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.

gaghFsv18CEl1F7I7aWPG5G2DGetQWUZVId6g1ncddd7SlQHQPBW3fTCGiFX7-7F6cPHgO9-u0Eupd9HjJakrRz4jZVzjHH5Wdu_XslskRQwjEzrzOjQWvaZ-xqw_zpdlbI7YPqI

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.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

U

UseroftheSonos

Contributor I

Honestly not a fight. I love Sonos I love that it just currently works in my household. I love that it has made moving and resetting up super easy.

play:5 gen2 did have some issues with AirPlay, updates to overall design should be good things.

but doesn’t have backwards compatibility and with recent S1 S2 product split announcement that isn’t well understood, and it’s a walk back from bricking. the optics look like future forced obsolescence, so the release of a new non compatible sku makes me more scared as an existing customer rather than happy. It’s a sign that within the next 5+ years my initial 800 dollar investment in a play 5 gen 2 might become an expensive paper weight or hindrance, rather than hey let’s be excited at the continued growth of Sonos as a brand and it’s continued product refinement.

What I think most of the people being negative are looking for is more indications that Sonos unlike other companies, have our backs as customers and has a growth path forward. That we are not paying for the great IOT experiment everyone in the industry says we are.

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

I totally understand that concern. I can’t speak to what may happen in 5+ years, but I can say that we will keep on supporting older products as long as possible. At a minimum, we promise to keep bringing news features and updates to Sonos players for at least 5 years after we stop selling them. At some point in the future, if the Play:5 gen2 becomes a legacy product, we’ll still keep trying to bring it updates and maintain compatibility the best we can.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

A

Arkka

Lyricist III

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.

Does anyone know what’s up with this :point_up: - 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.

Just trying to understand here and I appreciate your response. If I understand correctly, you are saying the different processors mean that they can’t pair, fair enough. Since it’s a technical reason I guess Sonosequencer won’t be able to pair them either (I was actually hoping you would say the reason is because of sound so sonosequencer would be able to pair them if I go down that road).

U

UseroftheSonos

Contributor I

Thanks for the clarification @Ryan S

Keep up the great work and products.

An idea for future product compatibility and support is to maybe run an emulator or an API, that allows for backwards compatibility and/or compute offload to a master compute resource / product.

All any of these products need to be for us at the end of the day is a speaker. How it processes and offloads that work and gets there it doesn’t matter to the user. Traditional speakers don’t process anything they just make sound, legacy sonos devices could transition from full featured to dumb devices that required a sonos digital receiver device to function, and I would personally think that was very reasonable. Its what you do with the AMPS for traditional speakers already.

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

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.

Does anyone know what’s up with this :point_up: - 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.

Just trying to understand here and I appreciate your response. If I understand correctly, you are saying the different processors mean that they can’t pair, fair enough. Since it’s a technical reason I guess Sonosequencer won’t be able to pair them either (I was actually hoping you would say the reason is because of sound so sonosequencer would be able to pair them if I go down that road).

It’s possible that the app may be able to pair them, we just can’t guaranty the performance of that pair if it does work. I believe that app can pair Sonos devices that have no business being paired, like a Play:1 and a Play:5, which have different processors. When we build pairing for devices into the Sonos app, we need to be sure of the quality and longevity.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

arcadelt

Enthusiast I

...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

Can you explain a little more about this feature? The attached pictures show what Alexa says when I try to set this up with my Play:5 Gen 1.

My issue is that a particular radio station I use through a particular skill will always play on the Dot rather than on Sonos, but this is not the case with any of my Ones. It’s also not the case when I initiate Spotify through the Dot.

D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Wow, now i am even MORE happy that i never took Sonos up on the offer of replacing my 5 year old Play gen.1 with a play gen.2.

If i was angry that they obsoleted my 5 year old speaker, i would be really really angry if i bought the replacement they recommended, only to find that it was discontinued a month later, and is most likely being obsoleted in another 5 years.

I wonder if the “Get 30% off, for every Play 5. gen 1 speaker” also applies to the FIVE. ?

If it does, i would think that people lured into accepting the play 5 gen.2 just a month or 2 ago would be REALLY angry and feel VERY cheated.

jgatie

You can use the 30% on every Sonos device sold, even sets up to a whole 5.1 setup. I’m pretty sure the only thing it doesn't apply to is the turntables. So you could trade up from a $350 Connect, and get over $500 off a full Arc, surrounds, and Sub 5.1setup.

melvimbe

...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

Can you explain a little more about this feature? The attached pictures show what Alexa says when I try to set this up with my Play:5 Gen 1.

Like the Five, the Play:5 Gen 1 is not an Alexa enabled speaker, so Alexa can’t respond through it. Your speaker can take commands to play, pause, etc from Alexa, but it’s not capable of responding as Alexa (unless wired through the aux input of course).

I am not sure it’s 100% technically accurate, but it makes sense, to me anyway, to think of it this way. One of the feature requirements of an Alexa enabled device is to have microphones that listen for the keyword, then send the audio up to Alexa servers for processing. A second function is that they must be ‘listening’ to the Alexa servers what Alexa needs to say something. That’s usually a direct response to a command it was given, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, Alexa can remind you of an appointment, or give you the news at a set time, etc….all without being prompted. What I believe Amazon has done with this default speaker feature is essentially to forward every request for a device (A) to speak on to a different advice (B). Device A can still listen, but device B does all the talking for it.

Anyway, a speaker can’t be the default speaker if it isn’t Alexa enabled, unfortunately. This is just me spit balling, but I wonder if one day, the Five could be an Alexa enabled device even though it has no mics built in. That way it could be the default speaker, do the Alexa talking and playback of audio for skills etc. Would be pretty cool, but I doubt it will happen.

My issue is that a particular radio station I use through a particular skill will always play on the Dot rather than on Sonos, but this is not the case with any of my Ones. It’s also not the case when I initiate Spotify through the Dot.

Yea you could get the audio for the skill to automatically play on an Alexa enabled device like your Ones or anther dot, but not. the Play:5 gen 1, unfortunately.

Danny

D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

You can use the 30% on every Sonos device sold, even sets up to a whole 5.1 setup. I’m pretty sure the only thing it doesn't apply to is the turntables. So you could trade up from a $350 Connect, and get over $500 off a full Arc, surrounds, and Sub 5.1setup.

So anyone that took their upgrade offer for a 2.gen play 5, could have waited and gotten a play FIVE.

Honestly, id be pretty miffed, if had taken that offer a month ago for the 2.gen, just to find out its being discontinued right now.

Would it be strange, if someone that did that, was to speculate that Sonos did this, to clear the stock of 2.gen before announcing the killing of the 2.gen speaker.

Show more replies

Studio quality sound

Sign up

Login to the community