SONOS - PLAY:5 Wireless Speaker for Streaming Music (Large) - Black

Product Description

The original, bigger room, bigger sound all-in-one Sonos music player. With 5 integrated speakers powered by 5 digital amps, the PLAY:5 is a HiFi powerhouse of sound that will astound your ears. Wirelessly stream your entire iTunes library, favorite music services, and thousands of radio stations to any room. Set it up in minutes, and expand until every room in your home is packed with your favorite tunes. Control it all with free apps for your Android smartphone, iPhone, or iPad.

Product Details

• Color: Black


• Brand: Sonos


• Model: ZP0S5US1-BLK


• Released on: 2010-06-02


• Dimensions: 11.34" h x
  18.80" w x
  7.56" l,
  11.90 pounds
  

Features

• The original, bigger room, bigger sound wireless speaker with 5 custom drivers and dedicated amps for full-bodied sound at any volume


• Wireless speaker streams music directly from your iTunes library, online music services and free Internet radio


• Powerful wireless network delivers HiFi sound without dropouts


• Start with one, then wirelessly expand with more to any room in your home


• Sonos App on your smartphone, tablet or PC gives you control of all your music in one place

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

210 of 224 people found the following review helpful.

Sonos is a dream come true. The Play:5 is Great


By PeteTechGuy

<> WHAT IS SONOS?

Sonos is a wireless speaker system that streams music from your COMPUTER HARD DISK (such as your iTunes library) or from the INTERNET (such as internet radio, Pandora or most anything else) directly to Sonos Speakers. You CHOOSE that music on the fly using the Sonos iPhone or Android apps (or others). With Sonos, such music does not need to stream THROUGH your phone. You use the phone just for the purpose of making your choices. (It's the controller not the streamer, unless you want it to be)

Sonos is special because of the extraordinary range of music available, the intuitive phone app interface which so simply controls every aspect of the experience, the sound quality, the whole home flexibility, the ease of setup and installation, and the benefits of doing all this without needing to stream from the phone.

All you need to get started is one Sonos speaker (like the Play3, Play5 or Playbar) and possibly one Sonos Bridge (which connects the Sonos wireless network to your home network. See "Do you need a bridge?", below). If you want, you can later add Sonos speakers for every room in your home.

You can also include your 3rd party stereo system with a Sonos-Connect (which would be a sonos input source for that stereo system); or add 3rd party speakers with a Sonos-Connect-Amp, (which itself would be both the SOURCE and AMP for those speakers).

<> HOW GOOD IS THE SONOS SYSTEM?

I've been using Sonos since 2009, and it's been FLAWLESS, and an ABSOLUTE JOY.

I've got instant, automatically-updated access to all of my iTunes TRACKS, ARTISTS, PLAYLISTS AND ALBUMS. Sonos also has an excellent implementation of PANDORA, RHAPSODY, other music services, and internet radio. It's such a pleasure to hear them throughout the house and patio, controlled by my iPhone in every way, and with full broadband quality sound.

The FLEXIBILITY and EASE OF USE are equally impressive. Each zone can play any independent track or other music choice, or be instantly grouped (synchronized) with any number of other zones. When multiple zones are grouped, it's so easy and natural to

- choose and navigate music for the group just as you would for a single zone.
- control the volume of any individual zone within the group.
- control the volume of the entire group while maintaining their relative levels.

I've had multi-zone home systems, costing ten times as much, that couldn't do these things.

The ability to SIMULTANEOUSLY PLAY DIFFERENT TRACKS IN DIFFERENT ROOMS from a single iTunes library, located on a single computer, is a technological feat that can not be achieved with standard AirPlay speakers alone. (You can also play music from multiple libraries from one or more computers or from networked attached storage, NAS). ALL OF YOUR CHOICES for any or all of those zones can be beautifully controlled by a SINGLE IPHONE, iPod touch, iPad, Android, PC, Mac or by any number of such controllers.

I also have an Apple AIRPORT EXPRESS linked to a sonos line-in, so that my friends can stream any ITUNES OR APP music to my sonos system using Apple AIRPLAY from their iPhone. That works well, but sometimes a streaming iPhone will loose its WiFi connection as you move about the house. (Of course, iPhone/Airplay WiFi streaming glitches are not sonos related problems. This is more of an illustration of how a Phone/WiFi streaming system is likely to work.) Nonetheless, it's great to have Airplay available for friends. Some of this can now be accomplished without an Airport Express, since newer versions of the iPhone/iPad/iPod SONOS APP can stream the iDevice's ITUNES tracks (but not other app music) directly to your sonos system over wifi.

My Sonos system has been absolutely flawless, with a CONSISTENT, INTUITIVE INTERFACE, and my iPhone, with its Sonos controller app, is always right there in my pocket, ready to go.

Setup for all of the Sonos zones has been a snap, and the system has been a total joy from day one.

<> DO YOU NEED A BRIDGE ?

One requirement to be aware of is that you'll either need to buy a $50 Sonos Bridge OR connect this Play5, OR any other Sonos Player (ie, a Play3, Play5, PlayBar, SUB, Sonos-Connect, or Sonos-Connect-Amp) anywhere in your home, directly to your router or LAN with the included ethernet cable. Only one sonos device needs to be hardwired to the router or LAN.

So if one Sonos device will be close enough to your router to plug it in, then you won't need a bridge. Otherwise you will need to buy one.

<> PROTECTED ITUNES TRACKS on sonos

iTunes tracks bought after 2008 are not protected, and WILL work on sonos and other devices. If you have a lot of earlier, protected, iTunes tracks, they can ALL be converted for a one time total fee of $25: Just subscribe to iTunes Match ($25/yr) and apple will upgrade your tracks to unprotected. Apple allows you to keep your upgraded tacks if you later cancel iTunes Match, but the $25 will not be refunded. IMO, that $25 is a nice price for converting a large library to "play anywhere", and independently, you might decide to keep iTunes Match as I have.

