Hi, 

I have a 4 months old stereo pair gen2 with the SUB gen2.

What is the main differences between these updated models? 

Only memory and CPU in the SUB?

Same drivers?

Only aesthetically differences play5gen2 and the Five?

Same drivers?

And the better question, will the sound quality be exactly the same with the Gen2 pair and SUB Gen2

as with a Gen3 pair and SUB Gen3? Will you be able to hear improvements in sound?

You might want to read this:

The Verge: The new Sonos Five looks and sounds identical to the Play:5 it’s replacing

I'm sure if they can find room for mics in a Play 1 there is room in a Five.

I just think it was a choice they made - a strange one for me that you need another device (grouped or close by) to use Voice control on their latest product - especially considering the Arc has it.

I don’t know about you guys, but I use my Play:5 2nd gen mostly for airplaying music from my mac/ios device and very frequently the sounds stutters, pauses for few sec. and resumes, etc. This happens almost every time I rearrange the queue in iTunes or add a song to my AM library. There are no such issues when using the Sonos apps. 

I wonder if the new radio in the Five will fix these AirPlay issues… It’s definitely not a reason to switch, but if you are buying now, I think it’s better to get the new one.

Absolutely, I think the only other speaker in the current range without it is the Sub?! (And the One SL)
 

My guesses: 

• they didn’t want R&D cost of redesign
• concerns if used in vertical orientation 
• not wanting to raise price or eat into margins re additional components

I hadn't seen that Verge link when I posted so am surprised that it is an identical listening experience to the Play 5 Gen 2 but can't be stereo paired with it.

I am also surprised that the Five doesn’t have built in voice control.  Rightly or wrongly,  I read the ‘other device’ not to mean another Sonos speaker but an Echo Dot / Google Mini.  I guess you are referring to both possibilities when you say ‘grouped or nearby’?  Which is fair enough.

I actually prefer using Dots with my current gen 2 Play:5s, and would not swap for built-in voice control.  Not everyone will feel that way, I’m sure.

Playing from a device has always, by its nature, been the least robust source on Sonos.  That was true of ‘on this iPhone’, and is true of Airplay and Android ‘on this mobile device’.  That isn’t to say that everyone will have problems with this, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the radios.  The only problems I ever had were occasionally with ‘on this mobile device’ and I hardly ever use that because all my local music is on my network.

The problem is the wireless ‘hop’ from phone to router, which is absent if you use a NAS or streaming service.

Yes, I was covering use by Sonos (could be in another (physical) room but grouped) and also local Dots etc.

Wonder if this means a price reduction on Play 5s which are out in stores now?  That might be the way to go for me if there is no sound quality difference…

cheers

I was wondering about this. Advantage is will play nicely with legacy devices stuck on S1, disadvantage is potential for it to be EOL’d sooner than the new version. 

Thanks going to stick with gen 2 

Will Play Five pair with Sub gen. 1?

I don’t disagree with that statement, but Alexa now has a feature where you can set a default speaker for an echo, meaning that the echo hears you, but Alexa will respond through a different Alexa enabled speaker.  This is different from a prefered speaker, as it’s not about streaming music, but Alexa’s actual voice response.  It would have been a nice feature  to speak to the echo dot right next to you, but hear the voice coming from your Five.  You can do this sort of thing with the Arc, Beam, One, and Move.

The other factor is, if Sonos ever develops their own voice assistant, it will be a big miss for the Five.  Seems like Sonos would have to develop their own puck listening device to make it useful.

There is no Play Five. There is the Sonos Five. (It's déjà vu all over again.)

The answer is yes.

I suppose the Sonos Five will have Hi-Res support and Play:5 1 and 2 gen not. I Hopa i’m wrong, having 2 2nd gen stereo paired as my first hi-fi set. Any suggestion about it?

Hy to everybody.

Sonos hasn’t made official statements about Hi-Res support, but I think it’s safe to assume that anything that’s S2 system compatible, which includes the Play:5 gen 2, will have Hi-Res.  The Play:5 gen 1 is not S2, and therefore will not.

I hope you’re right. we have to wait and see. I use the to Play:5 to hera my vynil, and in this case nothing will change, but I’d be very happy to pay for tidal hires… with my old and loved 2nd gen

Does anyone know what’s up with this  - why can’t they pair if they are the same sound? 

