The suffering of life cannot overwhelm me. The happiness in my heart is not my personal. I put joy into music to make the whole world happy. -Mozart
Music is likened to the spice of life by many people, or quiet and soothing, or impassioned rhythms will always resonate with us at a certain moment. At this time, music is more like a spiritual force, or it makes people relax. Or make people high-spirited. In such a fast-paced social environment, listening to music has become one of the most convenient and effective ways for us to relieve stress and relax ourselves.
The dissemination of “mental power” requires a medium, and our usual tools for listening to music are nothing more than headphones and speakers. Headphones and speakers have their own advantages and disadvantages in terms of audio, range, balance, and experience. Personally, I prefer speakers that can enjoy music freely without restrictions. Although I use audio, I am not an enthusiast who likes tossing. I have used two to three hundred Edifiers, and two to three thousand BOSE and Hivi. Although they have a price difference close to 10 times, the sound quality does not reflect Such a big gap caused me to agree with the popular saying “There is no good quality within ten thousand yuan” until I experienced a Sonos Five.
Sonos, an audio brand from the United States, integrates Internet elements into traditional audio, focusing on home smart audio products that combine wireless and sound quality. In the last month of 2020, Sonos launched a new all-in-one audio product, Sonos Five, officially called “Sonos’s most powerful all-in-one audio so far.”
Packing and unpacking
Regarding the experience of this Sonos Five, let’s start with a simple unboxing. The simple packaging design is mainly black, and we don’t have much information. The brand “SONOS”, the model “Five”, the WiFi logo and the product frontal renderings, and a slogan translated into five languages ” Play music wirelessly with high-fidelity sound quality, and enjoy the immersive stereo effect that surrounds the beam. “Although the expression is simple, it is enough for Sonos Five.
The opening method of the box is not the folding opening and closing of the traditional carton. There is a side sliding bayonet on both sides of the packaging box. Uncover the seal of the buckle, slide the buckle to the direction of the unlocking mark, and then pull the top The handle opens the upper cover, this unboxing design is a bit interesting.
The protective measures in the packaging box are relatively in place. The audio host wears a layer of black non-woven fabric, and the customized shock-proof foam firmly fixes the audio in it, so there is no need to worry about bumps during transportation.
Slowly uncover the eye-catching Five label, and slowly fade the black non-woven fabric.······The ritual sense of opening the box is here now~
After taking out the audio host, there is an accessory box at the bottom of the box. Because it is different from the use and control of traditional audio, Sonos Five has eliminated the complicated audio cable, data cable, and adapter. Its accessories have only one power cable and three paper cards: quick guide, safety reminder and warranty card.
Appearance and details
Sonos Five is an upgraded model of Sonos Play5, which continues the simple and stylish design concept of Sonos products. The body is integrated without extra elements. The appearance of the speaker is improved and innovated on the basis of a well-defined rectangular parallelepiped. The side line is no longer a straight line, but has a slight arc, and every corner is rounded and smooth. After the designer’s manipulation, the original rigid and straight cuboid became decent and elegant, even revealing a touch of elegance.
There are small foot pads on the left, right, and bottom sides of the speaker, which can be placed horizontally or vertically. The micro-arc design of the fuselage looks like a warrior with his head high. When the Sonos Five is placed horizontally, it can automatically separate the left and right channels to produce excellent stereo. After pairing two Sonos Fives and placing them vertically, each speaker will automatically switch to mono mode to form a surround stereo effect. The feeling after the two speakers are paired is great, but unfortunately I only have one. It is worth noting that a single Sonos Five placed vertically will automatically switch to mono mode, and it cannot be manually switched back to stereo!
The size of Sonos Five is about 203*364*154mm (length*width*height) and weighs about 6.36kg. The volume of the speaker is not too big, and the weight is quite sufficient. After all, there are six built-in speakers. The weight of the speaker has another benefit, reducing resonance.
The front of the fuselage is covered with a whole sound filter, the mesh is small and dense, which will not damage the integrity of the fuselage, and some internal structures can be vaguely seen after lighting.
Compared with the previous Sonos Play5, the upgraded Sonos Five body design is more concise and unified. There is only an independent dark gray “SONOS” Logo on the front, and the touch button design on the top is also simplified.
There are three touch buttons and a working indicator on the top. Tap the left and right buttons to control the volume increase/decrease, tap the middle button to control pause/play, slide to the right to play the next song, and slide to the left to play Last song; the indicator light can visually display the power and connection status. Here I want to complain about Sonos Five’s sliding playback settings. If you want to play the next song, you must at least trigger “Volume Down” and “Play/Pause”, instead of triggering by sliding anywhere, this setting may be to prevent accidental touch , But every time you swipe, you have to keep an eye on the position of your finger touch, which always feels a little uncomfortable.
