The IT Nerd

I recently got the chance to try a SONOS PLAY:1 in my condo recently after having a first look at it at a recent SONOS event. I came away very impressed.

Now setting it up was incredibly trivial. The PLAY:1 comes with a device called the BRIDGE which integrates the PLAY:1 wirelessly with your network. Using the BRIDGE, here’s what I had to do to get it working:

1. Plug the BRIDGE into my home network and provide it with AC power.
2. Plug in the AC power of the PLAY:1.
3. Download the Sonos Controller app for iOS onto my iPhone.
4. Follow the directions on the app to set everything up which involved pressing buttons on the BRIDGE and PLAY:1
5. Declare victory and have a beer while enjoying the fruits of my labors.

Total time to set up: 4:40. Yes, I timed myself. The bottom line is that anyone can set this up and do so quickly.

Now what do you get with a single speaker? Well, ignoring the fact that it’s a single speaker (more on that in a sec) you get pretty amazing audio. Regardless of what I tossed it it from talk radio to classical, the audio was well defined and the reproduction of highs and lows was perfect. One thing I should note, the bass was incredibly good. That surprised me as I wasn’t expecting that from such a small speaker. There’s no stereo separation, but you can get a second PLAY:1 to solve that problem. In fact, that’s the whole point as you can start off with the PLAY:1 and expand it with the components that fit your situation and needs.

The real star of the show was the SONOS Controller app for my iPhone. Using it, I was able to listen to audio from a variety of sources. Such as music from my iPhone, or using TuneIn Radio to listen to CBC Radio One as well as NewsTalk 1010. Not to mention the BBC World Service. It’s dead easy to use and it also allows you to configure and control your SONOS system as you grow it. One thing I should note is that when I was testing the PLAY:1, I was able to set it to play the BBC World Service from my iPhone and simply press the play/pause button on the PLAY:1 and quit the Controller app. Then I was able to hit the play/pause button on the PLAY:1 and the BBC World Service would start playing. So you can set the PLAY:1 to play your favourite station and forget about it. Nice!

Now the use cases are pretty extensive. I documented quite a few of them in my first look at the PLAY:1, so it’s pretty versatile. I cannot find anything negative to say about it, which is rare for my reviews. So you can safely assume it’s a quality product. What really makes it a must get is the price. It’s $219 Canadian and that includes the BRIDGE which is normally $59 by itself. This makes it the perfect platform to start a SONOS system at a low price point. Then expand as you see fit. My advice would be to try it out at your local store and I suspect you’ll be taking one home.

This entry was posted on November 19, 2013 at 7:38 am and is filed under Products with tags Sonos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.