Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsGoogle: why isn’t my sonos getting sound B4 you buy
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2021
Sonos Customer Service TERRIBLE flat and disengaged. You can talk to 8 different people and you have to tell your story each time.
When the speaker is working- good sound.
Quick review - FIVE is often reliable and can be easy to pair, good sound when working, clear even if a little cold. Performs well at high volumes, no distortion. Does fill the room and handles base impressively if in a very exact fashion. The detail is worth the cost. Great solution to wireless sound for a TV. Does not rival the fullness of an added base component.
UPDATE:
Three weeks - 4 hours on the phone, 8emails, so many nights, 3 Saturday’s lost in reading up on routers, channel setting, password resets, countless unplugs, sonos app uninstalls, etc- and the beam is still a log and the Sonos 5 is now less reliable after changing up channels and router settings per sonos request.
Long winded experience -
What I started with: Apple TV 4th gen. Added Sonos Beam with the intentions of wireless connection being the primary use - sound for the TV on one wall and the drop down movie screen on a different wall (small apartment). Decided to put the beam under the movie screen. Wifi connection is unstable and slow for the beam, i.e. when you pause a movie - you will lose sync all together with the beam (and the five if they are both connected). Decided to go the FIVE route to see if it would address stability. Oddly - it did immediately have a more stable connection for the TV. Solved my wireless sound issue. Problem was - with all the clarity and volume FIVE provides, it misses the heft and warmth that beam provided. Beam dropping in and out of connection really highlighted what was missed with a stand alone FIVE. The BEST combo was having the beam AND the five - one providing the sharpness/clarity while the other warmed and deepened the edges of full volume. Five was easy to set up. Plug in, open the app, do the sound thing (it does sound like an alien invasion. i live in an apt building so for sure people were wondering if THEY were coming), and it was done! Showed up in Apple TV, synced accurately and quickly each time, was responsive to play forward pause (again, all things beam was lagging on). HOWEVER - the compliment of the pair was so good, decided to keep the beam and hardwire it to the TV through a stupid long cord. Pairing the two together for movie nights and stand alone music days through the app is pretty dreamy. However, opening up Spotify on Apple TV - since its also covered by the SONOS app- it tries to be helpful and sync the way it does but it ends up breaking the simultaneous connection. So, where Apple TV has the beam as its primary speakers, when opening Spotify on Apple TV, it drops the Sonos beam overriding to sync to the FIVE (again - five was perfectly and easily paired through airplay and has no trouble, so far, flipping between Sonos and apple tv). When I had beam only, it would do the same thing, dominate to take over, but because the airplay connection was poor - it would just “play” silence. The time on the song would tick on but there would be no sound out of the beam. Apple TV put out its own speaker systems, removed the audio out primary function and assumes you have their speakers or something hard wired. Some folks think this is the reason the airplay sync is now more unreliable. We’ll see if the divide gets worse! Put in a ticket for the beam issue with Sonos - no response, other folks having the same airplay sync issues.
