Sonos Five - Black - Wireless HiFi Speaker

MSUnited States

UPDATE registered and gorgeous sound/Inability to register or connect two out of three of these.

Update 1.25.: I held on to these speakers after researching this company and discovering that this inability to register/ connect was an overly drawn out app issue that really damaged the brand. I decided to wait out a fix and I am glad I did. The app has been fixed and these speakers are all connected and functioning. The sound is exceptional. These Fives complement a very airy and precise Logan Martin speaker system in the main room- the Sonos Five sound is very deep and warm and the difference from room to room is beautiful. I am contemplating adding another speaker though, but remain scarred by the below. If I can get past the fear stage with this I will . Original review: I have a Sonos connect into my high end stereo system. I bought one of these speakers as a test to see if it would function, because there’s so many people complaining about connectability. It arrived last week. I plugged it in, it updated itself and began sending a beautiful sound. Base heavy. It was so seamless and such a great sound I bought two more of these speakers for a whole house system. They arrived today and I just tried to set them up. Neither one of them will connect. Neither one of them will register. I’ve gone through every single step on the Internet, including factory resets, router reboots, etc and they simply will not connect to the network or register. They are, however, stuck on my app as speakers that are supposedly available. I’ve tried to remove them from my app and of course there’s no delete button. I had to self experiment through an absolute maze of craziness to try and get the system back to where it was before I set up these two extra speakers. Sonos help support is useless. I was on hold for 30 minutes before I finally just hung up. I now have an app that identifies these dead speakers, and neither one of them will work. I don’t have the time to wait to talk to Sonos and it looks from other people’s experiences they are not going to be able to fix the problem anyway. Some genius on a forum talks about transferring accounts or setting up new accounts or something bizarre but that is absolutely ridiculous with wireless speakers that cost this kind of money. I did try the transfer account button and nothing happened. I’m going to be returning these speakers. This is a defective set up process with Sonos and it’s really unfortunate because the music app is wonderful when it works. One star for the sound and the app design in collecting all of my music libraries. -6 stars for such a ridiculous inability to connect other speakers to the system.

Ken L.United States

Audiophile sound quality, compatibility with Apple networks, compact footprint

In planning to replace my 20+ year old stereo system, I wanted do eschew the traditional stereo components and take a more modern approach. There were a few requirements I set for consideration of my new audio system. - A compact footprint to fit our downsized living space. - A system built around music streaming services. - Ability to play audio from my television, turntable and multiple networked devices. - Keep within a modest budget. - Audiophile sound quality. I found a solution that meets all the above requirements in a single box. The Sonos 5 is a wireless powered speaker. The enclosure contains six class-D amplifiers powering three mid-woofers and three tweeters. The woofers are placed on a curved surface, projecting the music to a wide soundstage. Two of the tweeters are placed at sharp angles, throwing the sound to either side of the room, with the other facing center. This configuration results in an impressive room-filling sound coming from a single enclosure. Although the Sonos 5 attempts to give you a stereo experience, you don't really get true stereo separation from one unit. For that, you can add a second Sonos 5 for a full stereo separation effect, but that can be a bit pricey. The primary input is from your Wi-Fi network. The Sonos S2 app available for most mobile and desktop devices, allows for set-up of the Sonos 5 on your network, fine tuning the speaker for the room (TruePlay) and playing music streamed from your devices. The application lets you consolidate all of your streaming services into a single app from which you can search and play your music across all services. Besides the app controls, you can also control volume, play/pause and skip tracks using the elegant touch controls on top of the speaker cabinet. Other than using the Sonos app, if you are steeped in the Apple ecosystem, as I am, you can send audio from any application on your Apple devices using Airplay. This allows me to send the audio from my Apple TV, iPhones and Macs using any application. The system lacks a bluetooth receiver, as this would result in lower fidelity. In addition, there is a single wired analog input that can be used to hook-up your turntable, CD player or other non-networked device. If you are looking for a new stereo system and are willing to try something somewhat unconventional, I’d recommend the Sonos 5 for its high fidelity sound, compact design and integration with Apple networks and devices.

CustomerUnited States

Phenomenal Standalone Speaker

The Sonos Five is a phenomenal standalone Speaker. The range of audio it plays, from the sharpest of high notes to the deepest of bass, is as good as you would get from a complex system of speakers and subwoofers. I am not necessarily an audiophile, but I do appreciate well-engineered music through very capable speakers, and the Five is exceptionally capable. Songs that I have listened to for decades play with such detail that I can now distinguish individual instruments in symphonies, and much more refined room-shaking bass. Voices sound like they are speaking in the room. The Sonos Five is easy to set up. Despite the recent app debacle, their software team has fixed most of the issues that annoyed existing users. Although the leadership team at the time could have and should have handled the app release much better, Sonos as a company has steered in a friendlier direction with new leadership, so don't let the app grumblings scare you away in 2025. The speaker functions very well, and will be streaming your music within minutes of unboxing it. Plus, its modern, sleek design looks great on your shelf! If you are looking for the complete package smart speaker that is capable of streaming the highest quality digital audio, or playing vinyl/CD audio from line-in, I wholeheartedly recommend the Sonos Five.

bonedocUnited States

Amazing sound quality

For such a compact speaker the volume and quality of the sound, especially the bass, is remarkable. These boombox type speakers often have excessive bass which gets very tiring. That’s not the case here, the bass is definitely present but well blended with higher frequencies. The user interface is intuitive; once you’ve downloaded the Sonos app and setup the device you’ll likely not need to use it any further. You just open Spotify or whatever service you use and connect to the unit via Airplay. The latest Bluetooth codecs would have been nice but our phones don’t use these advanced codecs so Bluetooth is sonically inferior to Airplay. If you’re looking for a convenient source of high quality music in a bedroom or shop this speaker is ideal. Pricey yes but IMO we’ll worth it.