Sonos Five

[pjug]

A little while ago I bought a Sonos Five for my wife. She likes it fine, but I don't think it sounds so great. Something in the midrange just sounds really off to me. Anyway, it should just stop there since she is happy but unfortunately I can't leave it at that. What I am wondering is if the wizardry that is supposed to make the single speaker sound good and add some kind of stereo effect is what I don't like. Maybe I would like this speaker in vertical mode (it automatically goes mono when standing vertically). They go deep at low volume, no sub needed for music IMO. Maybe I should get another and try a pair in vertical mode, in stereo. It is easy to find open box ones at a discount. Or maybe I'd just be throwing good money after bad?

Anyone have these? Any advice?

Also, has anyone tried the Sonos Trueplay room correction? This has it but since it requires an iOS device I haven't tried it.

 

[Zensō]

They definitely sound far better as a stereo pair. Here’s a recent video review from Darko that might spark some ideas:

 

[VintageFlanker]

They definitely sound far better as a stereo pair.

Just about everything sounds far better as a stereo pair.

 

[Zensō]

Just about everything sounds far better as a stereo pair.

Yup!

 

[JohnKay]

I want to like these. They solve so many issues as they are discreet in looks / design, quite good at WiFi connectivity (no need for ethernet, powerline adapters etc.), they can go close to corners, the app is quite good, they offer every streaming service and also work with Airplay 2. Unfortunately, I just find the sound harsh and fatiguing. The midrange especially as mentioned above, aggressive harsh tiring. They work well at relatively low volumes though but this makes them an expensive background listening solution. I watched the Darko review and I was quite surprised as I expected a more negative view, especially when compared against the KEFs. Darko does mention the agressive guitar sounds but his criticism is quite subtle. I have heard this issue he mentions and to my ears it is quite pronounced (shouty and harsh).
I still want to like them though as they can be deployed easily across the home and the entire family would use them with ease. If only they sounded a little less harsh...
I last tried the previous version about a year ago and ended up returning. I will probably give these another go at some point in hope that they improved.

 

[Zensō]

I want to like these. They solve so many issues as they are discreet in looks / design, quite good at WiFi connectivity (no need for ethernet, powerline adapters etc.), they can go close to corners, the app is quite good, they offer every streaming service and also work with Airplay 2. Unfortunately, I just find the sound harsh and fatiguing. The midrange especially as mentioned above, aggressive harsh tiring. They work well at relatively low volumes though but this makes them an expensive background listening solution. I watched the Darko review and I was quite surprised as I expected a more negative view, especially when compared against the KEFs. Darko does mention the agressive guitar sounds but his criticism is quite subtle. I have heard this issue he mentions and to my ears it is quite pronounced (shouty and harsh).
I still want to like them though as they can be deployed easily across the home and the entire family would use them with ease. If only they sounded a little less harsh...
I last tried the previous version about a year ago and ended up returning. I will probably give these another go at some point in hope that they improved.

Our serious listening space is populated with studio monitors (Adam, Genelec) and headphones, but throughout the rest of the house we have Sonos speakers in stereo pairs (Play:1s in the office, Play:3s in the dining room, and Fives in the living room). For casual listening we’ve been very happy with the Fives. I feel they’re underrated, and as stated in the Darko review, compare pretty well against powered “audiophile” speakers in the same price category (my brother has a pair of the KEF LSX and at low to medium volumes I prefer the Sonos.) If a clean setup and solid connectivity are priorities, they’re a viable choice in my opinion.

I agree about the harshness at high volumes. Some of that can be tamed using the limited EQ in the Sonos app, or remedied almost completely if you’re running Roon. Trueplay can also help in this regard. In our situation it’s pretty much a non-issue because we don’t run them at high volumes.

Audiophiles almost instinctively react negatively to any consumer focused brand, including Sonos. I was surprised at Darko’s review and expected him to be much more critical of the Fives than he was. That tells me he truly liked them because it would have been more in line with the expectations of his audience to give them a big thumbs down.

 

[pjug]

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that what I hear seems to be similar to what others are hearing. Still I might get another one for a stereo pair, which should sound a good bit better.

Has anyone tried TruePlay room correction? Maybe I'll borrow an ipad and give it a try.

