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jnelly
jnelly
Enthusiast I
March 31, 2026

Sonos Play (2026) - Underwhelmed Sonically

  • March 31, 2026
  • 21 replies
  • 819 views

Is it just me, or is anyone else a bit underwhelmed by how the new Play speaker sounds, especially muddy mids? This could just be my expectation vs. ….

It doesn’t sound bad, it just doesn’t sound $279-ish good. I’ll always remember how great the first listen of my Arc/SL 100s/Sub3 was, now updated with a pair of Era 300s; and still is!

Other considerations:

  • The build quality is excellent
  • It was super easy to set up
  • I’m listening via wifi with lossless codec from AppleMusic
  • Auto True-play does very little, if anything
  • It would be nice if Sonos would engineer a multi-band EQ, like every other modern speaker on the market
  • ...instead of relegating us to the bass/treble only 

I’ll definitely give it a week, but like with the Beam and Ray my first impression seems to be the one that sticks. Both of those items were returned.

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Stanley_4
Stanley_4
Grand Maestro
May 25, 2026

Voice control isn't an option I'd consider, don't like the security implications.

Now if Sonos had a replacement for the CR-100s that originally got me to buy my first Sonos. NOT the unusably small  CR-200 though.

Until then my Play 3s are by far my favorites, the Play a close second.

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