Sonos Play:3 - Mid-Sized Wireless Smart Home Speaker For Streaming Music, Amazon Certified And Works
Sonos Play:3 - Mid-Sized Wireless Smart Home Speaker for Streaming Music, Amazon certified and works with Alexa. (White)
- Delivers richer and deeper sound than Play:1, making it perfect for spots where you have more room.
- Connect your Play:3 to any Amazon Echo or Alexa-enabled device, then just ask for the music you love.
- Play different songs in different rooms at the same time. Or, pump one song in perfect sync, throughout your home.
- Set-up in five minutes using your home Wi-Fi. Easily expand your home audio system over time by adding wireless speakers to additional rooms whenever you’re ready.
- Wirelessly stream all your favorite music services like Amazon Music, Pandora, Apple Music, and Spotify.
Brand : Sonos
Category : Electronics,Portable Audio & Video,Portable Speakers & Docks,Portable Bluetooth Speakers
Rating : 4.2
Review Count : 1578
SalesRank : 0
Sonos Play:3 - Mid-Sized Wireless Smart Home Speaker for Streaming Music, Amazon certified and works with Alexa. (White)
- I\'ve been looking at the Sonos system for several years. I never pulled the trigger as I had gotten burned by earlier wireless music server efforts from Creative and others. I just received a Play:5, Play:3 and a Bridge for Christmas, so I had to try it out.One important fact to remember about all Sonos devices is they are useless without the Sonos software. If the company ever goes belly up, you\'re going to be left with expensive and useless electronics. The company also has a bit of a reputation for eliminating features without warning.This review covers the Bridge and Play:3.If you want to use any of the Sonos devices wirelessly, you need to purchase the Bridge. If you don\'t want to shell out for the Bridge, you\'ll have to connect at least one Sonos device to your network via Ethernet cable. The Bridge is a small device that you attach to your router. The Bridge connects all the Sonos units to your Wi-Fi setup. The Sonos system doesn\'t use your Wi-Fi when streaming. It uses a proprietary wireless mesh network to stream. This prevents dropouts and other issues as the mesh network is separate from your Wi-Fi network. Once the Bridge is installed, you only have to interact with it when you add new Sonos devices.After the Bridge was connected to my router, I installed the Sonos software on my desktop computer. After the install, the software can look for music files on your computer automatically or you can choose the location yourself. The software quickly found the Bridge and the music I have on my computer. Presently I have around 28,000 songs in my collection in both MP3 (320 kbs) and WMA Lossless. The Sonos system does not support WMA lossless, so I had it search for the MP3 files. It did this quite quickly and within 10 minutes had indexed all 28K MP3 files. Sonos has a limit of 65,000 songs, so I was far below that limit. I have read a fair share of complaints as to the time it takes to index large collections, but I was impressed with how quickly the software indexed my collection.I then unpacked the Play:3 and proceeded to connect it with the Bridge wirelessly. To do this you simply select \'add new Sonos Device\' from the menu on the software. I then went to the Play:3 and depressed two of the three buttons on the device and in a few moments the devices were talking to each other. Again this process was pain free and quick. Just a few moments after unpacking, I was listening to the Play:3. The fit and finish on the Play:3 is very good. It appears the Sonos people have used Apple as their model. The packaging and presentation of the product is first rate. The Play:3 has a sensor that can tell how the unit is orientated. When placed horizontally, the unit is in stereo mode, when vertical, the software blends the 2 stereo channels. The trim on the sides of the unit is covered with a rubbery type material that keeps the speaker from moving around. There is a mounting hole with a threaded opening to connect to many 3rd party wall and ceiling mounts. The three buttons on the speaker are for up/down volume and mute. You\'ll hardly ever control the speaker using these buttons. You\'ll use either your smartphone or tablet to do so, but it\'s nice to have those buttons if your phone/tablet is not handy. The Sonos logo does not rotate, so if placed in the vertical position, the logo is sideways. The grill is not removable. The speaker weighs in about 7 pounds or so. Because the unit has an integrated amp within, it has cooling slots on the back. Sonos does not recommend outdoor installation.How does the Play:3 sound? Pretty darn good! Since it is a single speaker, you\'re not going to get much in the way of stereo separation, but it sounds very pleasing and smooth at low to medium levels. After you push the volume up past 60%, the speaker appears to struggle with bass notes and sounds somewhat harsh, especially with compressed MP3 material. This speaker is not about blasting your eardrums, it is more for enjoying music at reasonable levels in any location in your home that has 110V power. The Play:3 sounds much better than the Big