines in both Benny Blanco’s “East-

side (with Halsey & Khalid)” and Charlie

Puth’s “The Way I Am” without losing any

punch. At the same time, the vocals and

guitar interplay in the unadorned, acoustic

version of Loe’s “Auf beiden Beinen

(Akustik Version)” showed the Amp’s

delicate side. I heard a total absence of

coloration, along with a beautiful sense of

space, on both the melodic, laid back “The

Windmills of Your Mind” by Triple Standard

and the more boisterous, live version of

“Juste One P’tite Nuite” by Canadian band

Les Colocs.

I must say, however, that the Amp can

sound a bit bright out of the box, a trait

that could be annoying at louder volume

levels depending on which speakers I had

hooked up. I only noticed a slight edginess

on vocal sibilants and the brassiest horn

sections when using a pair of GoldenEar

soundandvision.com (^) [ 49