Ikea Symfonisk Bookshelf
Best budget Sonos speaker
One of the biggest names in music-streaming hardware with its range of speakers pairing excellent sound quality with refined aesthetics is Sonos. There’s support for almost every popular music streaming service, including Spotify and Apple Music. Many of the Sonos speakers on the market also offer built-in voice assistance via Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa or Sonos Voice Control, though some don’t. We”re going to take a look at some of the best Sonos speakers out there to help you choose the best one.
With the release of the Sonos Era 100 and the Beam Gen 2, the lineup also includes Dolby Atmos playback, which brings amazing sound quality. When you add the budget-friendly Ikea Symfonisk range, Sub Mini and Ray soundbars, the number of Sonos-compatible speakers makes the multiroom system more attractive than ever.
Yet as the number of Sonos products keeps growing, it’s also become trickier to decide which speaker system device or devices in the Sonos ecosystem to buy. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick guide to Sonos and which products offer the best performance for your money. We’ll keep this list updated as the company releases new products.
While the Sonos One SL is the cheapest indoor speaker in the line, for a little more you can upgrade to a model that’s better value for money. The Sonos One (Gen 2) has excellent sonics and includes both Alexa and Google Assistant in one speaker (though you can only choose one at a time). Sonos Voice is also forthcoming on this and other smart speakers in the range. It’s now replaced by the Era 100, but if you want Google Assistant this is still the one to get.
With its latest smart speaker, Sonos wins some (Bluetooth, stereo sound) and loses some (Google Assistant). The Era 100 replaces the existing One, and while the lack of Google is a real drag, the new speaker is also better in terms of sound quality. And with the addition of a $19 adaptor, you can now add external sources for cheap!
Read CNET’s review of the Sonos Era 100.
Sonos has a new entry-level soundbar featuring the company’s excellent multiroom music system onboard. A two-channel soundbar with Dolby Digital decoding, it’s roughly two-thirds the size of the Sonos Beam but delivers a surprisingly wide soundstage through the use of proprietary waveguides.
While it doesn’t support Dolby Atmos surround sound or have an HDMI port to connect to your TV (you connect it to your TV with an included optical cable), the sound quality for music and movies is impressive. You can pair it with a couple of other Sonos speakers, like the Sonos One, to create a surround sound system.
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With the addition of Dolby Atmos, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 is the smart sound bar to get. You may be missing out on deep bass without a sub, but the speaker makes your movies sound huge with its virtual surround capabilities.
