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One of the things well-nigh the Bluetooth speaker revolution is that it's easy to blend cocky-contained, single devices into a room. That's cracking for decor freaks, but it too means you may not be getting the best sound possible out of the unit of measurement. While traditional audiophiles volition still insist on a pair of stereo speakers on proper stands abroad from the walls — or floorstanding speakers, which all the same exist — that'south not practical or desirable for many music listeners. Sonos, the venerable multi-room audio company, has just unveiled the redesigned, flagship Play:5, which different nearly speakers will configure its sound profile to match the room it's in automatically. The best role: You'll be able to do that with any existing Sonos speaker as well.

Sonos Play:5

The new Play:5's dipole array of drivers disperses sound throughout the room, but that'due south not all that's going on here. It also has an accelerometer to help it make up one's mind where and how it'southward positioned and will adjust its sound accordingly via DSP. And cheers to new software, the Play:5 and existing Sonos speakers can now account for the size, layout, and even furnishings of a room — for instance, a room with hardwood floors and enough of windows will sound quite dissimilar than one with thick pile carpet and a couple of material sofas.

How does that piece of work? Many years ago, I had an AudioControl equalizer, which came with a pink-noise generator and a modest microphone that would "mind" to the audio of the speakers in the room and let you EQ the room to compensate. Sonos'southward method is to use your phone to basically to do that in reverse — it listens to the audio of the room, compares the audio of what it'due south hearing to what information technology'south playing out and seeing the divergence, and then adjusts itself on its own. Sonos calls this Trueplay, and it works by using an iPhone as the mic; y'all wander around the room with the telephone, and it will play some sounds and run some tests. (For now, this adequacy is iOS-only.)

Otherwise, the Play:5 works inside Sonos's multi-room ecosystem, which supports over 60 music services also every bit locally stored music on upward to xvi PCs, Macs, or NAS devices. It'southward too a direct up Bluetooth speaker for connecting to your phone, tablet, or figurer. This matter is larger than virtually Bluetooth speakers, though; the Play:v measures 8 by 14.3 by 6.1 inches (HWD) and weighs a hefty xiv pounds, putting information technology on par with something like a Bower & Wilkins T7 or a Marshall Stanmore.

At that place are touch controls on the speaker itself, along with six internal antennas to stabilize wireless operation. It contains vi class-D amplifiers driving three woofers and three tweeters, and you tin can adjust bass, treble, remainder, and loudness controls via the Sonos Controller app. It besides contains ii non-functional mics that could be used for additional customization downwardly the line in addition to the new Sonos app.

Sonos says the Play:5 is coming subsequently this yr, volition be available in either white matte or black matte with a graphite grille, and will cost $499 a pop. You tin also buy a second Play:5 and the two units will configure themselves as a stereo pair, and interestingly, you tin add a pair of Play:v speakers to a Sonos Playbar and subwoofer for a home theater setup. And of course, you tin can buy multiple speakers for unlike rooms in your house like any proper Sonos system.

Sonos Play:5

Audiophiles have had a bit of a 2d coming lately, cheers to a renewed focus on improved audio quality, defeating the loudness wars with unproblematic fixes like Apple's Sound Check and Spotify'southward automatic level matching, higher-quality streaming services like Tidal, and (absolutely unnecessary) attempts to marketplace 24-bit/192kHz tracks to consumers. Information technology'll be interesting to encounter how this speaker sounds when it comes out. Sonos speakers generally sound quite good considering their class factors, although they rely on a big amount of digital signal processing that doesn't sound exactly natural, as I plant in a number of tests back when I was writing for our sister site PCMag. I'm looking forrard to hearing this latest Play:v model.