Tuesday

23 Things to Watch With the Sonos Playbar

I recently was blessed with the opportunity to experience full-throttle, home theatre via the Sonos Playbar and its associated components.

This device is truly a work of art. Sleek, sturdy, heavy and like most art that is worthy of notice, a bit obtrusive, but in a good way. You will definitely enhance the flat, one-dimensional sound of your flat-panel television with the Playbar as a stand-alone speaker, but it plays even better with its friends. The SUB for the inevitable and often overlooked throaty lows that factor into most soundtracks and action sequences and two Play:1 speakers which operate as rear-channel satellites.

Set-Up

Barring mounting the speaker on your wall (something I didn't do as this was a review product) the Playbar is an out-of-the-box ready experience that takes approximately fifteen minutes to set up. It may be faster if you do it with a friend or your spouse, something I would advise considering the size and weight of the Playbar and the fact that you may have to fish around behind your flat-panel television for the input for the optical audio wire that connects it to your television. As an owner of Sonos products, integrating the new components into my existing network of speakers was a snap thanks to the Sonos Bridge and the app that runs across all my Apple products --- iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Sonos plays fair and has an Android app and if, for some reason you opt to use neither, the Sonos has it's own control that can be purchased separately.

Firing It Up

It was a Friday night when I got the system up and running. I tuned in to the Bourne Ultimatum, playing on a local cable channel. Immediately, I ducked at the sound of gunfire and then laughed when I realized it was coming from my television, or rather the Sonos system. As the timber of the action increased and cars began to speed around I heard every single sound in front of me, behind me, to my left and right justas the sound engineers who mixed the audio for the movie intended.

Turn your speakers up for the video below:

It is a very beautiful thing - a mix of design and power. I watched the trailer above and plenty more over the course of the next four weeks, ranging from movies, to cartoons, to full-on binge watching of television series via streaming media. Music videos took on a whole new life with HiFi audio powering them. The following list of programs and videos is what my family and I made a point to watch to experience the full capabilities of this speaker system. Depending on what I was watching the glasses in my kitchen would rattle.

Bourne Ultimatum
Iron Man
Tron Legacy
Frozen
The Incredibles
Despicable Me
The Dark Knight
Inception
Scandal
Mixology
Modern Family
Naked And Afraid
Star Wars: Clone Wars (all six seasons)
Archer (first four seasons)
Powerpuff Girls
Tranformers Prime (all three seasons)
Drake videos
Janelle Monae vidoes
Erika Badu videos
Katy Perry videos
Aloe Blac videos
Lorde videos
And any other video content I could consume.

Royals, by Lorde, The Sad Clown Cover

Lastly, yet another benefit, the surround sound system has the multi-purpose capability of being able to play music right along with my existing Sonos speakers creating a sound as rich, textured and loud as anything I've heard at music venues.

My home is quiet now that I've sent my review components back to their original owners. I miss it dearly. The Sonos HiFi Home Theatre System is definitely on my bucket list for the home. Because nothing is better than hearing sound as it was intended to be heard. There is a definite premium that you can expect to pay to own such a system (approximately $1,700 retail) but always expect to pay more when there are no wires and a minimal drain on your broadband bandwith. But one can expect to pay similar to have something with wires professionally installed.

Disclaimer: For the purpose of this review I was provided with a set of Sonos home theatre components to review for a limited period of time. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are wholly my own.