Sonos Play:3 review

For a first purchase, if you stick with a free app for control and buy the Play:3 and Bridge for £298, it may sound rather expensive, and an iPod dock probably looks like a better deal. However, that’s ignoring the true advantage of Sonos.

The strength of the system is that you simply plug in new players as and when you can afford them. As a true multi-room audio system, you can choose to play the same music in multiple rooms, or have different music in each room. It’s incredibly flexible and, what’s more, incredibly clever with music played in multiple rooms being exactly synchronised.

As it streams music from a network share or even iTunes using AirPlay, you’re not limited to the amount of music that you can store on an iPod. Nor are you betting that Apple won’t change the universal dock connector again, making your iPod or iPhone incompatible with your dock.

Then there’s the real genius of the system: it can stream content from the internet. For music our favourite is the Spotify integration, because the stream is high-quality 320Kbit/s. Then, there’s internet radio with all of the popular stations available, podcasts and Last.fm support to name but a few. Put all of this together and Sonos is a system that you start today and continue building later – worriers should know that even the oldest players support the latest streaming services and there’s never been a move to force people to upgrade existing components.

Of course, all this is well and good, but with audio equipment it’s sound quality that’s really important. Fortunately, with the Play:3 there’s nothing to worry about at all. As with all other Sonos components, the Play:3 is reassuringly heavy, backing up the gorgeous exterior (available in black or white) that shouts this is a well-made product.

We like the way that it can be placed horizontally or vertically, giving a good degree of flexibility in where you place it.