Sonos Wireless PlayBar Soundbar Preview

[admin]

Soundbars have been growing in popularity over the past 5-6 years (even as traditional A/V receivers have been apparently decreasing in their mass-market appeal). Add to that people's desire to play content from various online and smart-device sources to their living rooms and you've got a recipe for success...and Sonos has taken the ball and run with it. They may be a little late to the game, but in typical Sonos fashion, they've added a device that situates itself well into their eco-system and presents itself as one of the more capable, practical and fashionable sound bar solutions we've yet seen. We can't wait to get one in for a review and look forward to checking it out in more detail. For now, however, there's a lot to like about it. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Sonos' video for a sneak peek and then we'll add some commentary below.

Discuss "Sonos Wireless PlayBar Soundbar Preview" here. Read the article.

 

[Omar Leon]

Would you say this sound bar was produced to not only satisfy minimalist but to also take Bose head on with better price and possibly better sound?

 

[Cliff_is]

Would you say this sound bar was produced to not only satisfy minimalist but to also take Bose head on with better price and possibly better sound?

There's no doubt in my mind that the Sonos soundbar + Sonos Sub would crush the Bose unit. If the PlayBar is anywhere near the engineering feat of the Play3 or Play5, they have a winner. Even the Sonos Sub is a great unit, it just doesn't play very low.

 

[Cliff_is]

One thing I didn't realize before is that the PlayBar only has one optical input, which makes its surround features basically useless.

Most TVs won't don't support surround encoded signals through their optical outputs. This means that you will only be listening to simulated surround sound.

This is a huge oversight in my mind. Or, it might just by Sonos's way of saying that don't care about movies and only care about music.