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Sonos Play:5 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £340
inc VAT

The S5 player looks fantastic and sounds brilliant. It's an excellent introduction to the Sonos service or, for existing users, a flexible new player to add to a running network.

Although we’re massive fans of Sonos’ incredible multi-room music system, the one minor problem has always been flexibility: you either had to have an existing stereo or powered speakers and buy the ZonePlayer 90 (ZP90), or buy the ZonePlayer 120 (ZP120) and a pair of ordinary speakers. With the ZonePlayer S5 that’s all changed, and you get everything you need inside one neat package.

Externally the S5 looks a little like a high-end iPod dock, which is no bad thing in our opinion. Although it’s a little plain looking we really like its simple styling. As with all other Sonos ZonePlayers the S5 only has two buttons on it (a rocker switch for volume and a mute button), so there’s nothing cluttering up the sleek lines of player.

Sonos ZonePlayer S5

The reason, in case you’re not familiar with Sonos, for only three buttons is that you can’t control music directly from any of the ZonePlayers. Instead, you need a Controller. It’s this requirement that’s made Sonos a daunting prospect for many people as the touchscreen Controller 200 costs around £275. However, you don’t need one any more as there’s a free iPhoneiPod Touch app that does exactly the same job, while Android users can get the free third-party Andronos app. In addition, you can install the bundled Controller software on any computer (Windows or Mac) and use these to manage your music.

Sonos Controller

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Basic Specifications

Rating *****
Media Streamer type streaming audio receiver

Audio Compatibility

Audio MP3 playback Yes
Audio WMA playback Yes
Audio WMA-DRM playback Yes
Audio AAC playback Yes
Audio Protected AAC playback No
Audio OGG playback Yes
Audio WAV playback Yes
Audio Audible playback No
Other audio formats FLAC
Internet radio stream compatib MP3, WMA

Video Compatibility

Video MPEG-1 playback No
Video MPEG-2 playback No
Video MPEG-2 VOB playback No
Video MPEG-4 AVI playback No
Video MPEG-4 MP4 playback No
Video MPEG-4 DivX/XviD support No
Video H.264 support No
Video MPEG-4 MP3 audio support No
Video MPEG-4 AAC audio support No
Video WMV playback No
Video WMV-HD support No

Image Compatibility

Image BMP support No
Image JPEG support No
Image TIFF support No

Network Interfaces

Wired network ports 2x 10/100
Wireless networking support Yes
128-bit WEP No
256-bit WEP No
WPA No
WPA2 No

AV Interfaces

Minijack line outputs 0
Minijack headphone outputs 1
Stereo phono outputs 0
Coaxial S/PDIF outputs 0
Optical S/PDIF outputs 0
Total SCART sockets 0
HDMI outputs 0
Component outputs 0
S-video output 0
Composite outputs 0
Other connectors line in

Physical

Size 217x365x123mm
Antennas 0
Internal/external antennas N/A
Upgradeable antenna No
Power consumption standby 7W
Power consumption on 13W

Server Compatibility

Software included Sonos Controller
UPnP Yes
iTunes No
SlimServer No
SMB Yes

Buying Information

Price £340
Warranty one year RTB
Supplier http://www.amazon.co.uk
Details www.sonos.com

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