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I am a retired sound engineer, technical manager of several recording and post production studios. I began my professional life as an electronic engineer in a hifi company, and finished it as a network administrator and web designer.
A friend of mine had the bad idea to offer to me his old sonos system, composed of a NAS, a bridge, a Play3 and a Play5.
I had spend two days to connect them. TWO f… full days. I had never seen in my life such a stupid system, so badly designed, so badly explained and so many bugs in one single app. Nothing was working as expected. And I’m not alone to think this: just see the ratings of the Sonos1 app in ‘Play Store !!!

And the sound quality: No comment :-(

I'm on the verge of throwing it all in the one room where this whole mess will work properly: the trash can!

Just for the record, I own a pair of Kef 50 Wireless. It took 10mn to set them and the sound quality is just day and night: How can somebody pretend a single enclosure like Play5 to be ‘stereo’ and  have the nerve to speak about sound stage !!!
 

Bridge is old and now unreliable tech and discontinued years ago. Nobody talks of sound stage with a single Play speaker (two can be stereo paired).

If you really don't understand the difference between the type of wireless speaker that a Kef is and what Sonos is, it is no wonder you are having problems. 


 Nobody talks of sound stage with a single Play speaker (two can be stereo paired).

If you really don't understand the difference between the type of wireless speaker that a Kef is and what Sonos is, it is no wonder you are having problems. 

Unfortunately, on its website, Sonos implicitly talks sound stage from a single play 5; when they claim a wider sound stage from a 5 pair in comparison to a single 5. And a 5 offers a sound stage, at up to 2-3 feet distance from the single speaker. In practice of course that does not translate into one for normal listening positions.

I have neither a 5 nor a KEF 50, although I have other KEF speakers. And given the price points, I would compare the KEF pair with a 5 pair + Sub. In that case, I strongly suspect that you will find as many fans of the Sonos set up as you will for the KEF set up, where sound quality is concerned. Especially because as a mini monitor, the KEF simply cannot do what the Sub does on the lower frequency front.


Thanks Kumar. I stand corrected on the sound stage point. I think that is an unfortunate claim. 

On the other points, I maintain that it is impossible to judge Sonos on the basis of a networking device that Sonos recommends no longer be used, and speakers that are inferior to the current range, andused singly


 

On the other points, I maintain that it is impossible to judge Sonos on the basis of a networking device that Sonos recommends no longer be used, and speakers that are inferior to the current range, andused singly

Yes to the single v pair comparison being inappropriate, but no to that with the older speaker range being used. I had one of the original play 5 units and for that, if used as a pair + Sub, my comment in my earlier post as to that set up’s sound quality would still apply, I believe.