Sonos covers all of the bases: The audio part maker builds a spread of powered audio system and soundbars to stream music from each supply, native or on the net, but it surely additionally gives a stand-alone tuner/amp if you wish to use higher-end passive loudspeakers. And for purchasers who need streaming music delivered to their personal favourite amp or receiver and higher-end audio system, the corporate launched an add-on, tuner-like part: the Sonos ZonePlayer 80 in early 2006, which was succeeded by the ZonePlayer 90 in 2008. The ZP90 was later relaunched because the Sonos Connect. That product has been succeeded by the subject of this assessment, the Sonos Port.
With the approaching launch of the Sonos S2 working system, Sonos Connect house owners should make a vital determination: Replace each Connect with a Port—at $449 a pop—or forgo S2. The state of affairs grows much more aggravating you probably have any mixture of newer and legacy (pre-2013) Sonos {hardware}: The latter contains the aged Connect:Amp/ZP120 and the first-gen Play:5 speaker. These two lessons of substances can’t deal with the S2 platform, so any Sonos system that features a mixture of older and new elements should bifurcated and the 2 teams managed individually (you’ll discover more details in this story).
If you crave the advantages that S2 guarantees to ship—together with help for higher-resolution audio and Dolby Atmos (within the new Arc soundbar, for example)—you actually don’t have a alternative. But should you can resist the urge to improve to the newest, biggest software program, dangle onto your legacy {hardware} and run it on the unique platform (now known as S1). That goes double for anybody who cares deeply about audio high quality and has a Connect linked to high-end audio elements.
After conducting a complete sequence of A/B listening exams, I’ve concluded that the Port sounds vastly inferior to the Connect it replaces. The Port places out first rate sound, acceptable in a storm and with music you’re not intimately aware of. But in comparison with the Connect, the Port’s sound discipline appears flattened, compressed, and so missing in character that you simply would possibly suppose it was delivered by telephone line.
Older elements just like the Connect (left) aren’t suitable with the brand new S2 working system and might’t be grouped with newer elements which can be.
Feature set
I get the impression that the Sonos product-management crew began with an idealized sketch of a smaller, prettier, market-friendly successor to the clunky-looking Connect. Then the engineers went to work, squeezing in what they may to ship a slim, trim field that appears good on a retail shelf—and that just about disappears when perched atop an A/V receiver. Most particularly, one thing that may enchantment to the custom-installer group, who will discover the Port simple to make use of and gained’t balk at its price ticket (which they’ll mark manner up of their quotes to their well-heeled purchasers).
The Port is a trim, buttonless, matte black personal-pizza field with roughly the identical footprint (5.4 x 5.4 inches) of a Connect, and about half its top (1.6 inches). Three Ports will line up neatly on a regular 19-inch, 1U rack shelf. You can join them to your private home’s wi-fi community (the minimal necessities are very low: 802.11b/g, 2.4GHz); or for essentially the most dependable efficiency, you’ll be able to hardwire it to your private home’s router utilizing the 10/100Mbps ethernet ports in again. There are two of these, so you’ll be able to gang a bunch of Ports collectively and devour only one port in your router or swap.
The Port runs cooler than the Connect and in a wider vary of environments—from 32 levels Farhrenheit to 104 levels F. The producer mildly discourages customers from stacking Ports, nevertheless; principally as a result of it may result in Wi-Fi interference. The Connect’s quantity up/down and mute buttons have been excised, however the Port’s LED on-and-connected indicator appears snazzier than that of its predecessor.
The ethernet ports on the bottom of the Port are joined by one set of analog stereo inputs for a CD participant or turntable preamp (or a turntable itself, if it has a preamp in-built), and one set of analog stereo outputs for connecting an amplifier or self-powered audio system. There’s a coaxial S/PDIF connector must you personal a cherished outboard DAC—or just need to hold the sign within the digital area till it reaches your DAC-equipped receiver or pre-amp. But I’m dissatisfied that Sonos determined to not additionally carry over the Toslink digital audio output from the Connect. I do know {custom} installers want to make use of coaxial cables, as a result of their connectors are a lot much less fragile than those on Toslink cables and coax cables carry out higher over lengthy runs, however Toslink is way extra frequent on less-expensive audio elements.
Jonathan Takiff / IDGThis I/O port comparability exhibits the similarities between the brand new Port and the previous Connect. Many will mourn Toslink’s absence on the Port. Could it have added that a lot expense to the invoice of supplies?
