Muso Qb Vs..

Sonos Play:5 Gen2.

Was wondering around John Lewis on the weekend and headed to the "Tech" department whilst the ladies where mooching around the various clothing sections and it was astonishing how much floor area JL had dedicated to Sonos products.

Listening area with the full set up of sound bar, sub Play1's etc etc.

Anyhoo, i meandered over and was copping a feel of a Play5 that was on display. Pressed a few buttons and got some sounds out of it.....'not bad'.. i thought and left it at that.

Off we go back home and that evening i eventually found myself browsing the Sonos website, and discovered they offer a 100 day no questions asked money back guarantee. Hmmmmm.

So, today, here i am sat in my usual spot, with a brand new Play5 freshly delivered, in the Qb's place.

Downloaded the App onto my iPhone plugged it in and went through the waving your arm like a lunatic around the room to set up the Trueplay settings, that eq's the unit to what it thinks it should sound like.

Great, all done, managed to faff my way to 'index' my music library from my MacMini and got everything listed on my phone.

Next, Tunein Radio. Searched for all my faves and got them stored and headed straight to Radio2.... Hmmmm cant find the HLS stream. Oh well, maybe it cant play that or it just defaults to it, so i hunt through the settings and various menus on the app on the phone, and on the mac mini and cant find it. Never mind. Hit the play button and out came the smooth tones of good old KB and various mumblings. 

Quite surprised at how neutral the music flowed, good bottom end/mids at low volume and good clarity and usual listening volumes. Thought i would give the Trueplay setting a try and wow, what a massive disappointment...literally sucked all of the life out of the sound, reducing the bass to almost non existence. Sod that, turned it off and alls well.

Now, time for a quick stream from my Macmini of a couple of usuals.

Again, good clarity but very boomy on the bottom end.

However, the one feature the Sonos unit has is TONE CONTROLS!!!!!!!! ...........Come on Naim, sort it out!

Pulled the bass down a bit and brought everything back in line nicely.

No Apple Airplay which is a bit annoying, as even with the Muso, i use the Apple remote App to access all my tunes and its just so easy.

So, all in all, not a bad little unit, but i still need to give it a few more days before any real verdict can be made.

A few Obs...

Pros..

Tone controls!

Balanced sound from most radio streams & the music library

Reasonably priced.

App with volume and player controls is available on the lock screen.

Cons..

A bit of a faff to set it up, although the App is quite easy to use.

No iRadio. Tune in is ok, but not as 'user friendly'.

No Apple Airplay but this is coming sometime this year.

unit has to be set to Index every so often, otherwise, any new tunes added via iTunes, won't immediately appear like they do with iCloud.

Not exactly a concise review but iv'e only just got it and thought i would share some initial observations!

PS, Ive given up, trying to post a picture. God knows how you are supposed to do it !