Best thing to do would be to try it out and see for yourself. If you order from Sonos, they have a pretty good return policy, no questions asked.



I doubt many would say a Beam + sub sounds as good a pair of 5s, partially because of the size/quality of the 5s and partially because of the physical separation for stereo. But it also somewhat depends on the size of the room in question. Beam +sub = a single 5 maybe. You may also want to consider adding a pair of 1s (or Ones) for sourround sound. When used in full stereo mode for music sources, it sounds great in my opinion.

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Note that if you want to get sound from your TV, you need a beam (or other sonos home theater product). This has to do with syncing the audio with the picture. (Even though the play 5 has an aux, I believe you will have problems with audio sync. Someone witha play 5 should chime in on this, though).



I have a Beam and sub and I enjoy the combination. I also have two sonos ones as rears, but a lot of TV content doesn't use surrounds effectively. So, you will miss a bit without rears, but I think that the sub is the more important component to add.



I haven't heard the Bose solo, but I can tell you that the beam plus sub sounds much better than my previous sound solution (a Sony htxt3, that I was sure sounded excellent until I heard the beam and sub. Now the Sony has moved to the bedroom...). The low frequency effects are particularly important for this improved experience.

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So I've just gotten the BEAM and the SUB. First off, since the BEAM was shipped to me first, I was initially using it without the SUB. The BEAM in my opinion out-performs the Gen1 Bose Solo it was replacing for home theater listening, especially with Trueplay tuning! For MUSIC however, while the BEAM's separation was very good, a single PLAY:5 Gen2 did sound better overall, where the most notable difference was in the PLAY:5's ability to play such low frequencies which are simply out of reach for the BEAM. However, when the SUB came, WOW! Now perhaps the mids and highs being generated by the PLAY:5 are better to a well trained ear over the BEAM, but the room, ehem...I mean house filling low end coming from the SUB, along with the great stereo separation of the BEAM really made for a better listening experience vs the single PLAY:5 Gen2. Listening to music was almost even better than the stereo pair of PLAY:5 Gen2's I was replacing in that room (remember...I said almost, a stereo pair of Gen2 Play:5's is so great!). I think the real winner in the room is the SUB, but I'm very happy with the sound of the BEAM so far as well. The SUB really lets the BEAM reproduce the mid and high frequencies it's best suited to belt out.

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Thanks for the feedback Midi - this goes a long way to answering my question posed here yesterday re Beam plus Ones. - also coincidentally to replace a Bose Solo ( which is dying slowly).

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