<> The SONOS Play:5

Sounds better than my Bose Sound Dock. Looks great. Sets up in seconds, and moves easily between rooms when needed. It can really be cranked up in VOLUME WITHOUT DISTORTION. Perfect.

ADVANTAGES in BUYING A SINGLE Play5 (or Play3) rather than a Bose SoundDock or other docking speaker:

1) CONTROL FROM YOUR SEAT: It's an absolute pleasure to have complete control over what you're listening to, right where you are, keeping your iphone or android in your hand or pocket. You don't have to stand up to choose any specific track, playlist, artist, radio station, internet music service, or to see what's playing. And because your iphone is only the controller (you're streaming from your desktop computer hard disk or from the internet, rather than from your iPhone - unless you choose to, as noted above) you're not using up valuable phone battery life or suffering mediocre sound quality, as you might be otherwise. Further, your phone is still with you for answering phone calls or using other phone apps, with no disruption to the music system.

2) INTERNET RADIO: Sonos probably has the worlds best remote control user interface for internet radio. Listen to Pandora, Rhapsody, Sirius, last.fm, Spotify, all of your local radio stations (local radio is quick to find, given it's independent menu item. A very nice touch.), or about 100 thousand other internet radio stations, organized by location (country, state, city), or searchable by genre, sub-genre, station name, station number, or radio show name.

3) UPGRADABILITY: Add another zone (or multiple additional zones) at any time in the future and you're set with a multizone system. Also, the system will continue to be just as valuable if you change your phone from an iPhone to an Android or vice versa, which would not be the case with a phone docking speaker or an airplay system.

I should point out that there are some benefits in going with a single Docking Speaker instead:

1) Cost Savings.
2) Some might prefer a docking speaker away from home, but the Play5 DOES includes a line-in port and cable that can be used with your phone when away. OR You can use an inexpensive bluetooth adapter with the Play5's line-in. The Sonos phone app won't typically work away from home, but if you use a bluetooth adapter you won't need it. Just make sure to turn on autoplay in the play5's line-in settings before leaving home.

Final Verdict: I really do love my Play:5 and my entire Sonos system.

122 of 132 people found the following review helpful.

Genius...Pure Genius!


By Sudhanshu Thakur

Just got the S5 about an hour ago. Setup couldn't be easier. Step 1 - connect the power cord to an power outlet. Step 2 - hit the Mute and + button to get the S5 added as a new zone, Step 3 - hmmm....I don't think there is one. Just hit play and enjoy pure bliss.

This is my 4th Zone player (see my other gushing review of the Sonos system on the Sonos bundle page), and anytime my wife asks, "how many of these white boxes you really need?", the answer is always "one more".

Portability is the key feature of S5. Moving it from Kitchen to backdeck is just a matter of unplugging the power cord and replugging at the new location. It's all in one box. And the sound quality is not bad either. With all 4 zone players on party mode - some connected to very expensive Klipsch towers - I have ran around to compare the sound quality at various locations. The verdict - this little guy stacks up nicely against the big boys.

And the iPhone controller is not too shabby either. Don't see the need to buy the new touch controller (CR200).

Awesome product. Pure genius. Just get it.

107 of 117 people found the following review helpful.

As Advertised!


By Bob

I just purchased the s5 with a zone bridge and the CR200. The combination is absolutely amazing. Installation was easy and operation is intuitive. There is plenty out there on how these things work, so I won't go into details on that. But I do have two observations to share:

1) In addition to the s5, I also picked up a NAS drive so that I could stream my 5000+ track mp3 library. After all, streaming my collection with a touch screen remote was one of the main reason I looked at Sonos in the first place. But, after setting Sonos up I decided to give Napster a try. The Napster/Sonos combination gives you access to 8 million tracks on demand. For example, Napster has over 60 Bob Dylan albums, which is pretty much his whole discography. If you want to sample the latest (obscure) music, Napster also has most of the albums Pitchfork reviewed this week--pretty neat.

So, despite my deep investment in my personal mp3 collection, it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was completely obsolete. Deciding between $5/month for a 8 million track library vs. a $200 NAS for my 5000 track library was a no-brainier. The NAS got packed up and sent back; my mp3s are now strictly for iPod use.

2) As an NPR fan, the other great feature I didn't realize Sonos included is the ability to search and play archived NPR shows. From the Splendid Table to Fresh Air, it is all there on demand--awesome.

_____________
Two-year update: This thing is still going strong. We use it everyday to catch up on NPR or listen to the latest releases via Napster. For instance, just yesterday, I read a review of the new Sigur Ros album and 10 seconds after finishing the review, I had the album streaming through my S5 with a few touches of the controller. I also find it extremely useful to be able to listen to non-local radio stations. If we sleep in and want to catch Morning Edition, or get home late and want to catch Marketplace, we just tune into Wyoming Public Radio (we are in Atlanta) and presto. (While the NPR shows are archived, they are usually not accessible until one day after broadcast).

Another note is that I have downloaded the Android App, which works very well. The only slight frustration is that it takes my phone a few minutes to ramp up the WiFi connection. Because of this, I still almost exclusively use the CR200 or my laptop to control the music. I'd say the CR200 is worth the expense in order to have a dedicated controller that always works without delay.

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Product Details : SONOS – PLAY:5 Wireless Speaker for Streaming Music (Large) – Black. The original, bigger room, bigger sound wireless speaker with 5 custom ...

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