Sonos - One SL Wireless Smart Speaker - Black

## Setup If you’ve used the Sonos app to setup other Sonos speakers, you’ll find the process to be very familiar. First, place the speaker where you want it in your home and connect the power. Open the app, go to Settings and select System > Add Product. The app will then scan for new speakers and walk you through the setup process. At the end, the Sonos app will also install the latest updates to the speaker, so there is a bit of wait until you can hear the sound from the new speaker. ## Sound Quality If you already have a Sonos One or Play:1 speaker, you’ll find the sound quality on the Sonos One SL is exactly the same. The only difference is the lack of microphones on the SL. As is typical with Sonos speakers, the sound quality is superb with great bass. Highs, mids and lows all come through clearly and make for a very enjoyable listening experience. One speaker can fill a medium-sized room easily and likely even a large room. The Sonos One SL can be paired with another Sonos One (but NOT a Sonos Play:1) for stereo sound or grouped with other Sonos speakers around your home for simultaneous play. ## Features No voice assistant: The main reason for buying this particular speaker is likely the omission of a voice assistant. This isn’t just for privacy-minded folks: if you already have an Echo device in the room you plan to use a Sonos speaker, you can save some money and forgo having a second voice assistant in the same room. Or, perhaps you just want a second speaker to create a stereo pair with another Sonos One speaker that already has Alexa. AirPlay 2: Although this speaker has no virtual assistant, it still has some of the benefits of the Sonos One, one of which is AirPlay 2. This allows you to easily stream music from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the speaker without going through a Bluetooth pairing process. While playing music, simply tap the AirPlay icon on your iPhone and select the speaker. Humidity resistance: You can’t go splashing water on this speaker, but if you plan on placing this in the bathroom, the extra humidity from the shower will not be a problem. ## Summary The main difference between the Sonos One and One SL is that the latter lacks microphones and the voice assistant. The Sonos One SL still has the great sound quality your expect from Sonos, as well as AirPlay 2 functionality.

I was planning to use one of these in my living room/great room to stream from (Google Play, SiriusMX & Amazon Music). With any new speakers/headphones I generally start by listening to Boston's first album and Pink Floyd's DSOTM, as I know what I'm listening for in each. I placed the Sonos One SL on top of the Grand Piano in our living room and began to set it up. This will take longer than it does with other speakers that you cast to, as you must use the Sonos App to cast to the speaker, although you can send to it via BT and Apples Airplay 2 directly. Which at first bothered me, but their app does allow you to access many other streaming apps from their app, so it's a one stop shop as an interface to your Streaming services. I setup a Sonos account and added: Amazon, Google, Play, iHeartRadio, Pandora and SiriusXM. But Google Play and Pandora, kept disappearing after set up. After so research I found that you have to have a US/Canada address to use them with Sonos. Once I updated my account with a complete address all worked like it should have. I then tried to add a Voice service for Google and Alexa, and neither would stay saved. When you finish setting thisks up and adding your product they suggest you "tune" the speaker based on room acoustics with Trueplay. I found this made a big difference, but you have to make sure your room as as silent as possible. After about a 1/2 hour I'd completed setup (what I could get done). On to the Music. The highs in Boston's Foreplay/Long Time were nice an crisp and airy, the mid bass was good but the low end was disappointingly thin. Now I'm in a big room and this is a fairly small speaker. Anyway I move on to DSOTM, and I'm again impressed by the midrange and highs but not so much by the low end, it's trying, but not quite being successful. One of the other things I noticed in PF's great Gig in the sky was the lack of stereo separation, when I expected sounds to swirl thay didn't and were sometimes lost. This brings me back to the reality this is a single mono speaker, to get true stereo you need two, and there is a special set up for that. But overall this single speaker just could not fill my living room adequately. It occured to me that I could compare this Sonos One to My JBL link 500 (about twice the price). so I set them both up with the same music, at the same time, muting one then the other. I was somewhat surprised by what I found. But not surprised that the JBL had better bass and true stereo, but it's mid range was quite mellow, lacking the Sonos's dynamics, and the Sonos highs we much more dramatic and better paired with it's mid range; so except for the JBL's bass being deeper and louder the Sonos was much tighter overall, no doubt in my mind anther speaker would have made this a fair fight which Sonos might have won. So to be fair I moved the Sonos One SL to my, much smaller office, and re-tuned it (it asked me if it had been moved - talk about speakers getting smarter) to it's new space. The bass sounded much better here, but still was on the thin side, but for the money they sounded excellent. This brought me back to reality, I could have spent 2.5x on a Sonos Play and gotten better sound, or 2x and gotten two Sonos One's. But at the time is was the economics of one, with the ability to upgrade later, which is a nice option. I do wish the Sonos app could be a complete unifier, and include iTunes, but that's probably more of an Apple thing. They do allow you to find other music you have on your network (music servers and such). You can directly connect the speaker via Ethernet, so for the price they are very flexible, but mono, but you know that, and if you want Stereo you need another. Something I'll probably get in the near future. As this is a great smart speaker for the price, I'm just not sure where I'm going to use it.

