Company & Product Overview
It’s been almost 20 years since Sonos first rocked the world with their unique concepts on how to experience music. Move ahead to 2020 and Sonos has become one of our favorite brands for their great software, products that are simple to use, and incredible sound for their size and price. Not to mention, their designs look great in just about any setting.
The Five descends from the very first Sonos all in one speaker, the S5 which was introduced in 2008, and later updated in 2015 to the Play:5. What is pretty amazing is the fact the brand new Five sells for the exact same price the original S5 did back 12 years ago, yet sounds miles ahead of it!
Design & Build Quality
The Five is a sleek box with rounded edges available in a monochromatic black or white finish. As with all Sonos products, build quality is very high. Just as an FYI, at Audio Advice we are very diligent about tracking failure rates of the products we sell. We don’t like things that break or that are hard to use! Sonos products have by far and away the lowest failure rate of anything we sell. This is probably because they actually test every single piece as it comes off the line, rather than random samples. Plus, they way over-engineer things to last for decades.
For great stereo sound, the Five is designed to sit horizontally on your shelf or tabletop. It is physically pretty stout at 14 pounds and is a little over 14” wide, about 8” tall, and 6” deep. If you want even better sound, two Fives can be set up as a stereo pair. In this case, you would set them both up vertically and the speaker’s smart software will adjust the audio, pretty neat!
Overall, when you pull a Five out of the box, you will probably be like us and be super impressed with the quality of the fit and finish.
