GoKawiilis a senior reviewer covering TVs and audio. He has over 20 years experience in AV, and has previously been on staff at Digital Trends and Reviewed.
It’s been nearly a year and a half since Sonos released a consumer product, and those last two releases — the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 — were updates to existing products. The $299 Sonos Play, however, is a brand-new portable speaker that can expand an existing system or be the gateway into the Sonos world. When on Wi-Fi, it acts like any other Sonos speaker — with features like Auto Trueplay, AirPlay 2, and the ability to stereo pair — but it’s also a water-resistant Bluetooth speaker.
The Play falls right in the middle of Sonos’s portable speaker lineup. While it’s not quite as easily packable as the Roam 2, the Play has more than twice the battery life and is capable of filling larger spaces with sound. It’s a far more grab-and-go option than the Move 2, which at more than twice the weight of the Play, and two inches bigger in all directions, is really only luggable between rooms or out to the backyard. The Play melds the home use of the Move 2 with the portability of the Roam 2 to make it the most versatile Sonos speaker yet.
In size and shape, the Play looks a lot like someone took an Era 100 and smushed it to about half the depth. It has four buttons on the top — play/pause, volume up and down, and one to turn voice services on and off — and a Bluetooth button, mic switch, power button, and USB-C port on the back. Like the Move 2, it has a charging base where it can live when not being toted around, although the base has a hard-wired USB-C cable and doesn’t come with a wall adapter. It requires at least an 18W charger; if you don’t have an extra already, you’ll either need to buy the $29 one from Sonos or a cheaper one elsewhere. The USB-C port on the back can be used to charge the Play when away from its base, allow the speaker to act as a power bank for your device, or — with the $19 line-in adapter — to connect a wired 3.5mm audio source.
Much like the Era 100 and Move 2 before it, the Play features two angled tweeters with waveguides designed to provide stereo separation (although it’s very difficult to hear a stereo image from any single speaker). There’s a front-firing midwoofer for midrange and bass frequencies, as well as two force-cancelling passive radiators on either side of the speaker.
The Play can rest on its charging base while at home.
The Play delivers clear vocals — whether they’re Chris Cornell or Ella Fitzgerald — and solo instruments like Miles Davis’ trumpet stand out in the mix. For my taste, the sound tuning of the Play overaccentuates the midrange and treble a bit compared to the Era 100, which has a smoother midrange and a bit more bass response. On the Play, both the string-muted guitar and cymbals of Fleetwood Mac’s “Second Hand News” sounded too present and forward. Songs that already have a lot of high-end, such as the metallic sounds in “Super Bon Bon” by Soul Coughing, can get shouty at higher volumes. And the Play can get loud, particularly with rock and pop that’s more compressed, where I tended to keep the volume set at 50 (out of 100) or below.
Sonos Play specs Dimensions (H x W x D, in.): 7.57 x 4.43 x 3.02 Weight: 2.87 pounds Dust/water resistance: IP67 Smart assistants: Sonos Voice Control, Amazon Alexa Connectivity Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, AirPlay 2 Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC Colors: Black, white Price: $299
As long as you keep the mic turned on, you can enable Auto Trueplay, which allows the speaker to constantly listen and adjust the tuning based on the environment it’s in. In my days with the speaker, I kept this on as I moved it around to different rooms, or out to the front yard, and it kept the sound tuning consistent. Which also means that in all of those situations, it still kept the slightly pushed upper frequencies. There’s an EQ in the Sonos app, but it’s limited to just bass and treble. There’s no way to back off the shouty upper mids, but I found that boosting the bass by a couple ticks gave me the low-end response I was looking for without needing to pump the volume up, and doing so gives more depth to the strings during the opening theme of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.
As with other Sonos speakers, you can use the Sonos app to connect two Plays into a stereo pair, which allows you to have a much wider soundstage and stereo separation. This is only available on Wi-Fi, though. Even if you take both with you, they won’t maintain that stereo connection on Bluetooth. If you do take only one, the Play will act as a Bluetooth speaker while away from Wi-Fi and reconnect as a part of the stereo pair when returned and the Bluetooth connection is turned off. If you want to use one Play on its own around the house, turning off the other one will temporarily disable the stereo pair so you aren’t carrying around just the left or right channel.
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