Sonos has announced a new software feature that will allow anyone who owns a Sonos speaker to tune it specifically to the room it is in before the end of the year. No Bluetooth pairing, no wires, just music. The thing is, not all rooms are the same, as so a few calibration is needed to alter the sound to make it sound the best it can be. Trueplay changes the output of the speaker to cancel out all these negative effects.
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Through Sonos’ app, a special tone is emitted from the iPhone or iPad’s speaker. The app can then analyze how the sound reflects off of walls, furniture, glass, and other surfaces-and adjust the sound of the speakers accordingly. All of that is packed into a sleek new design, which makes it really feel like a substantial update on the original Play:5.
“Your music experience should fit your life, not get in the way of it. It should grow with you and stay fresh and current”. And that’s a big part of his job. At $998 for two, you’d expect them to, I guess, but the quality here is light-years ahead of anything Sonos has done before.
That’s easier said than done.
Not everyone can place their Sonos speakers in such an optimal position.
If you have already filled your home with Sonos speakers, you needn’t run out to replace everything with new Play:5s.
He said in a recent blog “When file sharing exploded onto the Internet in the 90s, more than a century of recorded music was turned on its head”. “It adds lots of variables, but we do it in a way that is actually simpler for the listener”.
It takes 45 seconds to do the actual tuning bit if you do it right and you won’t need to do it again unless you move the speaker into a different room.
The real test will be once this is out in consumers’ hands, because Sonos can’t afford to have the system mess up.
Sonos provided me the opportunity to use Trueplay in my home and the results are outstanding.
The new Play:5 is larger and heavier than the previous model. Looks-wise, the Play:5 is definitely a lesson in reduction. The horizontal position offers the wider soundstage, but if you’re looking for the widest sound, configuring twin PLAY:5s in a stereo pair is the way to go. And what’s cool is that smart sensors in the speaker make the touch controls responsive to all orientations, so the volume-up is always facing up. The way the lead has been sealed within the system compliments the minimal look of the Play:5 – attention has definitely been paid to the smallest of details. Even the Sonos badge is punched out to ensure nothing gets in the way of your audio enjoyment. And with the new update that Sonos is rolling out for free, they’re about to become even smarter.
As we mentioned, the app will prompt you into steps. The tweeters are placed around the speaker with one in the middle, and one on each side of the speaker.
During my briefing and hands-on time with Play:5 and Trueplay, Sonos opened up its offices with a 1-on-1 interview opportunity with various members of the leadership team including Sonos CEO John MacFarlane. It appears the company is doing well so far: It has offices in six countries and is hiring aggressively to grow to its 1,200-employee workforce. The speaker will be available in two finishes: matte black; and matte white.
SonosThe Sonos family of wifi connected speakers.
At its heart, Truplay is a configuration procedure for your speaker’s sound.
For the physical hardware controls, Sonos has ditched buttons altogether and gone with a capacitive touch interface.
“I remembered my dad was making Tug of War with Paul McCartney and he had a Bentley, as you do, and he would sit outside the house in his auto listening to mixes”, Martin says.
Something like this though will probably not be entry-level priced.
“It’s down to preference and I don’t think I should dictate how people listen to music”, he says.
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Android devices vary too much from device to device that Sonos just didn’t want to take the chance. “It’s a question of how do we do a better job of showing people that experience….” Yikes. Those taxes and duties aren’t helping our European friends at all. But it all comes back to the experience, which is why Whitten believes the company’s happy customers are probably the best marketing he can find. With twelve months of development time invested in Trueplay before launch, the company putting its money where its mouth is.
