Sonos are one of the kings of home audio and defined the multi-room audio system
years before anybody else, but with the introduction of smart networks
from the likes of Amazon ,Google and Apple they've had to adapt, and adapt they have.
Here we have the Sonos One. This is the latest gen 2 version. This is a compact speaker that
plugs perfectly into the Sonos ecosystem but is also compatible with Google Assistant,
Amazon Alexa, and even Apple Airplay 2. So, combining the audio credentials
of one of the best companies in the world with the smarts to go with it
could make this one of the best compact smart speakers you can buy. But does it?
Welcome to my Tech Gear…
Let's find out!
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The Sonos One is one of the smallest speakers that Sonos make. It measures just over six inches high
and just under five inches wide and deep. It also weighs in at just over four pounds. This
makes it the ideal size to fit in any room in your house. It is also humidity resistant so
you can even put it in your bathroom. Color wise it is available in black or white.
The top of the speaker features touch controls which you can use
to play and pause your music, turn the volume up and down,
skip a track, go forward or backwards, and even mute the microphone. The far field microphone
array is also on top here which it uses when we get the voice assistant set up.
There is a small led on the top as well which is used to indicate the
status of whether the mic is muted or not and also the status of the speaker.
Connectivity wise this is predominantly a wi-fi speaker. There is no bluetooth here,
but there is an ethernet port on the back if you want to hardwire
into your network for some reason, but the wi-fi on the speaker is rock solid.
Overall this is a speaker that is solid. It's robust. It is really well made,
and the design of it means that it's going to fit well into any room in your house.
So the sound has to be the most important aspect of any speaker, and here we have two class D
amplifiers that are paired up with a mid-woofer, which is really going to help make those vocals
nice and clear with a deep rich bass, and it's also got a tweeter for those higher frequencies.
Now these all work together to create a great sound that really defies the size of this speaker.
Now you will see lots of other reviews doing sound tests so you can hear what the speaker sounds
like, but that doesn't really work because you are literally listening to a compressed audio stream
from your youtube video, which itself is of the compressed audio from the video that I uploaded,
which is a copy from the external mic that I used to record the speaker that was playing
the original sound! So you are so far removed from the original sound that it really isn't
going to sound good. If you watch any of those reviews you will notice that most of the time
the speakers always sound tinny or shallow or not much depth and that's the reason why.
"I did not realise that. Russell, did you realise that?"
"No, I did not realise that!"
However, I can tell you that I have listened to plenty of compact smart speakers and this one
is awesome. The vocals are super clear. The highs are detailed and separated out well and there is
a deep rich bass to this that makes it sound like a speaker that's probably twice its size or more.
Now whilst the speaker does sound good in a room no matter where you sit there is definitely a
sweet spot to this which, unsurprisingly, is right in front of it. It's still going to sound
good from around it but definitely if you want the best sound sit right in front of it.
Now this speaker gets really loud, and I do mean loud. It is easily going to fill
pretty much any size room although I would say mid-sized rooms are probably the best.
Does the Sonos One beat larger speakers, well, good larger speakers? No. I mean, you can't
beat the laws of physics, but for its size it is an amazing speaker. It will actually beat
plenty of other speakers that are bigger and more expensive. Overall it is a great sounding speaker.
So we've covered the sound, but what about the ‘smarts’? Well,
the speaker will work with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple Airplay 2. You get to
choose your voice assistant between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa
in the Sonos app. You can't have both operating at the same time so you will need to make a choice.
If you do have more than one Sonos One in your house though you could have Amazon Alexa on one
of them and Google Assistant on the other. Personally I use it a lot as my main way of
playing Spotify music from my Sonos speaker. I don't use the app, I just use Google Assistant
and ask it to play music and it instantly just goes and gets it from Spotify. It's super easy.
The Sonos app, which is available for both Android and IOS devices is where you control
and set up your Sonos speakers. Once you have connected your speaker to the app then you can
use that to control the speaker's volume and everything else, although you can of course
still use your voice and the controls on the top of the speaker to control it as well. The
primary reason for the app, or at least I think the primary reason for the app,
is to allow you to consolidate all of your music providers into a single app
so you can sync up with Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Youtube Music, Deezer and
a wealth of other providers and then control everything and access everything from the single
Sonos app. It is a great way of consolidating that if you've got lots of music providers.
Now the Sonos One is super versatile because you can use it on its own, but you can also pair it
up with another Sonos One as a stereo pair to get true left and right channels. You can even
pair up a pair of them with a sound bar like the Sonos Beam or the Sonos Arc to get true surround
sound for your movies. You can also use it as a starter pack to your Sonos multi-room system or
add it to a Sonos system that you already have. That versatility makes the speaker even better.
So, should you buy it? Well, it's rare that I just outright like something without any issues,
but the Sonos one is just such a rare beast. It is compact. It's really well built. It
sounds great. It seamlessly connects to my Sonos network and Google Assistant at the same time.
I can just seamlessly ask it to play music and it just does it.
It is just a well-rounded perfect compact smart speaker for me, I can thoroughly
recommend it. I will place purchase links to it in the description down below for you.
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And as always…
See you in the next one!