With an immense increase in multi-room speakers around the world, new entrants keep coming out. In this booming industry, Sonos is one of the brands that has been working in the market for many years now with dozens of products. They have a name in speaker-industry for over 10 years now proving itself to be one of the best platforms out there along with offering easy integration with top music streaming apps like Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music.
The Sonos line up for multiple rooms contains some speakers as well as a couple of soundbars and one wireless subwoofer.
In this article, we will list all the necessary information to help you choose the best Sonos option.
Sonos Roam
Compared to the other Sonos Bluetooth models, the Roam variant is a little smaller and is often counted as the smallest speaker in the overall industry as well.
Roam by Sonos offers automatic transformation to from Bluetooth to WiFi or vice versa. This feature is absent in the larger Sonos model, Move, which we have listed below as well. This helps Roam present a better, seamless audio experience specially when moving in or out of the room.
Apart from the standard specifications typically offered in Sonos, the Roam uses an extra feature called Sound Swap that can work with virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa, TruePlay, Google Assistant and Apple’s AirPlay 2.
Sonos Move
Move by Sonos is a larger model when you compare it to other speakers, and is completely integrated with features like Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. While using the speakers in Bluetooth mode, you can use the toggle button on your Sonos Move, pair any device to the speaker and steam music or any audio content through it.
While using the Wi-Fi settings, you can expect the same options as you would from a typical Sonos speaker along with remote control offered throught the Sonos app. A useful feature is the incorporation of Automatic Trueplay tuning that can allow Sonos Move to tune itself to the music in its surrounding automatically when you place the speaker somewhere. Apple’s AirPlay 2 is also a part of the model.
Along with this, Sonos features an in-built voice control system that supports Alexa and Google Assistant. The speakers are resistant from dust, water etc. with an IP56 Rating and are powered by a 10-hour battery, allowing you to travel with it anywhere you want. Move contains a charging dock and another port that supports USB Type-C.
Sonos One
The Sonos One, like with the Sonos Move and Roam, has embedded voice input through Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, enabling you to use other Sonos devices, order an Uber car or even use smart lighting, for example.
The Sonos One has a strong resemblance to the earlier and obsolete Play:1, although it has speaker grilles of same color along with having a touch-enabled control pad instead of buttons to press. It still has the same audio design as the Play:1, and although it lacks the energy of the Sonos Five models, it still sounds wonderful for its smaller scale.
Sonos One SL
The Sonos One SL model is nearly similar to the Sonos One, with the exception that the SL has no voice-enabled control and hence draws the mic set upwards to the top relative to the Sonos One.
In the Sonos One SL you can experience the same features as the One model, aside from the fact that the SL does not have an embedded compatibility for Google assistant or Amazon Alexa. It does, however, support Apple AirPlay 2 connectivity with more than 100 music providers, multi-room sound and Trueplay tuning.
Replacing the older Play:1 model, the Sonos One SL has been one of the most compact and cheapest Sonos models for those of us who don’t like the smarter versions. It’s a great choice for using the Sonos One SL as surround options while using the Sonos Beam for providing voice audio.
Third-party virtual assistants like the voice-recognizing Alexa or Google Home devices can be connected to Sonos One SL to use voice control. You can even pair it with a Sonos One or another Sonos One SL.
Sonos Five
The Five was introduced as a substitute for the Play:5, and it is the largest and most effective speaker in the whole Sonos series. It has ability to be places vertically or horizontally, with capacitive sensing touch controls. No voice control is integrated into the model but users of an Alexa or Google Assistant virtual system may control the Five with their own Speech, or using a different Sonos model like the One, Roam, Move, Beam or Arc. Integration with Apple AirPlay 2 is also available.
Like most other Sonos speaker models, you can pair two speakers from the Five model together to get a full-fledged stereo pair. It can provide you with multi-room audio and allow you to pair it with your TV’s inbuilt speakers for surround sound. You should be able to position the speaker anywhere you want while linked to the wireless mesh network, while using the streaming features and other software functionality.
Sonos Beam
Beam by Sonos is one of the compact options available with the company. This model offers all the features you would typically expect from the brand’s lineup along with other features like the HDMI ARC and smart TV connectivity, which allows it to transmit the TV’s audio while also letting you control it too.
The most distinguishing feature for this model is its built in virtual voice control, allowing you to control the device using Google Assistant and Alexa. Along with them, it also connects with Apple’s AirPlay 2. The Beam is known to integrate well with all other speakers from Sonos, apart from Move and Roam, along with the Sub to help you setup a multi-room 5.1 surround audio system. Even then, the most attracting element is that its cost is far lower than that of Playbase or Arc, even after having better connectivity.