Jambox my wife has, with deeper more extended bass and crisper mids and highs. That being said, this is not a hi fi speaker. It sounds quite good considering how smalll it is. If you compare the sound of the Play:3 to most any $300 bookshelf speakers the Sonos will lose every time. You\'re paying extra for the electronics inside and the software. If you want to move the unit to a different location, you don\'t have to go through the install again. You simply plug it in to the new ouitlet and in a few moments it connects to the Bridge. When the speaker is oriented with the back facing a wall, the bass is pleasing and surprsing for such a small speaker. When nothing is behind the speaker, the bass output almost disappears. While this is typical for most speakers, it seems more pronounced on the Play:3. You may also pair the Play:3 with another Play:3 to create a stereo pair. I have not done this so I can\'t comment.You can control the Sonos system from either your iOS or Android device as well as your laptop or desktop WIN/mac computer. I have my software installed on a Windows 7 desktop and a Samsung Galaxy III phone. I\'ve had no problems with either, save for the occasional glitch. You can\'t listen to your music while at the computer using the Sonos software. You can control every aspect of the system, but can\'t hear what is playing unless you\'re within earshot of a Sonos speaker. The same applies to the phone or tablet you\'re going to use as well. I\'ve read many negative comments about this, but it makes sense from Sonos\' standpoint. They want you to buy Sonos gear to hear the system. If they allowed this, there would be much less reason to purchase other Sonos units. I consider this a small drawback.To install the software on your phone or tablet, you\'ll need to download the app from either the Apple App Store or the Android Play Store. What I find quite nice about the phone/tab software is you can control all the aspects of the system just as you can from your PC. This makes it easy to add new devices and manage the system.While you can listen to your private collection, you can also enjoy many Internet music streaming sites, many local radio stations and also the Amazon Cloud Player (ACP). I use ACP and it works quite well and is integrated within the Sonos system very nicely. Since the ACP files are of lower quality (typically 256 kbs), the audio quality of these files is not as good as even the 320 kbs MP3 files.Switching from one song to another takes a little longer than a typical CD player, especially if you\'re listening to anything streamed. The delay is not that bad, but it does take a moment longer than you may expect. Playlists are easy to import and create. Sonos has a different take on how to create playlists, but it works okay once you get the idea. When adding new music you\'ll need to copy/encode the files and then have the Sonos software re-index your collection. This takes a few minutes typically.If you choose to have your music stored on your laptop/desktop PC, the computer needs to be powered up at all times so that the Sonos can find the music. You can access ACP and other streaming sites when your PC is powered down, but you lose the ability to hear the music stored on the PC. You may also store your music on a NAS. I have a 500GB hard drive connected to my router via USB 2. The system found the NAS drive quickly and effortlessly. Now that I have my music on this NAS drive, I don\'t lose my collection when I power down my PC.Since I have all my files encoded at both MP3 and WMA lossless, I was unable to use my WMA files as they are not supported by Sonos. Lower bit rate WMA files are supported, but not lossless. This was a bit of a bummer since the WMA files sound so much better than the MP3 files. I have begun to re-encode my entire collection using FLAC lossless, a supported format. This is the one fly in the ointment for me as it will take me weeks to do this re-encoding of 3500 or so CD\'s.If I was considering purchasing anything Sonos, I would spend some time on the Sonos users forums and see what other people are saying. While I\'ve experienced a few small glitches, many others suffer with compatibility issues with software and/or network issues.Since receiving the Sonos as a gift, I\'ve purchased another Play:3, Play:5 and 2 Connect units. They have all been easy to setup and work perfectly. I\'ve noticed that as I\'ve expanded the system glitches happen more frequently and the software struggles a bit more, but over all I\'m very pleased.The big plus with the system is we are all listening to more music and watching less TV. The system also is a platform for sharing my music collection with my children. They also get to share their stuff with me.Just remember that this is all computer type equipment. When you upgrade to a new phone/tablet/desktop or laptop, your may have issues that you didn\'t before. Sonos, also in a very Apple way, stops supporting older OS\'s without warning. You could come home from work one day and the system won\'t be working. It appears best to have automatic updating on the Sonos software turned off, so this won\'t happen.Overall a winner, with caveats.
