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How To Sonos Your Home This Holiday Season

What’s better than one speaker? Two. Or three. Or 11 . When it comes to sound, more is better. That’s the beauty of a Sonos system. Sonos’s wireless multiroom audio system makes it easy to amplify the audio in your home by adding more and more speakers — in the same room or sprinkled in different rooms.  

You have plenty of choices these days if you want wireless multiroom audio — you can connect multiple speakers through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, for example. But Sonos was one of the first, and it remains the best for most people. Why? Sonos speakers sound excellent and are super easy to use. Here’s how I suggest you Sonos up your life.

1

Start at the Center

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The heart of your Sonos system should be where you spend the most time: that’d be in front of your TV. Sonos has three soundbars — the $399 Beam, the $699 Playbar, and the $699 Playbase (pictured above).

If sound quality matters most, pick the Playbar or Playbase. Both can fill a room with wide, encompassing sound and full bass, even without a subwoofer. The Playbar is designed to go in front of your TV, while the Playbase goes under the TV stand. The smallest (and not coincidentally, cheapest) is the Beam; it’s good for small rooms but doesn’t have as wide or full a sound as the larger, more expensive options. The Beam includes Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control; neither the Playbar nor Playbase do.

And if you’re reading this on Black Friday, great news! All of the Sonos items listed above are 20% off if you order them through Sonos.com between Friday, November 29 and Monday, December 2.

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2

Surround Yourself

Sonos One SL

The soundbar is the start of your system, but it shouldn’t be the end. You can add two $199 Sonos One (includes Alexa and Google Assistant) or $179 Sonos One SL (no microphone) speakers for true surround sound, and it really makes a difference. Sonos can play Dolby Digital, parsing out the center, right, and left channels to the soundbar while sending the left and right surround channels to the Ones. (Important shopping note: The Sonos One and Sonos One SL will both be $50 off on Cyber Monday, December 2.)

If you like big, big booms the $699 Sonos Sub completes the 5.1 system. That’s a hefty price for low-end effects, and it’s probably only necessary for home theater aficionados — and those without downstairs neighbors. It produces a serious rumble.

Adding speakers is super simple. The Sonos app will find the new speakers once you plug them in, and walk you through the process. It takes a couple of minutes at most. And I recommend that you use TruePlay to automatically adjust the the speaker to sound best in the space you’ve put it. You’ll feel like an idiot walking around the room waving your phone up and down, but the sound improvement is worth the momentary humiliation.

3

Spread Out

Once you’ve tricked out your home theater, it’s time to take advantage of the multiroom capabilities. The right configuration depends on the size of your rooms and your budget. In larger houses, a $499 Sonos Play:5 in the kitchen makes listening to podcasts and playlists a joy; smaller spaces can get by with a Sonos One. You should probably include a Sonos One in the bedroom, too, just for continuity. For flexibility, you could put a Move in a smaller room or bathroom. The $399 Move is Sonos’s first portable speaker. It’s water resistant and is the only Sonos speaker to offer a Bluetooth connection — probably the main drawback of the other speakers in the Sonos line.

If you have an existing stereo or speaker system and you want to include it in the multiroom fun, add a $399 Port or $599 Amp. Choose the Port if you have a receiver; it connects to the receiver to add Sonos functionality to the system. The Amp can drive unpowered speakers and essentially replaces the receiver.

Once you’ve got more speakers added, you can use the app to group them so they all play the same thing, or you can play different things on specific speakers. It’s like magic. Really good sounding magic.

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4

Ikeaify Your Sonos

For something a little different (and cheaper), visit your local Ikea. Sonos collaborated with the Swedes to create two models: a bookshelf speaker and a lamp (!) speaker. The $99 Symfonisk Bookshelf speaker is the cheapest Sonos model you’ll find; and it makes a great surround speaker if you don’t mind that it looks a little different from the rest of the Sonos line. It doesn’t rival the One in sound quality, but sounds better than most $100 speakers.

The $179 Symfonisk Lamp is a conversation piece to be sure. It sounds about as good as a One, and it lights up! Its bulbous design may not be for everyone, but IT’S A SPEAKER THAT LIGHTS UP. Wonders never cease in the Sonos universe.

Whatever configuration you decide fits your home, you’re in for a treat once you’re got it all in place. Sound everywhere — that’s the kind of world I want to live in.

Michael Gowan impatiently waits for somebody—anybody!—to stream the complete Moonlighting series. You can follow him on Twitter @zebgowan.

Save 20% on your Sonos Home Theater on Black Friday, November 29