Retired Sonos Staff

Meet Sonos Five, studio-quality sound

Studio quality sound

Sonos Five delivers the same great sound as the Play:5, with updated internals including increased memory, processing power, and a new wireless radio. Six Class-D digital amplifiers are perfectly tuned for Five’s acoustic architecture to power the three tweeters and three mid-woofers.

The custom-designed woofers deliver rich bass while the sealed architecture eliminates reverb and echo. This ensures faithful playback of vocal frequencies in addition to rich bass without distortion, even at high volumes.

One center tweeter and two precisely-angled side tweeters create a crisp high-frequency response.

This all creates a wide stereo soundstage that directs sound to the left, right, and center from one compact speaker. You can amplify the experience by adding another Sonos Five as a stereo pair in either vertical or horizontal orientations, or bring it to the next level with a Sonos Sub.

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Some more details on Sonos Five:

Simple to set-up. Plug Five into power and bring your phone up to Five to automatically pair and securely transfer WiFi credentials using near-field communication (NFC).
Analogue line-in. With 3.5 mm jack for connecting another device, bring sound to Sonos from anything with a standard audio connection.
Flexible Orientation. Enjoy great sound with a standalone Sonos Five horizontally, or pair two Fives in the upright position for incredibly detailed stereo separation. A pair of Fives can also be used as surrounds for a Sonos home theater speaker.
Control your way. Control Sonos Five with your voice when paired with a voice enabled device, the Sonos app, your favorite music service’s app, or AirPlay 2. Capacitive touch controls for play, pause, skip tracks, adjust the volume, and group rooms just by tapping or swiping the top of the speaker. LED indicates status, and mute status.
Tune with Trueplay. Trueplay puts the speaker-tuning capability of the pros in the palm of your hands, adapting and optimizing the sound of the speaker to the unique acoustics of the room. iOS device required.
Dimensions. The dimensions are (H x W x D) 8.03 x 14.33 x 6.06 inches (203 x 364 x 154 mm) and Five weighs 14 lbs (6.36 kg).

Pre-order today on Sonos.com in black with a black grille and, for the first time, white with a white grille for $499 US (€579 EUR).

We’ve announced details for the Sonos Arc and new Sonos Sub. You can also check out our blog for some great stories.

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S

sonosg

Enthusiast I

To me the comparison with the HomePod doesn’t make sense.

Sonos, especially the Five / Play:5 is targeted at the classic Hi-fi music listeners, who want to listen to their music with ease and be able to wirelessly have whole house audio.

The HomePod is more like a background or blast loud speaker for the younger crowd, not for the music listener.

I think most music enthusiasts do not accept the “bounced off the wall” music effect HomePod generates - hence they would much prefer a Five.

The comparison makes sense, that is what gave you the information to reach your conclusion. For you and your needs.

H

HighEndMusic

Prodigy I

sonosg Of course you are spot on!
I guess what I was trying to say is that the two products are intended for two different audiences / use cases.

P

pup

Avid Contributor II

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a review that picked a HomePod over a Five. There were several that placed it above a One, but that was when it first came out, and before Apple neutered it with a midrange focused EQ update. I’ve owned both (HomePod and several Ones) and IMO, the new EQ changed the HomePod from being slightly better than the One to being slightly worse. And given its other deficiencies (no ethernet, no individual tone control, worse networking, no good way to integrate it with TVs for surround sound, higher price, etc.) I just don’t see how it competes well at all with Sonos in its current state, at least for most people’s needs. Anyway, long winded way to say that if it doesn’t compare well with the Sonos One, why should compare well to a Five?

Besides, as others have said, the Five isn’t really meant to compete with smart speakers. They’re designed for people who would otherwise be looking at something like KEFs, for dedicated listening.

The HomePod has its place for some buyers and I appreciate that. If you have Apple Music and are otherwise already committed to apple’s ecosystem, are ok with Siri, and can get it on one of the $199 sales, then it’s a good buy for a go anywhere speaker for general ambient listening. I personally prefer the One even in that scenario, but I wouldn’t fault someone who preferred the HomePod for whatever reason.

By the way, I also own a Move and can say with zero hesitation that it outperforms a HomePod, and by a good bit. I’d say that if someone wants a higher end single speaker, smart or not, and doesn’t mind spending a bit more, then the Move is a great choice, even at its premium price.

jgatie

@pup,

Thanks for that honest review. Check the posting history of the person who stated Homepod was better than a Five. They have never once, in five years, said one thing positive about Sonos. Not once. So you can take their opinion with a grain of salt the size of Wyoming.

