Playbase and Play5 compatibility

Reading the promo materials, this looks to be identical to a playbar in a different casing and an extra speaker thrown in for good measure.
I would expect it to be fully compatible with a 5 as surround speakers bonding as it would be to the play 1 and 3 and connect amp.

I'm going to add a couple of points here:-

NO - It won't be compatible with a (single) Play 5 - Obviously you could GROUP with the Playbase but then you would have a 70ms audio delay to the Play 5.

Also, We would assume the Playbase would NOT allow bonding 2 x Play 5 Gen 1 as surrounds

So, to summarise. 1 (One) Play 5 NO. 2 x Play 5 YES but must be Gen 2

Good answers from Stuart and Contemplative here. Yes, you'll be able to bond a pair of gen2 PLAY:5s with the PLAYBASE. In terms of features and functionality it's designed to be identical to the PLAYBAR. The biggest difference is in the shape, and a bit in the sound department. Much more bass.

Hi there. Does that mean that I couldn't use my existing pair of first gen Play 5s with a Playbase?

Hi there. Does that mean that I couldn't use my existing pair of first gen Play 5s with a Playbase?

You can use them grouped with the PLAYBASE as another room in the house, but they can't bond with the PLAYBASE as surround speakers to act as a 5.0 or 5.1 system. The PLAY:5 gen1 speakers don't have the 5GHz card needed to bond with the PLAYBASE or PLAYBAR for surround sound setups. Grouped, they'd play the same audio, but slightly delayed (when playing the TV sound) as the 2.4GHz network adds a bit of a buffer to prevent cutouts.

Thanks Ryan. So to make sure I understand (bear with me!), I can use the Playbase with my existing Play 5s for audio and that will be fine but for TV I will be best off just using the Playbase on its own, or adding, say, a pair of Play 3s. Sorry to labour the point but I'm not all that audio-savvy!

Correct Graeme. Though anything larger than Play 1s for surrounds is overkill

Thanks Stuart. Much appreciate the input.

Sounds like you've got it now GraemeRoberts. As to what's the best surround speaker to use, depends a bit on room size and expectations, but I find the PLAY:1 is usually all that's needed.

Thanks all.