On the upside, Sonos added a 12V set off that you need to use to mechanically hearth up a related amplifier or A/V receiver when the Port begins taking part in music, eliminating the steps—and footsteps—wanted to get your subsequent listening session began. Lastly, there’s a “Join” button for including a Port to your Sonos system, which you’ll use along with the corporate’s exceptionally polished, full-service app.
More horsepower
The Port is outfitted with a beefier microprocessor and extra reminiscence than what comes within the Connect, and that extra muscle is required to run the brand new Sonos S2 working system. And in contrast to the Connect, the Port is suitable with Apple’s Airplay 2 multi-room audio know-how, enabling you to combine Sonos elements with different AirPlay 2 suitable gadgets—together with Apple’s HomePod good speaker—on the identical community. Airplay 2 labored fairly nicely for me: Flawlessly with content material from the Amazon Music app beamed from an iPhone X, and fairly nicely—post-hardware recognition/connectivity quirks apart—with different music apps. The Port forwarded a constant and vivid sounding stream of music to as many as six different Sonos speaker places sprinkled round my home. Kudos for that.
The Port doesn’t have a microphone, however it may be managed with voice instructions spoken to any good speaker powered by Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Apple’s Siri can also be supported, however a lot much less robustly.
The re-transmission of line-in alerts fed right into a Port can get just a little iffy. At first, a plugged-in Audio Technica AT-LP60X turntable (which has an onboard phono preamp) performed high quality via the Port and on to my related A/V receiver (a Yamaha Aventage RX-A3060) and audio system (a much-loved pair of floor-standing B&W Nautilus 803s). I observed only a tad of lag on a grouped Sonos Play:3 speaker positioned within the subsequent room (the first-gen Sonos Play:5 is the one speaker that isn’t S2 suitable).
Jonathan Takiff / IDGA Sonos Port can add whole-home music streaming to a turntable that has an built-in pre-amp, like this Audio-Technica AT-LP60X (you’ll want an outboard pre-amp in case your turntable doesn’t have one).
But once I added a number of different Sonos audio system to the group, I encountered annoying sign dropouts—audio blips occurring on the common of 1 each 30 seconds. Venturing into the Sonos app settings and stepping up the Port’s audio delay from the default “Low” setting of 75ms to the “Max” setting of two,000ms (two seconds) lastly resolved that problem. But that change concurrently cued the Port’s auto-compression circuitry to shift from sending audio within the uncompressed WAV format to sending compressed audio (utilizing the SBC codec), which is way much less taxing on a house community. The latter thinned the sound some, though the steadiness trade-off was price it.
What initially excited me about Sonos’ new S2 platform was Sonos’ promise to help higher-resolution audio applied sciences, in comparison with the CD-quality (16-bit/48kHz) audio supported by the present OS. Some of the newer Sonos audio system—together with the Arc soundbar—will ship Dolby Atmos, too. Presumably, meaning the Arc will help Tidal streams encoded with Dolby Atmos Music, though that’s but to be confirmed.
Also unknown: If Sonos S2 will help MQA encoding or the Sony 360 Reality Audio format, each of which can be found to Tidal HiFi subscribers (the latter can also be obtainable through Amazon Music HD). Qobuz, in the meantime, gives the highest-resolution tracks of all of them—as much as 24-bit/192kHz—whereas Spotify doesn’t even attempt to compete on that rating, providing streams at a most bit fee of 320Kbps.
Jonathan Takiff / IDGThe footprints are nearly the identical, however Port has half the peak and not one of the volume-control buttons discovered on the Connect.
Nose to nostril: How the Port blows
Unable to attain a assessment unit from Sonos, and affected by an acute case of FOMO, I broke down a few months in the past and purchased two Sonos Ports to interchange my Sonos Connects. After performing my head-to-head comparability, I’m on the brink of ship one again.
My lifelong faves, the Rolling Stones, gave me ample check materials with the 2019 deluxe version of their career-spanning, 46-track compilation album Honk. It’s heavy on remastered studio hits that I do know and love, while additionally made particular and “new” with a 3rd CD’s price of latest, very well-recorded live performance performances.
I piped this in from Qobuz working at its “CD-quality” service degree, delivered to my gear in parallel via a fiber optic cable-connected Connect and a coax cable-connected Port “grouped” within the Sonos app in good synch. Levels have been balanced, loudness was “off,” and EQ settings have been flat. I later tried tweaking the bass and treble settings on the Port to see if that would enhance its efficiency, however in the end determined the modifications didn’t do it any favors.