 

[Zensō]

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that what I hear seems to be similar to what others are hearing. Still I might get another one for a stereo pair, which should sound a good bit better.

Has anyone tried TruePlay room correction? Maybe I'll borrow an ipad and give it a try.

I should have mentioned that Trueplay does work, and can make a significant difference in my experience. If you have an opportunity to borrow an iOS device, it would be well worth doing.

 

[m_g_s_g]

Rtings measurements for the Sonos can be found here.


Yes they seem to be bright. I wonder if Trueplay + some additional treble adjustment could help. I guess that the tweeter/woofer arrangement in two parallel columns is not the easiest to correct. Ifixit did a complete teardown for the previous Sonos 5 that can be consulted here:


I don’t think it is easy to change the radiation pattern for the speaker drivers when placed vertically vs horizontally (maybe I misunderstood that part in Darko’s video). They probably change the EQ with the onboard DSP, or maybe the crossovers as well.

Given that it has an analog line it, the Sonos Five could be potentially tested in the Klippel NFS. I don’t own a Sonos Five (nor do I need one at the moment). Any volunteers to send one to @amirm to test?

 

[pjug]

So I measured the Sonos Five in horizontal and vertical. It seems that horizontal has a distortion problem at ~300-500Hz and that was what I was hearing. It is very noticeable during the sweep. I tried horizontal mounting a few ways: with included bumpers engaged, defeating the bumpers for a flush mount, on sorbothane hemispheres. The distortion was always there. I think I have to get another one and use them in stereo; it seems junky otherwise. Anyone else want to confirm this, make sure mine isn't broken?

 

[napilopez]

Rtings measurements for the Sonos can be found here.
View attachment 116358

Yes they seem to be bright. I wonder if Trueplay + some additional treble adjustment could help. I guess that the tweeter/woofer arrangement in two parallel columns is not the easiest to correct. Ifixit did a complete teardown for the previous Sonos 5 that can be consulted here:
View attachment 116357

I don’t think it is easy to change the radiation pattern for the speaker drivers when placed vertically vs horizontally (maybe I misunderstood that part in Darko’s video). They probably change the EQ with the onboard DSP, or maybe the crossovers as well.

Given that it has an analog line it, the Sonos Five could be potentially tested in the Klippel NFS. I don’t own a Sonos Five (nor do I need one at the moment). Any volunteers to send one to @amirm to test?

It does seem bright. That said... while RTings is one of my favorite review sites in the world I do not think their frequency response measurements are useful, or even worse, they can be misleading.

They are only testing in-room measurements with unclear procedures. Without an anechoic response to reference it to nor more details about the procedure/distance/placement, etc, an in-room response is nigh useless. That frequency response could be caused by directivity, room interactions, the speaker's tuning, or any of a myriad factors. Without the anechoic response, you cannot know which deviations from the target are good, and which ones are bad. Sometimes it'll work, other times it won't.

For example, here's their frequency response for the Google Nest Audio:

Which makes it look like an awful speaker. But here's my spin:

Honestly, no clue how they ended up with that response, but I am quite sure it tells you nothing about how the speaker sounds. It's really quite disappointing they're not providing at least a quasi-anechoic on-axis response, seemingly ignoring all the speaker science out there on the importance of anechoic results and the problems with in-room measurements...

Second, note that they tested the Sonos 5 with TruePlay -- an optional feature -- and only in the horizontal orientation. In the Sonos One Gen 2 review, we also see an elevated treble which isn't present in the Sonos One SL review, even though the speakers have identical acoustic components (they mention a firmware update might be the cause).

A little while ago I bought a Sonos Five for my wife. She likes it fine, but I don't think it sounds so great. Something in the midrange just sounds really off to me. Anyway, it should just stop there since she is happy but unfortunately I can't leave it at that. What I am wondering is if the wizardry that is supposed to make the single speaker sound good and add some kind of stereo effect is what I don't like. Maybe I would like this speaker in vertical mode (it automatically goes mono when standing vertically). They go deep at low volume, no sub needed for music IMO. Maybe I should get another and try a pair in vertical mode, in stereo. It is easy to find open box ones at a discount. Or maybe I'd just be throwing good money after bad?

Anyone have these? Any advice?

Also, has anyone tried the Sonos Trueplay room correction? This has it but since it requires an iOS device I haven't tried it.

