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I just purchased a Sonos Five to replace 2 sonos Ones in my living room. Since it’s an open space connected to the kitchen and dining room, I tought a Five would be more suited to better fill the room. Also, I didn’t have a good stereo placement for the Ones (they are now in my office). However and to my surprise, it seems that the Five sound is way less powerfull than my pair of Ones and is even less powefull than my Beam. As an example, when I play music on both the Five and the Beam (which are in the same room), the Beam sounds way louder, richer and seems to overtake the Five for audio quality. I have to turn up the Five volume at least twice as loud if I want to hear it over the Beam. Also, the bass seems almost non-existent. I cheked the settings and there is no volume limit.

 

Is there an issue with my Sonos Five/something I’m doing wrong, or is the Five just not as powerfull as I expected?

 

Thank you for your help!

Evaluation of “loud” by the position of a Volume control usually leads to confusion. The real question is: “does the unit get loud enough?” And, this is always open for discussion. Humans have been conditioned to equate “loud” with distorted. In this context SONOS products might never sound “loud” because the amplifiers are well protected and will reduce output or shut down rather than entering a distortion mode. If a unit plays loudly (by whatever metric used) at a low control setting we think of the unit as being “powerful”, even if the unit is then difficult to control at low output.

Bass quality is probably related to position in the room. Placement near a wall, especially in a corner, will accentuate the bass. If the FIVE’s are not near a wall and the other speakers are near a wall or in a corner, they might offer more bass. Also check the ‘Loudness’ setting of your speakers. If Loudness is enabled, bass will be boosted at lower levels as a way of compensating for how our hearing works.

Have you used Trueplay for any of the speakers?

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