Hey guys, Adam Lobo here. OK since I have reviewed and owned the Sonos One, Sonos Move, the Sonos Arc and the Sonos Sub, there is just this one more speaker I still always wanted to test and own for myself, which is the Sonos Five. It is an upgrade of the Sonos Play 5, so let’s find out how does this RM2,999 Sonos Five perform and WHERE does it fit? Whether or not this is your first Sonos speaker or to expand your current Sonos Ecosystem!
Unboxing
Like the Sonos Arc, this box comes with a nice premium unboxing experience where there was a nice little latch on both sides, where you will need to remove the sticker tab and push the latch to unlock on the right and left.
Lifting up the box immediately reveals the Sonos Five, wrapped in nice cloth material and the Five sticker on top. Removing the cloth, you will see the Sonos Five itself.
Underneath, you will find the accessories box, which contains the Welcome and Quickstart guide, and the power cord
Build Quality
Let’s come down to build quality. As expected, the build quality was amazing and really high in quality. The dimensions are 8.03 high by 14.33 inches wide and 6.06 inches depth, and what’s nice is that it can be placed either vertically or horizontally to totally match your setup with the rubberised material, with a nice soft touch to protect any vibrations on top of any furniture.
It weighs at 6.36 kgs which is actually a tad bit heavier than the Sonos Arc, which was very interesting to know, which only means that it is built like a tank and as per every other Sonos speakers, their speaker’s aesthetics are one of the best and so was this Sonos Five as well. It is available in black and white and like the Play 5 and the Sonos One, it is also humidity resistant as well.
Speakers
The Sonos Five features three mid-woofers, three tweeters including one in the centre and the other two are angled side tweeters. The reason for this very unique placement is to give a distinctive vocal clarity and mids and of course giving you better bass on the previously mentioned 3 mid-woofers, it also has a total of six class D digital amplifiers as well. So this means there are 6 speakers and six amplifiers. Hmmm, should it be called Sonos 6 then? Well, we will find how is the sound quality when it comes to music listening.
Connectivity
Connectivity options on the Sonos Five is a more unique where it is the ONLY Sonos speaker which has a 3.5mm jack to connect with external devices like a smartphone which has a headphones jack. Yes, we all know how it’s disappearing but it is still around and of course, even if you have a CD Player, an amplifier or a turntable setup as well.
Other than that, you can connect via the ethernet port for music streaming or 2.4 gigahertz wireless internet music streaming since this is a Wi-Fi connected speaker and not a typical Bluetooth speaker, where I have mentioned in my Sonos Arc review on how better it is to stream via Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth for a better audio quality.
And if you are an iOS user, Apple Airplay 2 also works wirelessly as well.
Control Buttons
Looking at the top or the sides, depending on how you place the speakers, there are 3 capacitive touch controls instead of buttons to again make the speaker look more aesthetically minimal and pleasing. There are touch controls to play or pause button, volume controls and skipping a track.
Since this is a dedicated speaker system so you won’t find any mute controls for the microphones like how the Sonos Arc was as this is not a smart speaker, which if you ask me, I didn’t mind NOT having that feature on this speaker anyways.
Setup
Setting up the speaker is similar to all of the other Sonos speakers, where you will need to download the Sonos S2 App, available both on the Google Play Store and the Apple Store, where I have gone through very deep on the apps feature in my Sonos Arc video, so do check it out over there or even in my Sonos Move video review as well.
> Link to Sonos Arc review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9R1BbhBo9E
> Link to Sonos Move review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r1FjZ13kgE
Sound Quality
Coming to the sound quality and test, I performed a test using the wired 3.5mm headphones jack and also through the WIFI connection and I have to say that the audio quality was the same but keep in mind that the sound output won’t be as loud on this AUX playback compared to Wi-Fi since there is no preamp present, but for something like turntables which has a pre-amp built-in or if you get an external preamp will get a bigger output volume.
Just so you all know that I played YouTube videos through the smartphone and while the sound quality was great, but you will be getting quite a bit of audio-video latency so keep that in mind if you would like to watch videos, which I don’t really recommend.
And speaking again of this Line-In output, don’t forget to go to your room settings in the app and toggle Autoplay Room to activate it and what’s nice is that you can go back and forth using the Wi-Fi stream option and line in automatically without manually switching between the both.
In terms of music listening, I tested out several genres of music where first, I tested Pyramid’s Astral, which not only had a great low end, but I was very pleased with the mids, as it was one of the best I have heard. It was extremely pronounced and even at 70% volume alone was super loud.
Eagles’ Hotel California was next on the list and the cajons drums low end was super deep and nice, I went maximum a volume with this because it was more of an acoustic song and the guitars and vocals were cut through perfectly.
Next, I played James Arthur’s You Deserve Better and when the constant beat kicked in it was really loud but still super clear and I felt like my ceiling was vibrating so I kept the volume down at about 70 percent again.
Issues No Problem (Keep It Alive) sounded amazing where when the drums kicks sounded again very nice and separate from the low end coming from the bass guitar and when the heavy guitars came in it was again very balanced and didn’t sound muddy at all.
Drawbacks
Hmm, drawbacks, errrr, none! Ok, while some may argue about how Bluetooth functionality would be great on the speaker, I personally think that Sonos speakers are meant to get the best audio streaming and thus they only went with the Wi-Fi streaming method and the size of the speaker is not really meant for “on the go” purposes, where Sonos has the Sonos Move for that which has Bluetooth and of course is for more on the go situations.
And of course, some would have preferred a smart speaker function on the speaker which I feel that I could live without but maybe not for some…. Oh just so you all know they are all listening!
But there is a “cheap” workaround where you could use an Amazon Echo Dot which has a sound output and connect the Sonos Five to make it “smart”. Smart eh?
Conclusion
Now, in conclusion, once again Sonos didn’t disappoint to produce an extraordinary speaker, which has surely exceeded my expectations when testing this speaker’s performance. And yes, it is a speaker which I personally recommend.
If you are planning to get yourself one, head over to TC Acoustic’s website as they have not only the Sonos Five but there are Sonos speakers and products available on there as well and I will leave a link down below as I also may consider making a purchase for another Sonos Five as well to give that perfect stereo pairing on a larger audio scale and a wider soundstage!
