Skip to main content
Hi,

I own a Play5 (2 gen) for a few months and I am considering the benefits of buying another one for stereo pairing. For that, I would like to hear the honest opinion of people who tried both setups regarding whether the improvements with 2 speakers worth the money or not.

What might affect my decision:

-It stands in a medium size bedroom, plays mostly for personal use and in volumes from 15% to 50%,

-I bought the Play5 simply for the sound quality over Play1 and Play3, not exactly for loudness.

-I send my TV audio to it as well, but 90% of the time it's for music straight from Spotify.

-I am more a fan of clean than powerful sound.



Thanks in advance
Get two. Put them in portrait (vertical) orientation. Run Trueplay on the pair. It is a narrow stereo image. To the brain, that feels like you can precisely place each instrument on a big stage in front of you. Some songs make more use of this than others. For ones that do --> very cool. A single P5 does a good job of spreading the sound so that it isn't obvious that the music is streaming from one location but it's night and day compared to a pair, especially at medium to medium-low volume. The image stays wide at any volume with the vertical pair. Personally, I like the crystal clear mids at lowish volume. I listen to a lot of acoustic music. I leave the loudness feature on which boosts the bass at low volumes and that is plenty of bass for me most of the time.
It is a narrow stereo image. To the brain, that feels like you can precisely place each instrument on a big stage in front of you.

I agree, but the thing to remember is that this illusion is sustained in a small part of the room, so this depends on how you listen to the music; if equally from various and different parts of the room, the value for money equation may not be as good as where the majority of your listening is in what is the sweet spot for stereo imaging. But where you are in that small part of the room most of the time for listening, stereo is brilliant.
Thank you for the opinion guys!

What about the audio compression for two speakers? I know that the Automatic mode will disable compression if you have a single speaker, but if I force to disable the compression for two speakers, can a common Wi-fi usually handle the extra load? I say that because the compression increases the latency and it's very noticeable when plugged to the TV, also because of a potential audio quality loss.
It usually can, but it depends on how good a signal and the bandwidth usage overall from/on your Wifi network. Only way to know for sure is to try, if you can get it on a returnable basis. If there is a problem, there are two possible solutions - wire any one unit to the router. Or, if that is inconvenient, get a Boost and wire that to the router. Both routes will allow you to use Sonosnet which is more capable for the job.
Terms & ConditionsCookie settings