Sonos Play review: a versatile Bluetooth speaker for the Sonos world

It’s been nearly a year and a half since Sonos released a consumer product, and those last two releases — the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 — were updates to existing products. The $299 Sonos Play, however, is a brand-new portable speaker that can expand an existing system or be the gateway into the Sonos world. When on Wi-Fi, it acts like any other Sonos speaker — with features like Auto Trueplay, AirPlay 2, and the ability to stereo pair — but it’s also a water-resistant Bluetooth speaker.

The Play falls right in the middle of Sonos’s portable speaker lineup. While it’s not quite as easily packable as the Roam 2, the Play has more than twice the battery life and is capable of filling larger spaces with sound. It’s a far more grab-and-go option than the Move 2, which at more than twice the weight of the Play, and two inches bigger in all directions, is really only luggable between rooms or out to the backyard. The Play melds the home use of the Move 2 with the portability of the Roam 2 to make it the most versatile Sonos speaker yet.

In size and shape, the Play looks a lot like someone took an Era 100 and smushed it to about half the depth. It has four buttons on the top — play/pause, volume up and down, and one to turn voice services on and off — and a Bluetooth button, mic switch, power button, and USB-C port on the back. Like the Move 2, it has a charging base where it can live when not being toted around, although the base has a hard-wired USB-C cable and doesn’t come with a wall adapter. It requires at least an 18W charger; if you don’t have an extra already, you’ll either need to buy the $29 one from Sonos or a cheaper one elsewhere. The USB-C port on the back can be used to charge the Play when away from its base, allow the speaker to act as a power bank for your device, or — with the $19 line-in adapter — to connect a wired 3.5mm audio source.

Much like the Era 100 and Move 2 before it, the Play features two angled tweeters with waveguides designed to provide stereo separation (although it’s very difficult to hear a stereo image from any single speaker). There’s a front-firing midwoofer for midrange and bass frequencies, as well as two force-cancelling passive radiators on either side of the speaker.

The Play delivers clear vocals — whether they’re Chris Cornell or Ella Fitzgerald — and solo instruments like Miles Davis’ trumpet stand out in the mix. For my taste, the sound tuning of the Play overaccentuates the midrange and treble a bit compared to the Era 100, which has a smoother midrange and a bit more bass response. On the Play, both the string-muted guitar and cymbals of Fleetwood Mac’s “Second Hand News” sounded too present and forward. Songs that already have a lot of high-end, such as the metallic sounds in “Super Bon Bon” by Soul Coughing, can get shouty at higher volumes. And the Play can get loud, particularly with rock and pop that’s more compressed, where I tended to keep the volume set at 50 (out of 100) or below.

As long as you keep the mic turned on, you can enable Auto Trueplay, which allows the speaker to constantly listen and adjust the tuning based on the environment it’s in. In my days with the speaker, I kept this on as I moved it around to different rooms, or out to the front yard, and it kept the sound tuning consistent. Which also means that in all of those situations, it still kept the slightly pushed upper frequencies. There’s an EQ in the Sonos app, but it’s limited to just bass and treble. There’s no way to back off the shouty upper mids, but I found that boosting the bass by a couple ticks gave me the low-end response I was looking for without needing to pump the volume up, and doing so gives more depth to the strings during the opening theme of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.

As with other Sonos speakers, you can use the Sonos app to connect two Plays into a stereo pair, which allows you to have a much wider soundstage and stereo separation. This is only available on Wi-Fi, though. Even if you take both with you, they won’t maintain that stereo connection on Bluetooth. If you do take only one, the Play will act as a Bluetooth speaker while away from Wi-Fi and reconnect as a part of the stereo pair when returned and the Bluetooth connection is turned off. If you want to use one Play on its own around the house, turning off the other one will temporarily disable the stereo pair so you aren’t carrying around just the left or right channel.

The stereo pairing is a nice feature, but if I were going to make a stereo pair with Sonos speakers, I’d do it with an Era 100 and the new Era 100 SL. They sound better, they’re cheaper, and since they need to be plugged in, you know they’re staying put.

The Play shines as a portable speaker. It weighs 2.87 pounds (less than half the 6.6 pounds of the Move 2), has a built-in durable rubber carrying loop, and is IP67 rated to keep it dust-tight and protected from being dunked in water. Sonos claims the battery lasts up to 24 hours, which is consistent with my testing, and in the future when it no longer holds a charge, you can replace it yourself using Sonos’ battery replacement kit.

When you’re out and no longer on Wi-Fi, you can connect to the Play via Bluetooth. And you can group multiple Play or Move 2 speakers using a proprietary speaker-to-speaker grouping technology with no audible lag (it’s like party modes on other portable speakers). The pairing process is quick, and the added speakers have an impressive range. I was able to carry a second Play speaker around 200 feet away before losing the connection. This isn’t the same as the stereo pairing you can do on Wi-Fi. In this mode, each speaker is getting the same signal, not split between left and right channels. And since you’re on Bluetooth and not Wi-Fi, you can’t share what’s playing on the rest of your Sonos system.

When you pick up the Play, it’s best to get into the habit of grabbing for the loop instead of the speaker body. Its size and shape are great for grabbing it by its side, but on a few occasions when I did that, one of my fingers would accidentally press either the Bluetooth button or the power button, stopping my music playback.

In the app you can choose between Sonos Voice Control or Alexa (still no Google Assistant). The Sonos voice assistant can complete Sonos system tasks well — stopping and starting music, changing volume, moving your music to other speakers — but can have trouble with more specific requests, such as searching for songs.

My experience with the Sonos Play speakers was smooth, except for an issue I ran into with one of my two review samples, which stopped working or charging after a short while. Sonos was quick to send out a replacement, and this would be covered by the one-year warranty, or the 30-day return policy.

The Sonos Play speaker is a highly capable portable Bluetooth speaker with great, albeit mid- and high-end focused, sound that’s rugged and can easily expand with other Sonos speakers. If you’re just looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker, though, there are lots of less expensive options with similar performance, like the Bose SoundLink Plus, JBL Charge 6, or Ultimate Ears Megaboom 4 — although all of them have flaws in their sound profiles (for instance, the Bose can get a little distorted at higher volumes, and the Megaboom doesn’t get too loud).

But the Play isn’t just a portable Bluetooth speaker, it’s a way to build — or start — a Sonos home system. If you want to be able to easily, and temporarily, bring your Sonos system into a room that doesn’t have a speaker — for a relaxation playlist while taking a bath, perhaps — the Play is the best way to do that. The Move 2 has better sound, but is much bulkier, less water-resistant, and $100 more expensive; the Roam 2 is $160 cheaper, and a lot smaller, but with a corresponding decrease in sound quality and volume.

An Era 100 — or a pair, with an Era 100 SL — is still a better choice for a stationary setup. It’s cheaper and it sounds better. But if you were thinking of buying something like the Era 100, and you also want a speaker you can carry around, the Play is a great choice for both existing Sonos users looking to expand or someone that’s been waiting to try out the system. It’s the most flexible Sonos speaker, with the fewest compromises yet.

Photography by John Higgins / The Verge