Play 5 Gen 2 and 5 stereo pair.

Hi @Radiohead.

Welcome to the Sonos community and thanks for reaching out to us.

I do agree and confirm with @Airgetlam . Thos Sonos Five can only be paired with another Sonos Five as stereo pairing requires 2 Sonos speakers of the same model. Let me share with you the FAQ of Sonos Five as stereo pairing Sonos Five is also provided in the guide. 

Please let us know if you still have further questions or concerns. We are always here to help.

Thanks,

So in this situation, with a fairly new and much loved play 5 gen2, then only way to form a stereo pair is to find a new or second hand play5.2 ?

Seems very disappointing, I guess there may still be some gen 2 in shops…… (15% upgrade allowance seems a very poor deal)

Dom

I have qty (7) SONOS speakers, and not allowing me to pair a Five with a 5 into a ‘stereo grouping’ is insane.  Yeah, it may not be the absolute best sound, but it is way better than having two Mono speakers.  So if you are concerned that I am degrading my listening experience from my Sonos 5 and Five, then listen to them in Mono and tell me how good they sound.  Every time I try to keep for love for Sonos, you guys give me a reason not to ever buy one again, and for sure I quit recommending them.  Needless to say I am very disappointed and pissed off.  Your best customers are the one you have, so learn to take care of them since they are the ones responsible for your success.

It seems to me Sonos decision to ditch backwards compatibility in this case was driven mostly by commercial choices, rather than technical constraints. And yes, this is not good, if Sonos expects people to invest in its products in the long term.

@vb01 How would you know if this was done out of commercial choices?

I would like to ask if you would happily muix and match different generations of, say, passive B&W speakers. B&W would advise againts this I expect…..

@106rallye If a play 5 can pair to another play 5, I cannot see any technical constraint for a new, more advanced and capable Sonos five to be able to pair with an older play 5. Even if the paired units would behave like two “play 5” without being able to exploit the new capabilities of the Sonos five unit. Of course this would require extra maintenance and support effort from Sonos but backwards compatibility does come with a cost!
I have a Sonos play 5 and was planning to pair with a new one. Sonos believes it’s a good commercial strategy to force me to buy two new fives and ditch the one I already have. I say I’d better not spend more money on Sonos and look elsewhere.

I think it is interesting when people get upset because they can’t pair a Play:1 with a One or a Play:5 with a Five. They are two completely different speakers. Just because they look similar and have the same number in its name doesn’t mean they should be made to pair together. If Sonos named the One a “Sonos Ten” or called the Five a “Sonos Twenty” and made them both grey speakers, I wonder if people would still be as upset?

The increased of memory and cpu does not justify the incompatibility 

A new sonos speaker with a 6-6,5 ‘’ bass driver would be more fair 

This indignation, with its threats to never buy Sonos again, is really tiresome.  None of us knows the full range of differences between the speakers. The same arguments have been gone over for Play:1 vs One.  Most of the components in those speakers are different and the sound signatures are not the same.

The reasons for disallowing the stereo pair are probably a mix of technical and commercial - hardly a surprise from a quoted technology company.  But the number of users who will actually sell a Play:5 and buy a pair of Fives is probably miniscule and the commercial benefit to Sonos negligible.  There are Play:5s on sale pre-owned on eBay and everyone is free to buy one of those.

Calling it a ‘lack of backwards compatibility’ is disingenuous.  If the Play:5 gen 2 could not be used in the same system as a Five that would be truly a lack of backwards compatibility. 

I can understand why people would want to do this, and disappointment that it isn’t possible, but a sense of perspective would be good.