Time and once more, I heard the identical disparity. When taking part in via the Port, it appeared as if the musicians have been squeezed collectively, the singers massed as a choir, the plugged-in guitar and bass gamers all broadcasting via a single amp. Listening on the older Connect, against this, I may peel aside the layers of the onion; say, with Mick carving out his personal territory and taking part in extra dynamically off backing singers and particular live performance visitor vocalists (Brad Paisley in Philly on “Dead Flowers,” or Ed Sheeran on “Beast of Burden” in Kansas City).
The comparisons simply went from unhealthy to worse. On the Port, I heard much less character and grit in Keith’s and Ronnie’s guitars. Solos sounded flat as pancakes. On the Connect I may virtually “see” the strings wobbling and (on acoustic cuts like “Wild Horses”), I may hear the wealthy hollow-body resonance of Keith’s slide guitar.
SonosThe Sonos Port will a minimum of look fairly subsequent to your private home audio elements.
Most telling, and relatively painful, was the discernable distinction in Charlie Watts’ percussion work, particularly on that stay live performance materials. Played via the Port, it typically seemed like Watts was simply dutifully marking time, with the remainder of the band sitting in his lap, muffling his efforts. On the Connect, I may visualize, sense that the drummer was upstage of the remainder of the group, dwelling massive and having enjoyable—his splashy sound emboldened with slap-back echoing off the again wall. This was the deep, vast “live on a big stage” aural sensation I first heard and discovered to like on traditional live performance recordings of the 1970s–together with the Woodstock pageant classes and the Allman Bros.’ At Fillmore East.
Back on the Stones’ “Honk” live performance tour, the worst comparisons have been famous on the set closing “Under My Thumb” (captured at London Stadium) and “Bitch” (with Dave Grohl at Honda Center, in Anaheim, CA). When the Port was taking part in, I felt like I used to be sonically repressed, too, caught at the back of the joint underneath a sound-muffling higher deck. Lots to bitch about.
On the Connect I used to be out on the sphere, stage lights shining in my eyes, spitting distance from the stage, feeling the pressing give-and-take of the gamers.
These beautiful variations held up with different content material, too, together with an particularly clever episode of the Sunday present Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour, on BBC Radio 6 (through TuneIn). The focus was on feminine singer/songwriters (Cat Power, Jesca Hoop, ok.d.lang, and Kate Bush) backed by pianos and acoustic guitars, woodwinds, and many unamplified strings (violins and cellos). This is without doubt one of the most difficult varieties of music for house audio gear to breed in a manner that sounds pure, and the Port failed the check.
Michael Brown / IDGIt’s a disgrace Sonos didn’t construct touch-sensitive quantity controls into the Sono Port they manner it did with the Sonos Amp, which additionally has play/pause button.
Pretty vacant
I used to be struck repeatedly by the Port’s relative absence of character. It jogged my memory of the extremely compressed sound that rival FM rock radio stations within the Philadelphia market took on within the progressive music period, once I myself was on the air. The broadcast engineers put in Optimod dynamic vary compressors to maintain the meters peaking, the sound louder than the competitors, and to hell with dynamics and finesse.
Can Sonos repair what ails the Port, reshape its sound profile with only a software program tweak, because it managed to do with the Playbar six to eight months after it got here out? The firm’s sound expertise chief—famed producer Giles Martin— nudged the corporate to drag that mission off as a result of “there was just something in the sound in the Playbar that just wasn’t quite right to him.”
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence mentioned this in a September, 2019 interview with Nilay Patel on The Verge. You can hearken to the related snippet of the podcast about 39 minutes in, at this link (the playback instrument gives a simple solution to leap proper to that a part of the interview). Can a lowly audio critic or two encourage Sonos within the the identical vogue? I’ve just lately grow to be conscious of a review at Britain’s What Hi-Fi! that accommodates comparable observations in regards to the Port, however a lot of the different critiques I’ve learn appear to imagine that newer=higher.
As for me, I’ve given up on the notion of switching my home stuffed with Sonos gear in order that all the things can be suitable with Sonos S2. I’ll hold one of many Sonos Ports I’ve bought so I can see what S2 is all about, however I’ll stay in a bifurcated Sonos atmosphere till a demonstrably higher-resolution streaming-audio service is on supply, or till another compelling innovation—wi-fi Sonos headphones, maybe—involves market.
The irony of my Port/Connect comparability is that it underscores simply how good CD-quality music can sound—with the correct gear. So, why ask—or pay—for something extra?