Sonos - Roam SL Portable Bluetooth Wireless Speaker - Shadow Black

Its a great compact speaker. The technology is great as Supports both wifi and bluetooth. The vocals are crystal clear but it lacks bass.

Typical Sonos quality here... First observation was it's a little "heftier" than comparably sized Bluetooth speakers... not in a negative way, but immediately felt higher quality... magnets are heavy and good speakers have them... The sound quality is a beautiful balance of highs/mids with balanced lows. I would definitely say the tuning is less bass-heavy, but with a speaker this size, I think that's to be expected. I'm listening to it right now... i have a full Sonos surround setup in my family room and in my bedroom, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE being able to take the Roam with me for a shower or bring it over to my desk... Brought it to Cabo and it helped broadcast the world cup to the resort pool with great success. Overall, the volume is lower than I might have imagined, but it's capped in a way so that the full volume range is clean and usable. That being said, it would be great for outdoor situations where you're not trying to blanket an entire backyard with music... but if you're 5-10 feet away, it's great for outdoors. One last favorite thing... I love it... but bluetooth on it works amazing and I LOVE that I have a Sonos speaker with bluetooth now for different use cases. My only con aligns with my con for all my Sonos purchases... I feel like you can as good quality sound for less money... so if money is tight, maybe don't go this route yet... but if you're a little more comfortable financially, the entire Sonos platform is just so convenient and delightful.

The Sonos Roam Speaker is a bit pricey but worth every penny. It’s small and very portable with a surprisingly big sound.

I bought this for my screened in porch, it’s perfect! The sound is great just like my Sonos move and play. The only thing I wish it had was voice control but you can’t beat the sound for th money.

Let me start by saying I like Sonos products, I have the Sonos One and Sonos SL in my office. Initially I did not like their unifying software, but now that it supports Airplay, Casting and Bluetooth it really does a good job. The ability to set up all your streaming services in one place is most convenient. But it is a closed ecosystem, it will only communicate with Sonos products. So when I went to compare this Sonos Roam Speaker to other portable speakers I have, it was not as easy as I anticipated. Let’s start with the packaging. All parts come wrapped in a thin felt like cover. The does a great job of preventing scratches, and can be reused to transport your speaker inside a briefcase or beach bag. I wish it had a Velcro closure rather than a sticker, but it makes the package look/feel like a premium product. Their boxes are very strong, and protect the product(s) very well. I got the roam speaker with the Roam Wireless Charger. The Roam Speaker comes with USB-A to USB-C charging cable and a (10w) charger 5V@2.1A (10W). The Wireless charger is 5V@1A (5W), so it will charge slower but the convenience of just setting it down, versus plugging it in was a feature I wanted to have (I didn’t know when I got it that it was slower). Neither box indicated the power ratings. The wireless charger does have some magnetic connectivity, so it can be used horizontally or vertically. After I got the speaker I charged it up (it came about 50% charged – normal for Lithium-Ion batteries). I was able to easily pair the speaker with the Sonos app. All of my existing music sources (8) became immediately available. I then took the speaker out to my pool and played Boston's first album. Immediately, the clairity of the sound was apparent. So was the not so surprising, mono output (why small speakers can’t output Stereo sound is beyond me, I had small stereo radios in the 70s/80s, why modern speakers can't do this is a source of constant frustration (I know just buy another)). The sound was full and crisp with a bit of low end presence, considering I was in a large outdoor space. I tried the speaker horizontally and vertically, the bass output was more solid when the speaker was horizontal, radiating the sound off the solid table I’d placed it on. I moved to the other side of the pool, about 20' from away from the speaker, the sound exceptionally clean. The sound was very good, turned up all the way there was no distortion whatsoever. The overall sound was nicely balanced, but in this large area, there was no deep bass. But from a speaker 6.5” wide and 2.5” tall expectations had to be reasonable. And the quality of clean output was exceptional. I did more listening. Foreplay-Long Time breezed in and to my surprise the initial low vocals were front and center. The soundstage was in front of the speaker, not coming from it, a good thing (considering its mono). As the beat built, it was pleasant, easy to listen to, and at the transition to Long time I was able to hear most of the subtleties, something missing from many smaller speakers. Clearly this little Sonos speaker is doing something to improve the sound quality. The more I listened, the cleaner the music seemed, this little speaker really brings the vocals out, and they’re quite clean. Snare and tom-tom drums have a bit of kick and ring to them. But the horns are really spectacular. I was accustomed to using Trueplay with Sonos speakers, but this roam speaker claims to have Automatic Trueplay. Where it automatically adapts its sound to the content and environment/surroundings. Whatever it’s doing, it is improving the sound quality. This speaker claims to get 10 hours of playing time (a 50% volume with WiFi streaming). I got a bit over 7 at nearly full volume with Apple Play. The speaker comes in numerous colors. It is water and dust resistant (IP67). The speaker comes in two versions, the Roam and Roam SL the only difference between the two is the Roam SL does not support voice control (which I find I rarely use, I prefer controlling via my iPhone). I took the speaker inside to my family room (16x30). I listened to Pink Floyd DSOTM, the speaker filled the room fairly well once it was high enough (fireplace mantel) the floor. But again the bass was thin. But I detected a different tone to the speaker inside. Maybe Trueplay was changing the sound based on it detecting different room acoustics…. Whatever, there was some magic making many of the subtle sounds have more presence. I used SiriusXM to stream some music and it sounded exceptional. The Clocks in “Time” had a superb ring to them. The swirling voices in “The Great Gig in the Sky” didn’t have the R/L stereo effect, but they could be heard clearly/distinctly. And in the fade up out of “Eclipse”, every word could be heard. So how would this little Roam SL compare to several other portable speakers I have (only using BT connections). I took them all outside and tried to set them up with similar conditions. In terms of just volume level the Roam was about the same volume as the largest speaker, but not quite as loud as my oldest BT speaker (front left). The pair of cylinder (R & L back) speakers, set up as a stereo pair, had the best bass response. Sounding fuller than the bigger speaker in the center. But in terms of the cleanest vocals the Roam was in a class of its own, only the stereo pair was even close. The biggest speaker, not surprisingly had the most richness, but it's vocals and highs didn’t soar like the Roam. Then I found that My IPhone could send more than one at a time. I could send the same signal to all 5 speakers at the same time. Really nice, it filled the backyard much better. And I found I could literally pick out the sound of each speaker. I like this speaker. I like it so much I might just get another to get the Stereo output that my 80's boombox had. It has the cleanest output of any portable (battery powered) speaker I’ve tried. It does not have the battery life of some of the others but it’s smaller, a clear tradeoff.