So I measured the Sonos Five in horizontal and vertical. It seems that horizontal has a distortion problem at ~300-500Hz and that was what I was hearing. It is very noticeable during the sweep. I tried horizontal mounting a few ways: with included bumpers engaged, defeating the bumpers for a flush mount, on sorbothane hemispheres. The distortion was always there. I think I have to get another one and use them in stereo; it seems junky otherwise. Anyone else want to confirm this, make sure mine isn't broken?
View attachment 117668View attachment 117669

The most likely explanation could be exactly what you've said: In horizontal mode, one speaker acts as a 'stereo unit, dividing the midwoofers and tweeters into left and right units.

In vertical mode, the entire speaker is mono.

When listening, that basically means one speaker has to do twice the work in horizontal mode.

I'm not completely sure why that would affect distortion measurements if you are playing the same signal for the 'left' and 'right' parts of the speaker, but I very much suspect this very likely has something to do with it.

Two Sonos Fives sounded much better than one from my recollection. Trueplay also worked well -- it's essentially performing an MMM measurement and applying bass calibration. And you could also mess with the tone controls as well.

 

[pjug]

It does seem bright. That said... while RTings is one of my favorite review sites in the world I do not think their frequency response measurements are useful, or even worse, they can be misleading.

They are only testing in-room measurements with unclear procedures. Without an anechoic response to reference it to nor more details about the procedure/distance/placement, etc, an in-room response is nigh useless. That frequency response could be caused by directivity, room interactions, the speaker's tuning, or any of a myriad factors. Without the anechoic response, you cannot know which deviations from the target are good, and which ones are bad. Sometimes it'll work, other times it won't.

For example, here's their frequency response for the Google Nest Audio:

View attachment 117716

Which makes it look like an awful speaker. But here's my spin:

View attachment 117717

Honestly, no clue how they ended up with that response, but I am quite sure it tells you nothing about how the speaker sounds. It's really quite disappointing they're not providing at least a quasi-anechoic on-axis response, seemingly ignoring all the speaker science out there on the importance of anechoic results and the problems with in-room measurements...

Second, note that they tested the Sonos 5 with TruePlay -- an optional feature -- and only in the horizontal orientation. In the Sonos One Gen 2 review, we also see an elevated treble which isn't present in the Sonos One SL review, even though the speakers have identical acoustic components (they mention a firmware update might be the cause).





The most likely explanation could be exactly what you've said: In horizontal mode, one speaker acts as a 'stereo unit, dividing the midwoofers and tweeters into left and right units.

In vertical mode, the entire speaker is mono.

When listening, that basically means one speaker has to do twice the work in horizontal mode.

I'm not completely sure why that would affect distortion measurements if you are playing the same signal for the 'left' and 'right' parts of the speaker, but I very much suspect this very likely has something to do with it.

Two Sonos Fives sounded much better than one from my recollection. Trueplay also worked well -- it's essentially performing an MMM measurement and applying bass calibration. And you could also mess with the tone controls as well.

Thanks -- I guess I should get another one (I mean another Sonos Five)!

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Brent Butterworth measured the Sonos Play:1 back in 2019.

https://www.lifewire.com/sonos-play-1-measurements-4103874

 

[JohnKay]

I could be wrong but I suspect that Sonos adapts and modifies the frequency response of the speaker with firmware updates. This may be behind the rtings note in the Sonos One Gen 2 frequency response section (as mentioned by napilopez above). rtings noted the difference between the One SL and Gen 2 and they are apparently planning to re-measure the Gen 2 so their results reflect the any change due to the latest firmware. Speculation of course until we see the updated Gen 2 result from rtings.

One thing that I can confirm from my own experience (when i owned a pair of Sonos One Gen 2 speakers), is the bass bump at around 50-60 Hz (as also measured by rtings). Super boomy bass there (+10db boost or so). Placing them near corners made it unbearable to me. Trueplay tempered it a bit... nowhere near enough unfortunately

 

[napilopez]

I could be wrong but I suspect that Sonos adapts and modifies the frequency response of the speaker with firmware updates. This may be behind the rtings note in the Sonos One Gen 2 frequency response section (as mentioned by napilopez above). rtings noted the difference between the One SL and Gen 2 and they are apparently planning to re-measure the Gen 2 so their results reflect the any change due to the latest firmware. Speculation of course until we see the updated Gen 2 result from rtings.

