Sonos unveils new flagship Play:5 speaker, TruePlay software

Home audio firm unveils new speaker and software that can easily tune it in 40 seconds.

The new Sonos Play: 5 is the flagship speaker in the Sonos family that can be finetuned with speaker-running software called Trueplay.

Global home audio specialist Sonos has unveiled its latest flagship smart speaker — the Play:5 — along with new speaker-tuning software designed to help users optimise their sound no matter where their speakers are placed.

The new Play:5, which replaces Sonos’ current flagship product, boasts six synchronised drivers, three mid-woofers and three tweeters to deliver sound that Sonos co-founder Tom Cullen said was a “real statement” from the company.

“This was a three year project for us,” Mr Cullen told The Australian. “This thing is gorgeous, the metal grille took one year alone to get right. It has nearly 60,000 holes. We think it’s a timeless product, it’s subtle, it has an understated power we think our users will really love.”

The speaker, as with the rest in Sonos’ range, connects with the user’s home Wi-Fi network to deliver high-end sound from a user’s own music collection or from a variety of streaming services including Spotify, Rdio, Tidal, and Apple Music which will be supported by the end of the year.

The Play:5, which can operate in three different orientations, can either play music on its own or can connect with other Play:5s — or other smart speakers in the Sonos range — to deliver music in every room of the house.

Sonos says two Play:5s paired together vertically deliver top-of-the-line stereo sound with a “focused and intense sweet spot”, while paired horizontally they create a larger stereo image for an “immersive, room-filling listening experience.”

It will be available in a custom matte black and matte white finish for $749 when released sometime later this year.

Today’s other announcement today is TruePlay, a speaker calibration available initially for iOS devices that lets users easily tune their speakers with the press of a button.

Mr Cullen said TruePlay, which will arrive in the form of a free software update, would be the biggest thing to happen to home audio since surround sound.

“We want regular people to be able to live more like rockstars,” he said. “What TruePlay does is it gives people the ability to have the same sound that they would normally have to pay a technician 500 dollars for.

“People will stunned at what’s possible with this; your home sound really can sound amazing just by waving your phone around for 40 seconds.”

Users take the Sonos app and use the microphone on their iPhone or iPad to analyse how the sound emitted by Sonos speakers reflects off walls, furnishings, glass and other surfaces. The app will then tune the speaker to make sure audio quality remains high.

Sonos CEO John MacFarlane, who founded email server software firm software.com in 1993, told The Australian that users down under could expect better pricing from Sonos in future, as a result of the company recently acquiring its only Australian distributor.

“We’re going to be better serving that market now,” he said.

Mr MacFarlane praised Apple for what it’s done for the music industry, saying the tech giant “moved the whole ecosystem forward.”

“They moved everybody into the future, and the industry needed that,” he said. “They did a one time favour for everybody, what Apple’s doing for music and for streaming is good for everyone.

“Streaming numbers, especially in Australia, are still way too low, a lot of people still don’t know what streaming is. We want people to fill their homes with music and we think streaming is the best way for people to do that.”

The company’s chief product officer Marc Whitten, who worked for Microsoft for 17 years and served as chief product officer for Xbox, said the fact Sonos speakers used Wi-Fi and not Bluetooth made for a superior listening experience.

“When your home is filled with music you want all the technology to recede into the music,” he said in an interview. “If the phone rings, or you walk out of the room and the music is interrupted, that’s not what we would consider the ultimate music experience for the home.

“We’re really at this revolution in music, everybody’s moving to streaming. What we want is for people to experience music with no compromise, and honestly I think with the Play: 5 we’ve recaptured that authenticness of what was created by the artist. Especially when combined with TruePlay.”

Exact launch dates for the Play:5 speaker and TruePlay are yet to be finalised.

David Swan travelled to Santa Barbara as a guest of Sonos.