Contributor I

Setting speakers up for a party

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I’m a college student living in a one-room dorm right now. I had one Sonos Play 1 and decided to get two more Sonos Play 1s because I was trying to get my room much louder for having people over. When I added the two more Play 1s into my system, it did not get much louder. I will admit that the surround sound is incredible but that’s not what I was going for. What can I do to increase the loudness and bass? I was thinking of buying two Sonos Play 5s along with an old sub. I don’t know the best way to get a loud party setup though.

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buzz

Grand Maestro

We humans have been conditioned to equate distorted with “loud”.

In my college apartment I could run at levels that made verbal conversation very difficult, but the sound was clean (very low distortion). Yet, people would come up to me, hands cupped, yelling in my ear, “turn it up”, because it didn’t seem loud yet. That same crew in another apartment with a cheap compact unit playing at high distortion, felt that it was “loud” while conversation was easy.

When you play a system beyond its design limits, distortion rises and the system gets “loud”. SONOS will not enter this high distortion mode. SONOS will reduce the Volume or shut down before entering this high distortion mode. In this respect SONOS will never get “loud”.

Adding FIVE’s and SUB’s will certainly increase the robustness of the sound, but I don’t know if they will satisfy your sense of “loud”. With my SUB’s I can rattle the pictures, walls, and windows, but it doesn’t always seem “loud” — it’s just great bass. I had to modify the pictures and windows a bit to subdue the rattles.

F

Ferrari_00Author

Contributor I

Thanks for your response. So maybe I’m looking for the wrong thing out of my Sonos. Do you have any recommendations for what I could do though to get that higher volume. I get what you’re saying with how Sonos won’t let itself get to a volume where it distorts the sound. Is there anything I can do to cost effectively add more to my setup?

buzz

Grand Maestro

Moving the 100’s closer to the wall and into corners will increase their bass.

Do some research. Evaluate the sound that you hear in other apartments. What equipment is playing? Is it “loud” enough?

I’ll comment that bass is very important to college age males. This is partly due to the lack of bass in the small compact systems of earlier age. Females are not such bass freaks and appreciate clear highs.