- After attending a demo on the Sonos system at my local A/V shop I decided to order a setup for myself. One thing repeatedly stressed by the Sonos rep was their stellar customer support and universal customer satisfaction. Feeling comfortable with this reputation I ordered the bridge, the Sonos 3 and the Sonos 5.Fit and finishI received all the units promptly with no issues, as I\'ve grown to love with Amazon. The products were well protected and packaged. The Sonos 5 was quite a large box between the size of the unit and the large amount of styrofoam. The closest I can compare to the fit, finish, and packaging is that everything was very Apple like. Very clean lines, no surprises. Things were looking good.Initial setupAfter getting everything hooked up, I installed the software on my Mac mini and proceeded to ID my individual Sonos units on my network. I have a quirk in my setup in that my music serving Mac is located in my home office, which is about 300 feet away and up a flight of stairs from my house. Not really a big deal except that as you load each Sonos unit, you first put the software into a \"searching for Sonos players\" state so it\'s scanning the network for new units. You then press two buttons on the player itself to activate it\'s \"find me\" function. Oh, and you have two minutes to find a new unit or it times out. So three trips back and forth, 300 feet each direction, flight of stairs each direction, and hurry, you have two minutes. This would have been solved by having someone on the phone pressing the buttons for me, or taking the units to my home office, activating them, then taking them back to the house. However I wanted this to be as clean of an install as possible so I did it the old fashioned way. I didn\'t have someone to press the buttons for me at the time. Meh, I needed the exercise anyway but at least now you know what to expect. Btw, everything worked well, but not perfectly the first time. I\'d say I made 5-6 trips to get three working.After getting the players themselves loaded, it was time to load the music. Be warned, you have to have the players loaded before you import your music. I spent some time chasing my tail on this one. Logically it makes sense, but my real concern was importing my music for reasons that will become obvious. I tried that first and the option was basically greyed out with no real explanation for why. Actually reading the instructions would probably have saved me some time but in my case I figured this out on my own.So it\'s time to load the music. I have a really large music library, somewhere around 64,000 tracks. This is why I was concerned about loading music onto Sonos because I was concerned it would take hours, which imports often do. I also wanted to see if the software would blow up before I did all the hardware installs. Eventually I was able to import my library into the Sonos library. A quick 300 feet jog and I confirmed that I was able to play music from my library. Sweet! So onto playlists, which Sonos imports from iTunes. When I pulled up playlists all that was available was \"imported playlists\" which were all labeled \"playlist.m3u\" Odd. I tried playing one of the playlists to see if I could tell which one mine is. Errors. I tried reimporting. Nope.Now understand, when your library in measured in terabytes, you need iTunes and the genius playlist. Sitting down and hand building playlists would be a nightmare. Pick one song, hit genius, and 100 great songs are magically built into a playlist in one second. Being able to pull that together from the tens of thousands of songs is awesome. Anything I use has to support playlists to work.So, online chat for tech support. Sonos has fantastic tech support, remember? \"You are in line for a tech, your wait time is projected to be 15 minutes.\" Ok, that works. 45 minutes later I finally get someone. The time estimate doesn\'t work. Don\'t plan on it. But I have someone finally who says to submit diagnostics data to Sonos through the software so here we go.... and my computer locks up. Probably not their fault, can\'t be helped although it was their software that was active when it locked. Who knows. Reboot, reload iTunes, sign into Sonos, wait in line again. Gonna be 15 minutes, 60 minutes later I\'m #1 in line and.... 6pm. Tech support is closed. No sorry, enter your case here, request a call back, just bang, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Ok, that one is their fault. Give up, try again later in the week. Go through the 15 minute expected wait, 60 minutes later I get a live person on chat. And the answer is, submit your diagnostics. Aha, I already have. A couple of rounds of convincing said person that I actually already did submit the data and it hasn\'t changed in two days and he finally looks for the diagnostics. His