Sonos Five Smart Speaker Review

[Count Arthur]

What is the old pilot line?

A good landing, is one you can walk away from.
An excellent landing, is one where you can re-use the plane.

They have these speakers dotted around the gym I go to. I always thought they sounded OK, a little bit boomy at the bottom and not a lot of sparkle at the top, but perfectly fine for background music in a gym; I've never found them bothersome or unpleasant.

 

[heraldo_jones]

Nice speaker. Would love to see JBL Authentics 300/500

 

[Koeitje]

Maybe one of the last speakers I would expect to test well, a lifestyle speaker. Respect to Sonos...

Not entirely unexpected, people have posted spins of Sonos speakers before and an IKEA speaker designed by Sonos was measured by Amir and that also did well.

 

[charlielaub]

When you look at the measurement data it is easy to see that this speaker has some serious problems, like the peaking distortion around 300-500 Hz and 1.5kHz, as well as being a total comb filtering mess above 2kHz (a perfect example of why you do not use multiple tweeters in a speaker in a non-line-array configuration). But it likely ticks all the boxes (and more) for its intended end use - a convenient playback endpoint for casual or background listening. This is definitely not reaching a high level of performance from the audiophile perspective but that is not in the design brief anyway. Considering these factors I will give it a "great" rating.

 

[staticV3]

a total comb filtering mess above 2kHz (a perfect example of why you do not use multiple tweeters in a speaker in a non-line-array configuration)

I believe Sonos deemed it a worthwhile compromise for ±80° of horizontal directivity.

 

[dasdoing]

I think the horizontal looks pretty good for what it wants to achieve. you can set it close to a wall and have more or less stable response in the whole space

 

[AaronJ]

I recently got my first Sonos speaker, an Era 100, for my kitchen. Neat little thing and it sounds quite good for background music while I'm cooking or doing other prep work. I definitely wouldn't use it in my main listening space but for its purpose I really enjoy it, as I'm sure I would the DUT if I had a bigger space to fill. The Sonos app is rock solid and integrates very well with Spotify, not so much for Qobuz but it works fine enough. My only complaint is setting volume is awful. It's either by a slider on the app and impossible to fine-tune, or done in large chunks using the side button on my iPhone.

 

[Arashi_Tsunade]

Thanks for the measurements Amir! How I would also like to see those of Vifa Olso or Vifa Helsinki!

 

[Ajax]

For a long time I, like many audiophiles, dismissed SONOS gear as middle of the road performance wise, designed for the uninformed convenience market. It also didn't play hi-res.

Recently I convinced myself that 16/44.1 was more than adequate for my needs (I'm 68 in 2 weeks) if the material was well recorded and well mastered. I subsequently read an article in Audiophile style that confirmed the old SONOS Connect streamers pre 2015 were bit perfect. By chance there was a sale of 3 off second hand at a local HiFi store at only US$50 each, so I bought them. Using cat 6e cable I connected them to my modem, and use the optical out for a variety of systems incorporating Benchmark and SMSL DACs, feeding Buckeye and Nord Hypex amps, with great results.

Using the Sonos S1 App, I stream Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect and Soundcloud. Very simple, functional and great sounding set up, particularly for those wishing multi room.

 

[JohnBooty]

Perhaps the benefits of improved dynamics outweighs the downsides of comb filtering…

My completely subjective opinion/experience (in general, not with this particular model) is that this tends to be true.

 

[mash]

I was an early adopter of SONOS before they ever got into speakers. I even had an original Sonos hand held controller. Sonus largely developed/popularized the whole house consumer market (after SqueezePlay exited the scene). Unfortunately, their early software was terrible. I spent many, many, many frustrating hours debugging/fixing issues with their software/setup. The fact that they were/are even more insular than Apple was also a killer for me. Then I found out about Roon and made the switch. Roon was certainly more complicated to setup, but once I got it setup its been an absolute joy to use. No issues, handles complex network setups with ease and the multi-vendor support is a game changer. One of my happier audio days was when I finally packed up my SONOS zone players and amp's (I think they are still lurking in my basement somewhere).

Unfortunately, those early adoption experiances have left some pretty deep scars. You could tell me that these things sound better than a pair of Genelec 8351Bs and I wouldn't be interested due to the software. Maybe an outdated impression but fool me once.....

 

[Kanenas]

Sonos has been my top recommendation for non-enthusiasts who want to upgrade their home sound. Dead easy to use for the non-techie residents / visitors, easy to extend into multi room setup, one-app for all streaming services, and a fair sound. I have seen a few of my close ones starting small with a single Sonos speaker, and then growing the herd to full room / soundbar etc.

