Sonos Play:3 review

Inside there are three digital amps, one each for the two mid-range drivers and tweeter. On top of that, there’s also a bass radiator. It’s a slightly cut-down version of the Play:5, which has five digital amplifiers for the two tweeters, two mid-range drivers and dedicate bass driver.

Despite that, sound quality is fantastic and incredibly well balanced. Bass is loud and crunching, but doesn’t dominate, while the tweeter and mid-range drivers make sure all of the delicate detail and vocals in a track come out to the full. Volume is impressive, too, and we’re pleased to say that the heavy case means you can listen loudly without any creaking or distortion.

Listening to the Play:3 side-by-side with the Play:5, we found that the sound quality was similar. The Play:5 has the slight edge, with deeper bass and a better high-end (as you’d expect from its extra drivers), but the Play:3 certainly holds its own. Again, the benefits of buying Sonos are that you can mix and match components to suit the location of the player.

Stereo separation isn’t well defined on this player, but that’s to be expected because its speakers are so close together. However, if you buy two Play:3s you can put them in a stereo pair, where one player becomes the output for the left channel and the other the right channel. Sound quality at this point is pretty incredible and you get as much stereo separation as you could want. Most people won’t want to spend more than £500 for this, but it’s a useful feature if you have two players in separate rooms and want to put them together for a party, say.

The Play:5 also has this feature, but it’s important to note that you can’t mix and match a Play:5 and Play:3 for a stereo pair. There are some things missing from the Play:5, though, including the headphone input and line-in; however, we doubt that many people will miss or care about these and the threaded socket for a wall-mounting bracket is a much better addition.

In terms of controls, the Play:3 follows the standard Sonos convention that it has just volume and mute buttons on the top; everything else is managed by a controller. Trust us, it all makes perfect sense when you start using it.

So, the real question is, is the Play:3 worth buying. The answer is, yes, but it depends on what you want to do. If you’ve got the budget and room, the Play:5 has better sound quality; if you’re on a tighter budget or don’t have much room the Play:3 is both a great introduction to Sonos and an excellent way to expand an existing system into new parts of your home.