Who should buy it: The Sonos Five is for the music lover who wants multiroom convenience and is willing to invest in great sound. Like all the company’s speakers except for the Move and Roam, below, Sonos’ flagship is WiFi-only and needs to be plugged into an AC outlet. What’s not to like: The Sonos Five is relatively expensive and rarely discounted. Our testers give the Sonos Five an Excellent rating-our rarely bestowed top grade-for sound quality when two of the speakers are paired in stereo. What’s to like: The Sonos Five simply sounds great, with solid bass and crystalline trebles that let you hear the detail of instruments ranging from the growl of a double bass to the shimmer of a ride cymbal. It achieves stereo sound from a single sizable box that can serve as the heart of a flexible multiroom system to route music throughout your home. What it is: As the company’s largest and most expensive model, the Sonos Five, which is only slightly changed from the older Play:5, is something of a classic. Note that the rating system for wireless speakers and smart speakers is slightly different, so you can’t directly compare the scores between the two categories. ) All these speakers were purchased at retail and tested in controlled conditions in our specially built sound labs by our team of trained technicians, who evaluate each model for ease of use, versatility, and, most of all, sound quality. (Soundbars, like the new Sonos Ray, are handled separately in CR ratings. Below is a broad selection of models we’ve already tested, from most to least expensive, with guidance on how you can find the best Sonos model for your needs. These new speakers add to an already sizable Sonos lineup. Consumer Reports will have a first look evaluation using a pre-launch press sample later this month and full test results when we can purchase the speakers at retail and evaluate them in our labs. The new speakers are available for pre-order now and go on sale on March 28. Sonos has also revamped the manufacturing of both speakers, with screws replacing glue so the speakers can be repaired more easily, and by using post-consumer plastics. The Era 300 comes in black and white and sells for $449. The 300 can also be integrated into a high-end home theatre system where a pair of the flagship speakers would handle the rear channels while a Sonos Arc or a second-gen Beam soundbar takes care of the front. With an array of upward and outward firing tweeters, the 300 supports Dolby Atmos spatial audio, which is now being used on some music tracks from Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music. The Era 300 is a larger smart speaker with a horizontal orientation that will replace the company’s flagship Sonos Five. ![]() The Era 100 comes in black and white and is priced at $249. (In the wake of legal battles with Google, the company has dropped support for Google Assistant.) The Era 100 also has Bluetooth capability, a first for a home speaker from Sonos. Like the One, it’s a smart speaker that supports Amazon’s Alexa assistant as well as Sonos’ own voice assistant. The biggest difference is that the Era 100 is a stereo speaker, so it should deliver a better musical experience with a single speaker. It’s slightly taller than the Sonos One but its footprint is about the same. ![]() The Era 100 is a medium-sized speaker that will replace the popular Sonos One.
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