Sonos has unveiled a revamped version of its flagship Play:5 speaker.
The original Play:5 was launched back in 2009, so an update was well overdue.
The new Play:5 has three sub-woofers for added bass, plus three tweeters, six Wi-Fi antennas and six drivers.
Sonos’ new speaker comes in matte-black and matte-white variants.
The company has also swapped out the metal grille of the older version for a plastic one. This is apparently down to the metal interfering with Wi-Fi performance.
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Kusano continues: “A lot of companies start with hardware engineering, then they get to software engineers to make it smart, and then designers come in last to make it pretty. That’s not how you get to an optimal product.”
The second major announcement is a new piece of software for the Sonos platform called Trueplay.
It lets Sonos users tune their speakers to create the perfect audio experience.
The software is built into the Sonos mobile app, and enables users to map out their acoustic environment: where the speakers are positioned in the house, for example.
This mapping, or “tuning”, process takes about two minutes, and works using your device’s microphone.
It measures how sound waves reflect off various parts of your room, and then tunes the audio to sound great in a given environment.
Related: Best Portable Speakers 2015
Unfortunately, tuning isn’t currently available on Android or Windows devices – it’s iOS-only for now.
However, if you’re really keen then you could just borrow an iOS device and tune the system once.
Sonos Trueplay is coming to the Play:1, Play:3, Play:5, and the new Play:5 before the end of the year.
Will you make use of the new Trueplay audio-tuning feature? Let us know in the comments.
Check out our iOS 9 features video below:
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