Great discussion folks! In this regard, while their physical dimensions and acoustic profile are similar, Five and Play:5 Gen 2 have very different internal processors and computing platforms. The gap in processing capabilities means that we will not be able to offer a stable stereo experience. Stereo pairing takes a lot of complicated computing work and it just didn’t work properly because of the differences here.

Without mics for voice control, this update is simply irrelevant unless further features are announced soon which are not supported by the 2nd generation - and if such features are coming they should have been announced together with the speaker... 
 

If I am looking for a new speaker which is not for my tv, I can either go small with voice control or big without voice control. Why get less for more?
 

This is the exact same nightmare Sonos created when they introduced the Beam. The cheapest and smallest speaker was also the smartest one. It had voice control and Airplay which the bigger and more expensive Playbar didn’t. 
 

The forum is booming with users complaining over that situation.  
 

And now this is just more of the same. If you want the best sound, you buy the Five but miss out on the brilliant voice control you get on the cheaper and smaller One. 

I guess we have to take your word for it Ryan but that seems a strange reason to be honest.

The oldest Play 5 Gen 1 speakers are more than capable of Stereo pairing, as are the Gen 2's. Struggling to see how the S2 capable Play 5 Gen 2 will struggle with this “complicated computing work” to maintain a stereo connection with a higher powered ‘partner'.

In the past the reason was always different sound signatures. Now these appear to be identical that excuse can't be used and we're told the device that is still on sale can't do this complicated work - but older devices can and that even the Gen 2 can with another Gen 2 in am S2 scenario.

In the past, with something like the Play:1 and the Sonos One, the answer was “Both computing differences and it’d sound funny.” And the Play:5 gen1 could only pair with the Play:5 gen1, the Play:5 gen2 could only pair with the Play:5 gen2. The only time we’ve been able to have mixed generations was with the Sonos One gen1 and Sonos One gen2 which were released just about a year apart and the hardware was close enough for that to work. 

Also does the Play Five have wifi 6 support for future forward compatibility?

Any legitimate reason the Sonos Five cannot pair with a Play:5 Gen 2? I have been eyeing another 5 to make a stereo pair for a little while now and the refresh cycle your starting to push says get out of the sonos eco system and get a high-end audiophile wired speaker that will last me 20+ years and maybe an amp, maybe I replace the amp once and a while, but it would still be cheaper.

If I was building a true sonos upgrade I would be saying can any one of my new speakers support the processing for a like unit pair in my old environment and bring them all forward rather than constant segregation of product stacks and sku’s. This type of forced obsolesce stuff is why I didn’t buy bose or a competitor originally. 

it looks different… if I the customer don’t care why should that stop me on a technical level? If the answer is it sounds different, we upgraded some stuff inside. Sonos offers trueplay this shouldn’t matter, you as a manufacturer know your own baseline sound stage. Fix it electronically. Ya it will only sound as good as the lowest preforming equipment I get it, but its easier on the customers pocketbook, I the customer will upgrade organically in my own time not yours. Its in the same product class it should still work together. same as Play:1 and Play One same general product group should work.

Alternative number 2, offer a higher end product that can offload the processing from the existing speaker(s) to a dedicated processing unit and stream it to the speakers without the processing overhead. I think they might call that a receiver or amplifier system or something not sure… ;) You get the new smarts without having to gut and obsolete a working product stack and offer backwards compatibility. Also makes your existing customers happier. and even if you dumb down your old product stack, and force future processing to the new head unit you so you don’t have to support old code, I would be happy. We get it legacy is hard. Its easier as a customer to swallow replacing a single processing head unit every 10+ years, or sooner if I just have to have that new feature vs replacing the whole freaking speaker ecosystem.

These current upgrades feel like accountant  saying print us money by forcing incremental product pushes rather than how can we build and support a truly amazing speaker system, and still make new products and coexist with with “old” ones. Nothing truly revolutionary was done to the Play Five it  shouldn’t freak out existing owners that your going to arbitrarily force obsolesce on them in 5 years. It should just be that cool new thing that just co-exists with their current environment. Sure its better but the whole it just works ethos I loved about Sonos is eroding quickly… cause so so many caveats 

@UseroftheSonos, the Sonos Five doesn’t have support for WiFi 6 which was released well after the Sonos Five hardware had been fully designed. 

Regarding stereo pairing, the answer is that the computing components are too different for us to support stereo pairing between the old Play:5 gen2 and the new Sonos Five.