solution? Your library is too large, delete some of your music. Now it took 30 minutes of back and forth trying to get an alternate answer but the end result is, there is a physical limit to the amount of index data the Sonos units can hold, and somewhere around 62,000-65,000 items and it just stops loading. Whatever hasn\'t loaded yet, doesn\'t exist. Sorry. So I asked, any way to load in a different order so playlists are first? No. Any way to skip podcasts? I don\'t need podcasts loaded. No. Anything I can do besides unburn the boxes these things came in and ship them back. Um, not really. Disappointing. Especially since this product is pitched to audiophiles who tend to have crazy libraries of music.User interfaceOne of the really nice features of Sonos is the ability to operate any or all of the units from an iPhone, iPad, etc. I have both and the software works nicely. It\'s really cool to be twenty feet from the unit and skip a track, change the volume, etc. It especially is nice to play with, impress your friends, scare the kids, that kind of stuff. The user interface is well done. I have an issue that is probably related to my large library again but now I notice that when I try to scan artists to build a playlist manually, routinely the tracks cannot be found. I know they are there, Sonos simply cannot see them when I look. So basically you look by artist, that leads to all your artist names. Pick ABC band. A sub-menu opens showing ABC band\'s albums. Pick an album and you dive down to the tracks. Normal, except the tracks aren\'t there even though I know they are.One thing that did throw me for a loop is shuffle. Locating it requires you to press on an area of the screen which is displaying track data, which brings up a sub-menu where you can select shuffle. It\'s not entirely intuitive since it\'s basically a hidden sub-menu. To make things even weirder, the iPad version isn\'t exactly like the iPhone version so I end up hunting around a bit depending on which device I am using. Not a deal breaker but it sure was annoying in the beginning.Another issue I didn\'t foresee, and this would be true of any application that uses an iPhone or whatever for control. Your controls are almost exclusively on the handheld device. On the Sonos you have volume up, volume down, and mute button. That\'s it. So say you are playing music and a song comes up that you want to fast forward through to the next track. You pull your phone from your pocket, press the button to bring it to life, swipe to assure the phone that yes you did mean it. Then you scroll to the page that has your Sonos software (you may have done email, a phone call, etc since you originally hit play), you hit Sonos. Sonos must then connect to your network and locate a Sonos player because it lost connection when the phone went to sleep. Not lost your network, just the Sonos player. Give that a few seconds, maybe 5-10. Then you have control. Hit skip and it\'s magically instant. I mean it\'s so fast it\'s magic that it\'s going wirelessly and still having that kind of response. The problem is, hitting one fast forward button takes about 6 key strokes and about 20 seconds. Kind of annoying if your wife wants to tell you something every five minutes so you have to keep hitting pause, say yes dear, unpause, go back to what you\'re doing, then wash, rinse, repeat. Or if at the end of the song your kids scream for you to play it again because it\'s their favorite. After three minutes my phones asleep so it\'s start over from scratch. It\'s especially annoying if you are standing beside the Sonos player but have to do all this to hit pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. The units are sexy, but a few more buttons wouldn\'t have really hurt.Sound qualityThese units, especially the Sonos 5 but the Sonos 3 even sound really good. I wouldn\'t want them as my home theater but if you want music in your rooms quick and easy, these things are the deal. If you have your music all on MP3, a device like this is awesome. BBQ tonight? Unplug one and plug it in on the deck. Instant party music. If you are an A/V snob, these things are what they are. If you normally shop at Best Buy, these sound awesome. Equal to a Bose, probably better. I haven\'t listen to a Bose in quite a while. Way better sound than a Logitech Squeezebox, no comparison.RecommendationIf you don\'t have a stupidly large library like me, then I\'d say give Sonos a try. Most of my issues are self inflicted. I am quite unhappy that the limitation on total tracks wasn\'t apparent or published prior to my purchase. To my knowledge it\'s still an unpublished limitation, which is why I took the time to write this review. If you do have a huge library, the Logitech Squeezebox works just fine.
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