Here at WIRED, we like Sonos speakers. Throughout the last six years, we’ve reviewed everything from its small Play:1 speaker to its new Beam and recommended every one of them. But it’s not cheap to turn your home into a Sonos-powered shrine to sound. Like Apple products, Sonos speakers are built to work with other Sonos speakers, and don’t come cheap, starting at $200 for the least expensive, smallest model. But which ones should you buy? Read on for our recommendations.
Updated August 1, 2018: We’ve added the Sonos Beam soundbar to our recommendations and updated the guide for Late 2018.
1. Best Sonos Speaker
The Sonos One (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is just about the smallest Sonos speaker, but it still packs enough oomph to fill most rooms and its hands-free Alexa integration is a lot of fun. Sonos took the time to make Alexa sound great, and thanks to its voice commands, the Sonos One has become my go-to speaker. It holds the premiere spot in my kitchen, where I like to listen to tunes the most each day. Alexa works like normal, and can play music, tell you the weather, find a recipe, and answer simple questions. Amazon keeps adding Skills to Alexa, making it more useful all the time. Support for Google Assistant is promised for 2018. The Sonos One is also the first third-party Alexa device that lets you use voice control to stream Spotify.
I’ll recommend other Sonos speakers in this guide, but you also can’t go wrong just buying 2-4 Sonos Ones to fill your house up. You get a discount on orders of 2 or more. They’re much more affordable and their small size means you can hide them in any room.
Buy the Sonos One for $199 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Play:1 is a Good Alternative: The Play:1 is $150 on Amazon and Sonos.com. It sounds about as good as the Sonos One, but doesn’t have touch controls or microphones for Alexa. If you already own a One, it’s a good way to add more satellite speakers to your home.
2. Best Party Speaker
If you really like to party, I recommend adding a Sonos Play:5 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) to your setup. It has enough of a kick to dial a party up to 11, or really annoy your neighbors. I placed mine in the largest room of my apartment and it’s honestly more power than I need. Sonos boasts that this model has six Class-D digital amplifiers: three tweeters, three mid-woofers, and a phased speaker array. In practical terms, it will fill a very large room, or basement with ease.
Out of the four standard Sonos speakers I tested, this one delivered the largest range of sound, with enough thump to satisfy fans of any genre.
Buy the Play:5 for $499 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Avoid the Play:3: The medium-sized Play:3 is an older model that hasn’t gotten an physical update since 2011. It still sounds decent, but it doesn’t have the depth of the cheaper Sonos One.
3. Best Sonos Soundbar
The Beam (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of three soundbars Sonos offers. It doesn’t sound quite as impressive as the older, larger Playbar, but it still sounds fantastic and its smaller size and extra features are worth the tradeoff. It’s $300 less expensive, too.
Unlike the Playbar, it can connect to your TV via HDMI ARC, letting you turn your tube on and off with your own voice…because yes, it also has Alexa built-in, and Apple Airplay 2. Later this year, it’s getting an update to unlock Google Assistant. Even if you don’t particularly need a voice assistant today, you may change your tune in a few years. If you own a Fire TV Stick, it’s already possible to use basic Alexa commands on the Beam to watch any TV show or movie. No voice assistant is perfect, but they’re always improving.
Buy the Sonos Beam for $399 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Save Up for the Subwoofer: Sonos hasn’t yet released a more affordable Sub to match the cheaper Beam. The standard Sub is superb, but it will cost you $699 on Sonos or Amazon. Don’t bother buying surround speakers until you own a Sub—it’s a far bigger upgrade.
4. Best for Big Home Theaters
A soundbar can make all the difference in a home theater, and costs a lot less than a full surround sound setup. The Sonos Beam is great for apartments, but if you really want a powerful soundbar, the Sonos Playbar (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is still the best. With more mid-woofers, it delivers deep bass and has more balance and depth than the Beam or Playbase. It’s also built to hang on a wall, but at just over 3-inches tall and 5-inches thick, it can also sit in front of most TVs without hassle.
If you plan to spend the extra money to buy the Playbar, you should save up $699 more to get a Sonos Sub.
Buy the Playbar for $699 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Playbase is Best for Pedestal TVs: The Playbase (Playbase sounds a little sharper than the Playbar on high treble sounds, like cymbals, but it’s still one of the best soundbars you can buy. It’s made to sit under a standing TV and costs $699 on Amazon or Sonos.com.
5. Best Sonos Surround Sound Setup
Sonos Playbar, Sub, and 2 Sonos Ones
To enable surround sound with one of its soundbars, Sonos requires two rear speakers, one for the left and one for the right. I’ve used two Play:5 speakers, but it’s overkill. Two Sonos One speakers are a better match. You simply place them to the left and right of your couch. They don’t add as much benefit as you get from the Playbar soundbar and Sub combo, but if you watch a lot of movies and want to hear things like TIE Fighters flying over your head in Star Wars, you’ll like the extra juice a couple of Ones provide. You can buy the speaker combo piecemeal or in a bundle.
Sonos speakers can be configured to output 5.1 surround, but the company’s products are not currently equipped to deliver Dolby Atmos. Still, this is one of the easiest surround sound systems to set up. You just open up the Sonos app, add a surround speaker, and follow the instructions while the software does the rest.
If you don’t have a table on each side of your couch to set these speakers on, Sonos sells Sanus Speaker Stands for $100 and Wall Mounts for $60. I have not tested these, but I don’t see any red flags.
Buy the Playbar bundle for $1,678 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Or Try a Beam Bundle: The Playbar still sounds better, but the Sonos Beam works great as the center of a home theater, too. You can buy a Beam, Sub, and two Play:1s for $1,396 on Amazon. The bundle isn’t available on Sonos.com.