I would like to add 2 rear speakers to my Sonos Arc, but I’m confused about which ones I need - is it the Sonos one, or Sonos one SL? I don’t understand the difference - thank you!
The Sonos One is a voice-enabled speaker as it has a microphone.
One SLs do not have a microphone for voice control and are cheaper than Ones for this reason.
The SL stands for ‘speechless’.
As you have the Arc, adding Ones as rears will disable the microphone on the Ones, as the Arc is voice-enabled.
Therefore, the One SLs are more suited for using as rears with the Arc, however, with the announcement of Sonos Voice Control, you may find purchasing the Ones is the better long-term option, if you later decide to change the rears for other speakers and move the Ones to a different room.
The One SL speakers are fine for HT surrounds - the Arc itself has the voice assistant built-in already.
As a longer term consideration however, if you did ever decide to swap-out the HT surrounds for ‘Fives’ or the ‘Amp’ (just as examples here) and decided to use those speakers elsewhere around the Home, then if you opt for the ‘One’ now instead, it would at least then provide you with voice assistant services at their new location.
From a sound-out point of view however, the speaker output is the same. Some folk tend to purchase one of each.
Perhaps also see this support link:
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4807
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