Sonos Play:3 review - The Verge
So, it's small, relatively cheap for an all-in-one wireless speaker, and streams all the music on Earth. But is it any good? Yes, yes it is, very good in fact.
Surprisingly, even though the drivers are close together, the Play:3 was able to deliver decent stereo separation. Standing the unit on its side, however, centered everything (except the logo) in the second or so it took for the motion detector to reprogram the audio. According to Sonos, horizontal mode is meant to create a wider stereo response, while in vertical mode, music is meant to sound "brighter on the highs and crisper on the mids." And you know what? Although I didn't hear it during my initial hands-on, I clearly heard it when testing the units in the quiet of my own home.
I tested a pair of Play:3 speakers in a variety of rooms and orientations with all equalizer settings centered and loudness on. For comparison, I used a pair of Play:5 speakers as reference, sourcing 320kbps music streams from Spotify. It was quickly apparent that, like real estate, the most important consideration when setting up the Play:3 is location, location, location.
In general, the sound emitted from a Play:3 positioned in the middle of a room (like the press shot above) pales in comparison to a Play:3 nestled up to a wall. The reason for this has everything to do with the Play:3's subwoofer, or lack thereof. Remember, the Play:3 lacks a powered sub relying upon a passive, back-firing bass radiator. While the passive driver coupled with the active drivers allows Sonos to deliver reasonable bass in such a compact enclosure, it can't match the raw thump of the Play:5's 3.5-inch powered woofer. Don't get me wrong, the sound was surprisingly full even with the Play:3 positioned in the center of the room (about five feet from any wall). However, placing the back of the Play:3 just a few inches from the wall helped reinforce the low-end bass significantly, while rounding out the mids.
With the Play:3 and Play:5 next to each other on a center table, the Play:5 was the clear winner in every musical genre listened. The results weren't so clear, however, when I moved to the Play:3 within a few inches of the wall (leaving the Play:5 in the center of the room). Synth heavy pop tracks like "Smalltown Boy" from Bronski Beat actually sounded better on the play:3 which, in my opinion, was more capable of isolating the higher frequencies -- the Play:5 was more balanced, exhibiting a more overall softness by comparison. The Play:3 also kept things tighter than the Play:5 even as the volume rose to 75 percent. Again I preferred the Play:3 when listening to "Triangle Walks" by Fever Ray, but damn, it was close. Listening to a remastered 2006 version of "I Would For You" from Jane's Addiction clearly demonstrated the Play:5's ability to reproduce an overall richer and more nuanced sound than the Play:3. I also preferred the Play:5's more balanced delivery of "Revenge" by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (featuring Flaming Lips) with the Play:3 spending a bit too much time in the middle-to-low frequency muck for my tastes.
Moving the Play:5 against the wall next to the Play:3 gave the Play:5 an edge across the board. There were times when the bass became overpowering on the Play:5. However, this was easily rectified by clicking off the loudness. In fact, the Play:3 with loudness on and the Play:5 with loudness off sounded nearly identical at the low end. Obviously, we reinstated the loudness when a Morningwood track "Jetsetter" came into rotation for the obligatory kick to the chest.
The final test pitted two Play:3s setup in a stereo pair against a single Play:5. Unsurprisingly, the pair of $299 Play:3s blew the $399 Play:5 out of the water, wherever the speakers were placed. While a single Play:3 easily filled my average-sized room with sound, two Play:3s setup in stereo quickly overwhelmed it (not a bad thing). Remember, you can pair two Play:5s together in a stereo union, but you can't mix and match a Play:3 with a Play:5.
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