S
MULTIROOM MATES
Colonel Mustard with soft rock in the kitchen or Rev Green repping grime in the
dining room – whoever’s murdering the music, why not let everyone hear it?
SONOS
Key specs (Sonos Move)
O 1 mid, 1 tweeter O Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, AirPlay 2 O Up to
10hrs O 240x160x130mm, 3kgSTUFF SAYS As a combo of performance, price and ease of use, no one can lay a glove on Sonos +++++
from £179 / stuff.tv/SonosAUDIO GUIDE
Missing tooth
Something to be
aware of before taking
the plunge: only the
portable Sonos Move
has Bluetooth, and
there’s no USB.onos is rapidly on
the way to becoming
a generic term for
‘wireless multiroom music
system’, in much the same
way ‘Hoover’ and ‘Biro’ are
generic in their fields. And for
good reason. The company
has pretty much legitimised
multiroom for the mainstream,
while a recent collab with
IKEA has brought its products
to an even more competitive
price range.
The judicious expansion
of its range has made sure
there’s a Sonos for every
eventuality – including homecinema as well as music. If
you can’t find anything in there
to suit you – whether it’s
the Google/Alexa-powered
Sonos One, the portable
Move, the mic-free Play:5
and SL speakers, or the Beam
and Dolby Atmos-capable Arc
soundbars – the issue is with
you rather than them. Even
the more serious traditionalist
listener is catered for with the
Amp and Port.
Quite apart from sky-high
performance and brilliant
value for money, Sonos is
easier and slicker to set up
and use than any alternative,which goes a long way to
explaining its popularity. The
new S2 app is stable, logical
and clean, and it helps you
through the few short steps
required to get your first
speaker up and running. After
that, it couldn’t be easier to
get music throughout your
home (or as many rooms
as you have speakers in,
anyway) – you can set up
a couple of speakers as a
true stereo pair, or add rear
channels to a soundbar setup
for TV surround sound.
It’s a shame Sonos doesn’t
operate above CD-standard16-bit/44.1kHz, and a pity you
can’t integrate third-party
speakers into its ecosystem,
though the addition of Apple
AirPlay 2 makes the platform
a bit more welcoming than it
used to be. But for its unique
combination of performance,
value and sheer breadth
of product range options,
Sonos remains the multiroom
system to beat.