The shell of Sonos Five is made in one piece, which is as natural as running clouds and flowing water. The surface is treated with matte black. It has a good texture and feel, but it is easier to leave fingerprints. The cumbersome and complicated interfaces of traditional audio are cancelled on the back, which is like a product of modern intelligent technology. There is a power cord interface on the back of the speaker; an Ethernet port, which can be directly connected to the router when the WiFi is unstable; a 3.5mm audio interface, which can be connected to an external terminal device; a physical connection button to confirm the connection and reset The role of speakers. In the spirit of excellence, I still suggest to cancel the network cable interface, because 80 to 90% of places where WiFi is unstable will not have a network cable.
In addition to this black, Sonos Five has also added an elegant and pure white color, which is also unique. No matter white or black, the simple design ID allows Sonos Five to be integrated into the home environment of different decoration styles. I can place it in the living room, study, bedroom, or even in the kitchen.
Connect and control
WiFi connection:
Sonos Five supports both WiFi and audio cable connection methods. Before using WiFi connection, download the Sonos App and ensure that the speaker and the phone are on the same WiFi network. Connect the power cord to automatically turn on, and perform a few simple settings on the App side to successfully connect to the speaker.
After accessing the Internet via WiFi, Sonos Five supports hundreds of streaming media service providers such as Apple Music, QQ Music, NetEase Cloud, etc. This way, the audio source, front-end, and back-end are integrated, and you can search,and play music directly without relying on other external devices.
Traditional Bluetooth speakers need to be connected to the audio source to play audio content, and the Sonos App is more used as a speaker controller to control the speaker, rather than as the audio source of the speaker to play audio. Even after the phone is disconnected from the network or even turned off, Sonos Five still You can continue to play the added content in the list.
Sonos Five supports Apple AirPlay. Click the AirPlay icon in a music app that supports AirPlay to transfer the music being played directly to the speaker, which is very convenient.
Multiple Sonos Five can be connected to the same WiFi network at the same time to form a Sonos audio system, which can be used independently, such as watching TV in the living room, listening to music in the bedroom, or combined to play music simultaneously. This is the Sonos smart home audio system The advantage lies.
Audio cable connection:
In addition to WiFi connection, Sonos Five also supports the use of audio cables to connect players, computers, TVs and other terminal devices, especially it is a high-fidelity speaker with HiFi-level sound effects, and you can enjoy HIFI music by connecting a vinyl player. In order to ensure the sound quality of connected players, phonographs and other devices, a delay of up to 2s is automatically set by default, but if the TV is connected, the picture and sound will not be synchronized. At this time, we need to set the audio delay in the Sonos App The delay time is adjusted to a minimum of 75 milliseconds.
Sound quality experience
If the appearance structure is the body of an audio, then the sound quality is undoubtedly its soul. The stack and structure of the hardware, the optimization and addition of the software, and even the appearance design are all paving the way for sound quality. What kind of sound quality performance will Sonos Five have?
Before Sonos Five, I was using the portable speaker Bose SoundLink Mini2. Although it has better sound quality than two to three hundred, the gap is not as big as expected. But when I heard the sound of Sonos Five for the first time, I fell into it. Although the sound quality is metaphysical, I can still clearly hear the difference between the two, especially the proud bass of Bose Mini2 is almost surpassed by Sonos Five.
From the comparison, it can be heard that the bass of Sonos Five is more transparent than that of Bose Mini2. Before the comparison, I feel that Bose Mini2 is really good. After comparison, it is found that the low frequency of Bose Mini2 is sloppy, and even the bass is muddy.
To sum up
As a consumer-level home smart audio for the general public, Sonos Five positions itself as high-fidelity audio, pursuing studio-level sound quality, which is already a confident expression of the product itself. The actual performance of Sonos Five did not disappoint me, it really feasted my eyes and ears.
advantage:
① The integrated and exquisite appearance makes it difficult to pick out the fault, and the details are handled in place;
②The WiFi connection method allows Sonos Five to get rid of the shackles of audio sources and wires, and should be the best choice at present;
③Six carefully tuned speakers combined with Trueplay tuning technology, EQ balance adjustment and other optimization technologies, so that Sonos Five’s sound quality performance is remarkable, especially the near-perfect bass makes me love it;
④Sonos audio system supports multiple audio components, which can be used independently or played simultaneously.
insufficient:
①Single Sonos Five will automatically switch to mono when placed vertically, and manual switching is not supported;
②The gray background of Sonos App looks a little uncomfortable;
③The intermediate frequency is warmer, and the vocal performance is not strong enough.
Jason 
mengjiao 
Iman iman