Is it the BEST sound? Not even close. Enthusiasts / audiophiles beware.
Does the wife / kids control it singlehandedly? Sure thing.
Does it look sleek, minimal, and stylish? 100%. Huge WAF right there.
Can it be a gateway purchase? I plead the fifth.

As for the people complaining about the price being too high, if they were actually making a huge margin per sale, Apple or Google would have bought them. (look at Beats). Happy to be educated differently but last time I checked a 'better' network streamer with similar streaming integrations, with a set of active speakers cost more than a pair of Fives.

 

[AdamG]

Dumbfounded to see this Lifestyle type Smart Speaker measures so well and produces such deep Bass. The Test results are the exact opposite of what we would expect. Bravo to Sonos for getting so much right. They deserve our praise and respect. Didn’t think for a minute I would be saying that in a Review Thread by Amir.

Thanks for the review Amir. Much appreciated Sir. You keep surprising us and that is quite delightful indeed.

 

[Inertiaman]

Well it's a "smart" speaker, so it needs to think etc.

Now I look again it seems there is both a MT7615 (Wi-Fi) and MT8521 (CPU, also used in Sonos Amp).


JSmith

I presume the MT8521's most continuous workload is supporting the DSP processing. In fact, this may be a partial explanation for the latency issue (if they are doing all the DSP processing on the ARM Cortex A7 cores, which have some disadvantages in latency versus a typical "true" DSP one might see in some other SoCs).

 

[Kanenas]

I presume the MT8521's most continuous workload is supporting the DSP processing. In fact, this may be a partial explanation for the latency issue (if they are doing all the DSP processing on the ARM Cortex A7 cores, which have some disadvantages in latency versus a typical "true" DSP one might see in some other SoCs).

I doubt it is the DSP processing: networking and streaming are more likely the most resource heavy processes. These are not just active+DSP speakers, they do run a whole OS under the hood.

 

[ehabheikal]

As I've recently bought a Sonos 5, I found this very interesting. Thanks as always to Amir.
I can report that it plays audio fine from my TV (an LG C3) via a cheap eARC HDMI extractor. The HDMI extractor has a headphone socket and I run a 3.5mm stereo cable from the extractor to the Sonos 5 line in.
You need to configure the volume level for the line in (and the autoconnnect default volume) on the Sonos App.
FWIW both the TV and the Sonos are connected to house LAN via Ethernet- not that I think it makes any difference.
Both the TV and the Sonos App have facilities to adjust the timing to sync up the sound with the video, but I have not needed to adjust at either end.
When connected using eARC from the TV, there are no sync issues - it just works.
As stated above, when used on iphones or Ipads, the Sonos app has the facility to do a form of DRC using the phone or tablet mic.
I have not yet tested this yet, so can't report.

Oh - just spotted the point about not playing DLNA content. I was nervous before getting mine as I have a large library of ripped tracks on my NAS, and I had heard horror stories of inability to reliably use various NAS boxes. Various contingency plans were prepared, but plugged it in, connected to NAS music library via DLNA and it works first time. YMMV.

Cheers

Paul E

does your earc adaptor allow you to change volume from tv remote? If so can you link to it?

 

[YSC]

originally wanted to rate it as fine, but then considering it is actually taking accurate sound into a living space without the need of a very precise MLP, so upgraded to great!

 

[Kanenas]

Forgot to add that I use a Sonos bar with a PS5 connected via eARC. There is no latency in there, and yes the DSP still works. Same for Netflix streaming. I think what we call latency is more 'buffering' for digital streams and AD conversion for analog inputs.

 

[lin4265]

Really curious on this against the devialet phantom i or ii. I own a sonos move but it isn't doing it for me besides the neutral presentation.

 

[Inertiaman]

I doubt it is the DSP processing: networking and streaming are more likely the most resource heavy processes. These are not just active+DSP speakers, they do run a whole OS under the hood.

I said most continuous, not heaviest. While the speaker does need to support an OS, the continuous demands from that are relatively modest (no active browsers, no display, no significant UI, etc). The "networking" functions, while continuous, are not computationally demanding. The DSP demands are continuous and computationally heavy in realtime.

Or if you're suggesting the MT8521 is not doing DSP, what might you suggest *is* doing the DSP processing then? The DAC is a PCM1690 which has no DSP resource. I see no other processor on the board.

We're both speculating of course. A power consumption per process/function chart would tell the true story, and while Sonos no doubt has such a document, we'll surely never see it.