One thing that I can confirm from my own experience (when i owned a pair of Sonos One Gen 2 speakers), is the bass bump at around 50-60 Hz (as also measured by rtings). Super boomy bass there (+10db boost or so). Placing them near corners made it unbearable to me. Trueplay tempered it a bit... nowhere near enough unfortunately

The treble thing looks to me more like a true play screwup, as Sonos products, recent ones at least, have generally been designed by competent designers following harmanesque principles. Modifying the raw frequency response seems unlikely to me, but I may be wrong.

 

[pjug]

The most likely explanation could be exactly what you've said: In horizontal mode, one speaker acts as a 'stereo unit, dividing the midwoofers and tweeters into left and right units.

In vertical mode, the entire speaker is mono.

When listening, that basically means one speaker has to do twice the work in horizontal mode.

I should have mentioned that I was feeding just a L or R signal for my distortion measurements. If I use a L+R signal there is no significant difference in horizontal and vertical. So with just a L or R sweep in horizontal mode one driver was indeed working harder. However, it doesn't entirely explain the distortion at ~300 to 500Hz. When I dropped the level by 10dB I still heard the distortion during the sweep and it showed up on the measurement. So in horizontal mode something bad happens in this frequency range when a signal is stronger in the L or R, and you can hear this when playing stereo tracks at moderate volumes.

Now I have borrowed an ipad so I get to play around with TruePlay.

 

[Haint]

It does seem bright. That said... while RTings is one of my favorite review sites in the world I do not think their frequency response measurements are useful, or even worse, they can be misleading.

They are only testing in-room measurements with unclear procedures. Without an anechoic response to reference it to nor more details about the procedure/distance/placement, etc, an in-room response is nigh useless. That frequency response could be caused by directivity, room interactions, the speaker's tuning, or any of a myriad factors. Without the anechoic response, you cannot know which deviations from the target are good, and which ones are bad. Sometimes it'll work, other times it won't.

For example, here's their frequency response for the Google Nest Audio:

View attachment 117716

Which makes it look like an awful speaker. But here's my spin:

View attachment 117717

Honestly, no clue how they ended up with that response, but I am quite sure it tells you nothing about how the speaker sounds. It's really quite disappointing they're not providing at least a quasi-anechoic on-axis response, seemingly ignoring all the speaker science out there on the importance of anechoic results and the problems with in-room measurements...

Looks like they might have pushed it beyond its volume capabilities and its DSP started truncating certain frequencies for protection.

 

[pjug]

TruePlay applied a pretty mild adjustment in my case. I'm guessing in other rooms it might make more difference. Here is the difference, FR measured just about a foot away. I really didn't notice a difference in the sound. After that I went into EQ and turned treble down a bit. Then I liked the sound a lot better.

 

[HammerSandwich]

I just learned that the Five & One SL (other Sonos products?) require 802.11b or 11g if using wifi. 11n, finalized in 2009(!), is not supported, never mind newer standards. Putting an 11g device on your wifi can slow all 2.4GHz traffic. Keep your computers on 5GHz or use the speaker's Ethernet port.

In addition, if using SMB/CIFS for local file sharing, Sonos requires SMB1. Be careful with this, folks. Consider a NAS, rather than allowing SMB1 on your computers.

This is a little frustrating, isn't it? I expected that a newer tech company would be stronger on the computer side than the audio. That does not seem to be the case here.

 

[dontlikejazz]

I just learned that the Five & One SL (other Sonos products?) require 802.11b or 11g if using wifi. 11n, finalized in 2009(!), is not supported, never mind newer standards. Putting an 11g device on your wifi can slow all 2.4GHz traffic. Keep your computers on 5GHz or use the speaker's Ethernet port.

In addition, if using SMB/CIFS for local file sharing, Sonos requires SMB1. Be careful with this, folks. Consider a NAS, rather than allowing SMB1 on your computers.

This is a little frustrating, isn't it? I expected that a newer tech company would be stronger on the computer side than the audio. That does not seem to be the case here.

SMB v1 has been a problem unsolved for years unfortunately. HEOS has the same issue.
However it only applies to nas/ Linux, you can add your Mac/windows library without having to use smb (uses http protocol instead)