SONOS PLAY:3 Smart Wireless Speaker, White

Product Information

Why did Sonos create a second home entertainment device? The team did extensive research into how people used their Playbar at home and found that most people didn’t wall mount their televisions or Playbars. To that end, the Playbase was created to allow people to set their televisions right on top of the speaker, allowing for a compact home theater solution. Under the hood, the speaker array remains exactly the same as its Play:5 predecessor –and Sonos actually makes no bones about this. You're getting the same six custom-designed drivers driven by six class D amplifiers for a combined power output of 120W: three high excursion 10cm mid-woofers across the bottom of the unit and three tweeters above them, two of which are angled outwards.

Three years after the company released its first ever soundbar, the Playbar, Sonos has created the Playbase, a unique form factor sound system that combines a stable pedestal for your TV with an audio cabinet. Although it's about the size of a large shoe-box (and heavier than it looks, at 6.36kg) the Sonos Five isn't quite a cuboid since its grille portion is slightly bigger than its rear end and the baffle is slightly bowed out and angled upwards too, to aid with sound dispersal. It even senses which way it’s orientated and automatically adjusts the EQ for maximum dispersion – and this thing will fill a room far better than you might expect. StreamingThere are over 30 additional services you can plug into the Play:3 in the UK, including – Spotify, Apple Music, Last.fm, Deezer, Aupeo!, Napster, Wolfgang’s Vault, Stitcher SmartRadio and Grooveshark. This should be more than enough to satisfy most buyers..

That's not to say it's bass-heavy overall though. Listen to Fontaines D.C.'s Skinty Fia and you'll hear a low-end that, while impactful and unwavering, never bloats or muddies other musical passages such as accordions, drum riffs, angered vocals and keys. Overall, the Sonos Playbase is a good-sounding speaker for those who don’t want to fumble with a surround sound system or simply don’t have the room for one. There’s no need for a receiver, making it truly plug-and-play. Sonos’ philosophy of making music enjoyment as frictionless as possible continues with the Playbase – the Sonos app is easy to use and the integrated universal search across music services is something we wished every speaker had. The Sonos Play:3 is an unassuming little box. 26cm wide and 16cm deep, it’s small enough to fit on a bedside cabinet without poking over the edge. If that foot print is still too large for your liking, this box is also designed to function just fine on its side, making it just 13cm wide. There are little rubber feet on one side as well as the bottom, to avoid scratches, while a built-in accelerometer lets the box know when it’s on its side, and to change the sound processing accordingly.For yet another year, the Sonos multi-room system remains the best all-rounder.” ’What Hi-Fi?’ 2023 award-winner. Although in most ways it’s just like a shrunken-down take on the Sonos Play:5, there are a couple of key differences. The Play:3 doesn’t have an auxiliary input or a headphone output, limiting the versatility of the box a little. There are no side doors into the audio experience here – either you buy into the Sonos way or you won’t be listening to anything. To get the good stuff – like Spotify, Deezer and so on – you need to have signed up for a Sonos account. These extra services are available from within a “More Music” submenu, but can only be added to the main menu once you’re signed in with your Sonos user name. Getting an account is free though, and only takes a minute. Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 2nd November 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.)

The potential downside of relying on a “real” music library rather than a cloud collection like Spotify is that the device you’re streaming from needs to be powered-up all the time. If you use a NAS box, this is hardly a problem, but we’d be less keen on keeping a computer on all day long. Band of Horses’ delightful No One’s Gonna Love You, for example, sounds beautifully smooth and solid, but with lots of detail and punch. The name-plate is positioned so that when you flip it to it's upright orientation, it still reads. (Image credit: TechRadar) Sonos Five review: DesignThe usual Sonos qualities also continue to shine through, from excellent build, streaming from Spotify, Napster and internet radio, and brilliant format support – although we would like to see high-res studio masters included in a future update. Verdict The sound signature is definitely on the warm, bassy side, but you are given some minor control over it within the iPhone app. A Music Equilization submenu lets you tweak the bass, treble and balance, and turn the Loudness mode on and off. The two frequency sliders only have a subtle effect on the sound – Sonos doesn’t give you the opportunity to ruin the sound quality here, but the Loudness option makes quite an impact. Primarily, it increases bass output to help the Play:3 maintain a decent sense of scale at higher volumes in spite of its fairly small-sized drivers. It can make the box sound a little bass-heavy, but this can then be tamed a little with the bass slider. The best news about the Play:3, though, is that it sounds much better than its price and size might suggest. Feed it lossless or uncompressed rips from a computer or network-attached storage device and it really shines. The rear of the Sonos Five reveals its power cable, Ethernet and 3.5mm ports –so your turntable is catered for too. (Image credit: TechRadar) Sonos Five review: Features And talking of positioning, the fact that the Play:3 can be oriented vertically or horizontally means it will fit in almost any space.