Play:1 vs Heos 1

  • 27 January 2018
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Two speakers for two kind of music?
(do not want to start a war between the pro-Sonos & the pro-Denon, if any here...)
Hello,
I currently have the Play:1 and the Heos 1 on my desk for listening comparison.
I first received the Sonos speaker 'cause I read a lot of good about this little guy and the whole system.
Firt I have been impressed with the strengh of this small speaker: sound is precise, the bass are hammering very neatly.... but but but i quickly found that the vocals/trebles were kind of muffled...
I have been listening old rock from the 70's or 80 french pop.
I was bothered because for the rest, the speaker is really nice.
To get the end of it, I ordered a Heos 1 side by side comparison (thks to Spotify app that allows to switch from one speaker to another instantly 🙂 ).
Immediately, with the Heos, i found that the trebles/vocals had more room, broader experience. On the contrary, the bass are les punchy. After a little tweking in the app to enhance the bass, it is better, but not at the lever of the Sonos.
I spend a few hours to listen various styles of music (modern, 70's, Daft Punk, The Tune of the Queen of Night, and so on.
The more time I spend listening the Heos, the more natural I find the tune. But the bass are lacking a bit of punch.
One thing strikes me: with modern music, I mean mixed in the 2000, the feeling of the muffled sound is verty much less.
Or when I am comparing two trebles partition (Queen of Night tune for exemple), there is almost no difference.
So I came to the conclusion that both speakers are really good, the choice has to be driven by the kind of music you are listening to.
I have not listen much of classical music 'cause it's not my taste so I have no conclusion here, but for old Rock'n'Roll of pop from the 80's, the Heos offer a more true listening, while for recent hits, the Sonos will be more punchy with loads of bass.

For those of you who had the opportunity to test the two speakers, do you have the same feeling has me?
Or I am just to atuned to my old set up made of a Yamaha RX-V 350 paired witn a pair of standing Sony SS-MF315 along with a subwoofer??
All listening has been made either from Spotify of from FLAC 44/16

Thks for your feedback!

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Hi,
I got inspired and I run the Trueplay set-up.
Completely different speaker!!
Now the trebels are much clearer and open.
The sound seems to be less wider than the Heos though, but I have the feeling that the P1 is more precise in the various ranges of sounds. Might be a bit hissing on some S with vocals.

So I need to do more extensive listening to make up my mind. Before the TruePlay, I was going for Heos.
Now, looks like the Sonos is taking the lead!!