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Having surrendered my music room I've just got into Sonos; I started with just the Sonos One until I read on this forum that a pair would give a half-decent stereo performance so I bought another One and paired them up. Still sounded a bit ' thin' to be honest so I went into Richer Sounds ( who were really good to deal with by the way) and after hearing a demo, bought the Sub to add a layer of depth.



I am really impressed with the set-up now, it sounds very rich considering the size of the Ones. I didn't purchase the Sub for out-and- out loudness ( don't like loud music tbh) , the Sub does add a subtle depth to the presentation so I'm very happy.



The million dollar question is whether, as funds permit, I move the Ones into other rooms around the house and replace them in the living room with a pair of 5's..........
Hi Paul



You have hit nail on head with me aswell. I have play bar sub and 2 play one in lounge. Which is fantastic for music and surround sound.

I have been considering moving the play ones into another room and replacing them with play 5s and I have been considering this and researching the pros and cons for months

And I have to admit this also included speaking to Sonos direct and getting there opinion so this is where I ended up



I still currently have the same set up after everything I have researched in surround mode I would gain no benefit at all from the play 1 to play 5

The only real benefit for me would be in music mode only and I believe this would be a substantial benefit the question I now find myself asking is, is the substantial benifit worth £1000 and the honest answer is I don’t really know
Hi



I have 2 Play:5's paired and a 5:1 setup with a Playbar and a pair of Play:1's in another room. The 5:1 set-up delivers by far the better sound in my opinion, compared to the pair of play:5's. This is of course without a sub but I would recommend trying a Beam rather than changing to Play:5's and if you buy from Sonos direct you get the 100 day return policy if you aren't happy! 🙂
Thank you both for yourfeedback; I'll only be using Sonos for music as I have gone down the Sony Z9F soundbar route for home cinema, it is only Virtual Dolby Atmos though ( I don't want wall - mounted rear speakers tbh)
I am going to take the plunge and order the two play 5s and compare them on my current system. If there is not a massive improvement I will use the 100 day money back guarantee that Sonos offer
Please let us know what you think. ?
Yep, definately considering 2x Play: 5 with a Sub in main listening room
If you find that the Ones + Sub are almost as good as the 5 + Sub - because the Sub adds a lot more depth to the smaller units than it does to the much more bass capable 5 units - consider deploying the 5 units to the other rooms; that might make more sense overall than redeploying the One units.



A properly placed 1/One + Sub in up to a moderate sized listening space, with Trueplay tuning done and Sub output levels tweaked to personal preference thereafter is a very worthy music system, fully deserving the "audiophile" tag. For the money, I know of none that sounds better. And many that don't sound as good.



The Sub does as much to add presence to the music at low volume levels as it does to deliver room shaking bass at high sound levels.
If you want massive low end and price isn't an object a Connect running into an amplifier matched to your 5.0 speakers and a DBX 120 Subharmonic Synthesizer hooked to a pair of large high power sub-woofers. A pair of bi-amped Klipsch La Scalas or larger work well too.



https://dbxpro.com/en/products/120a



"The dbx process actually produces a new bass note, exactly an octave below the bass in the original audio."



If Sonos has a few bits left in the sub's memory adding something similar would be fantastic given the poor state of current recordings low frequency fidelity. DBX likes to licence technology and seeing one of their stickers on something is a good selling point too.
All this is music to my ears 😉
Curious no know why one would want to add synthesised frequencies not in the original music content? Maybe OK for film sound effects but I would imagine the additional lower register notes could muddy the content (in that Beats) fashion.
A lot of recordings are altered by the recording engineers to have little or no very low frequency content since so many systems have issues reproducing it. The DBX reverses a bit of that by adding back the lower octave.



The 120 is also used by a lot of live musicians as it adds a great deal of low end punch to their music, really makes a great difference in what they sound like in larger venues.



If you read the DBX documentation on how the lower frequency sounds are created you'll see that it doesn't impact the existing music on an electronic level. It may well make a marginal amplifier or speakers cause distortion, particularly at higher volume levels or when adding a lot of low end boost plus synthesis.



I've used mine on several systems (mine and friends) and everyone with good to great systems liked it (well not spouses and neighbors) and several folks purchased one. Some of the lower end systems did have issues reproducing both the boosted existing frequencies and the synthesized ones. All the usual symptoms, clipping, speaker cones bottoming and the rest but if dialed back to what the systems could support it still sounded pretty good.
Ah... My only experience of a dedicated sub channel is in our car where, if there is no road noise, the 'sub' rather dominates the mix (it's a Meridian system). Indoors our Kef floorstanders (2 bass units in each speaker) are more balanced (though, as ratty notes elsewhere, room effects may need Trueplay for those so able to do so).



So many 'popular' tracks these days seem to overplay the bass (which crashes in after the obligatory first few bars of whispy vocals) - so predictable and formulaic (but that's popular music....). And many radio stations pump up the bass (and compress). S'pose all those Beats-esque systems love it!



But we are off-topic a bit. Thanks for the explanation Stanley_4.
Sadly they are pumping up the mid bass, not the really low stuff. I find myself cutting that range in my EQ settings to keep from getting boomed at.



I'm still hoping Sonos sees the suggestion to add something like this to their sub. When my big music systems go away I'm likely to go to a pair of Play 5s and a Sub and would be very happy to find that included.
Well, having tried out a pair of 5's with the Sub, I didn't find any discernable improvement compared to the set up that I had before, namely a pair of Ones with the Sub - at lower levels ( volume- wise), albeit it in a small(ish) living room- certainly not enough to justify such a large financial outlay. The Sub was almost made redundant by the bass output from the 5's at lower sound levels.
After a short visit to my guys at the audio shop, they set up 2 play 5s with sub and playbar and then removed the sub what a difference the sub makes. Then removed the play 5s and replaced with play 1s. Wow what a massive difference. Most shops would not do this at it is a lot of messing and time consuming however after all this I purchased 2 play 5. There is a huge difference when u hear the setups side by side. I honestly think your ears become accustomed to a certain sound. To me the play 5s are a massive difference when bonded with a sub. I have no regrets at all. The only really annoying thing is when you bond them with a play bar you lose the ability to air drop on the play 5 sonos please sort this out
After a short visit to my guys at the audio shop, they set up 2 play 5s with sub and playbar and then removed the sub what a difference the sub makes. Then removed the play 5s and replaced with play 1s. Wow what a massive difference. Most shops would not do this at it is a lot of messing and time consuming however after all this I purchased 2 play 5. There is a huge difference when u hear the setups side by side. I honestly think your ears become accustomed to a certain sound. To me the play 5s are a massive difference when bonded with a sub. I have no regrets at all. The only really annoying thing is when you bond them with a play bar you lose the ability to air drop on the play 5 sonos please sort this out

It is sorted with the new Beam, but it’s whether that would have been big enough for your room? You could add a 'sonos one' speaker elsewhere to your home and group your PlayBar Room with that and then AirPlay to the Sonos One device which in turn would output to your PlayBar and it’s bonded surrounds.
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