Toffe

Trending Lyricist I

Hi, I don’t know if this is the right thread for this but you can move it somewhere else suitable if you like. (Perhaps someone has already asked this somewhere.)

I have some thoughts regarding the new Five.

As read in an article online somewhere-

Why now- why so little?

Talking to people here in Sweden many seems a bit confused why there were so little upgrades on the new Sonos flagship speaker. Yes more memory better processor and WiFi radio, but many people I know including myself really thought that Sonos would release a new Bluesound Pulse2i killer, something that would outperform their flagship and other competitors.(and outperform the play5gen2)

I have not heard the Pulse2i myself but according to my brother it has more of everything compared to the Gen2?

(e.g 24 bit/192 kHz and more power and quality psb drivers)

What’s your opinion of the Five versus the Pulse2i? (In let’s say a stereo pair.)

What would you prefer and why?

*This leaves me with the question, will Sonos soon release another speaker that might take over the throne from the Five as the flagship Sonos audiophile speaker? Perhaps the New “Sonos Six” :wink: :thinking: (they have also removed the phrase “Our most powerful speaker available” on the web site )

Have a good day! Or evening as here in Sweden!

Regards:Kris

X

xano

Contributor I

Hi, Five are future proof?

WiFi 6 is present and seams Five will not supported. What Sonos means by HD sound?

This codecs will play natively: 24 bit/44.1 kHz - 24 bit/96 kHz or 24 bit/192 kHz?

B

baltz52

Trending Lyricist I

I’m wondering if they have plans to use these as rear Atmos speakers.

The side firing tweeters look like they could double as upward firing Atmos tweeters when the speakers are placed vertically as surrounds.

That would be a crazy coincidence, since the Play:5 Gen 2 was released back in 2015 (and has the same design). I assume that Atmos wasn’t even on their radar back then..

melvimbe

I’m wondering if they have plans to use these as rear Atmos speakers.

The side firing tweeters look like they could double as upward firing Atmos tweeters when the speakers are placed vertically as surrounds.

I can’t imagine they would ever do such a thing.

That would be a crazy coincidence, since the Play:5 Gen 2 was released back in 2015 (and has the same design). I assume that Atmos wasn’t even on their radar back then..

Not really. Side firing speakers help to provide an illusion of a bigger soundstage. They did the same thing on the Beam as well. As I understand it the Arc has side firing speakers partially for Atmos content and partially for the soundstage.

Danny

Chris

Lead Maestro

Hi, I don’t know if this is the right thread for this but you can move it somewhere else suitable if you like. (Perhaps someone has already asked this somewhere.)

I have some thoughts regarding the new Five.

As read in an article online somewhere-

Why now- why so little?

Talking to people here in Sweden many seems a bit confused why there were so little upgrades on the new Sonos flagship speaker. Yes more memory better processor and WiFi radio, but many people I know including myself really thought that Sonos would release a new Bluesound Pulse2i killer, something that would outperform their flagship and other competitors.(and outperform the play5gen2)

I have not heard the Pulse2i myself but according to my brother it has more of everything compared to the Gen2?

(e.g 24 bit/192 kHz and more power and quality psb drivers)

What’s your opinion of the Five versus the Pulse2i? (In let’s say a stereo pair.)

What would you prefer and why?

*This leaves me with the question, will Sonos soon release another speaker that might take over the throne from the Five as the flagship Sonos audiophile speaker? Perhaps the New “Sonos Six” :wink: :thinking: (they have also removed the phrase “Our most powerful speaker available” on the web site )

Have a good day! Or evening as here in Sweden!

They are different speakers - 2 woofers 2 tweeters in the Blusound vs. 3 woofers and 3 tweeters in the Sonos. But Sonos woofers are only 4” vs. 5.25” in the Bluesound. Person to person they are going to have a preference for one or other - one review or person does not make for one better than other. Sonos Trueplay tune really helps Sonos shine though.

We won’t know how the sound is tweaked with the new version but I’m sure there are some subtle changes. Also getting higher bit rate on Sonos will help the audiophile crowd.

Overall - good healthy competition.

Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)

A

AnkMe

Contributor I

Currently on the Sonos Five page on Sonos website it says that the Memory is 512 MB SDRAM & 512 MB NAND Flash. Why did Sonos change it from the specs posted originally i.e. 1 GB SDRAM and 4 GB NV?

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