The Sonos One SL is a nice quality product with a great deal of design consideration. Its a sleek and unobtrusive package, with a nice silicone base for non-slip grip on almost any surface. I chose to place this speaker in the kitchen, as we love to listen to music while cooking and preparing meals. Out of the box, you get the speaker, a power cord and a minimalistic instruction guide. The power cord is molded to match the bottom of the unit, which is another nice attention to detail. Once plugged into the unit, it's not going anywhere and won't be accidentally pulled out either, as it enters the unit at 90 degrees from underneath the speaker. Plug the speaker in, and download the Sonos App. I have another Sonos product, so already had the app installed. Once loaded, go to settings, system, add product. The app walks you through the process of setting up the speaker. When the speaker is ready, you will be asked to 'tune' your speaker. The app provides a video for you to follow and start the tuning. This was new to me, I didn't have to do this with the Sonos Amp that I have with my Sonance speakers. And I'll admit, I failed on the first try! The video shows a young lady waving her cell phone around the room in an up and down motion. I did the same. It must have been somewhat half heartedly, as I was told by the app to retry using a much more 'animated' motion. Long, sweeping up and down motions are required to make the tuning work properly! Not just sweeping your arm up and down in a 2ft range! Lesson learned, second time was a charm. I'm sure the kitchen was a little challenging, with the refrigerator noise in one corner and chatting in the other corner, but as soon as the speaker tune was set up, it sounded good, but really, really bassy, especially at low levels. I was originally going to review the speaker with 4 stars due to the bass, especially at lower volumes. I couldn't see any way to change the EQ instantly in the app and was a little disappointed. However, after asking a friend who has what appears to be about 73 Sonos speakers around his house, and a little research online, I found that if you go to Settings/System/Choose your Speaker and scroll down, there is an EQ option under 'Sound' - there you can adjust the bass and treble to your liking. This really helped the speaker come alive, and not just sound like a wall of bass until it was turned up louder, where the mids and treble take over the bass more. The first song played is my 'goto' when testing new speakers: Disturbed's version of 'The Sound of Silence'. I choose this song because it has a great musical and vocal range, with soft, sweeping vocals accompanied by soothing piano, elevating to strong rock vocals punching through a backdrop of louder, more dramatic music. The Sonos One SL performed flawlessly, punching the bass notes and accentuating the mids and highs. It really fills the room sound, like a warm blanket enveloping you! I can see me adding more of these speakers to my original. Presumably, 'SL' is a designation for 'Sonos Lite' as it doesn't have a microphone for Google or Alexa integration, but it still delivers the same sound qualities of the Sonos One, and the previous Sonos One accessories work with the Sonos One SL. You can also pair Sonos One and Sonos One SL to create a stereo sound field. The Sonos One SL can also be used as home theater surround sound speakers. The SL also introduces Apple Airplay 2 and capacitive touch controls on top. There is a pleasing, single LED on top, a play/pause button and then 4 dots to the left and right of it. Those are your volume up and down touch points, but if you slide from left to right, through the play touch point, you skip to the next track and alternatively from right to left, skip to previous tracks. And being in the kitchen, humidity resistance is a nice feature to have, to be able to use it without concern near a steaming stove. Listening to some classical music while writing this review, the sound is compelling, warm, vibrant and clear, with great definition no matter what volume you have it at. I've really enjoyed using the Sonos One SL so far!

If you are looking to purchase a single speaker I do NOT recommend the Sonos One SL. The Speaker has excellent sound, but it is designed to be paired with other Sonos speakers as a part of a larger sound system. It is truly NOT meant to be used on its own. ...The Sonos One SL does not have bluetooth, or any Auxiliary input - this means that Music can only be played via a WiFi connection - which works well, but limits the options of how it can be used. The One SL also does not have any microphone which means no voice controls and no Google or Amazon voice assistants (which feels very limiting for a "Smart Speaker"). If you are looking to purchase a single speaker (and want the option of later growing a Sonos sound system by adding additional speakers), I would recommend spending the extra $20 for the Sonos One - which has Google & Amazon voice assistants built in. ...Or, if you want more input options (such as Bluetooth & aux-in) and music presets (like radio station favorites that play at the push of a numbered pre-set button) I would recommend the Bose Home 300 (although it does cost around $80 more than the Sonos One SL and $60 more than the Sonos One). The Sonos One SL sounds excellent and produces well balanced audio that can get quite loud without distortion, but it only projects the (mono) audio in the forward direction. (Again, this speaker is really meant to be paired with other Sonos speakers and not used alone.) The forward facing audio is only surprising because the speaker grill wraps around all sides in order to appear as though it plays a full 360 degrees - like the Bose Home 300 does. The Sonos One SL is small enough to be portable, but sadly it does not contain any batteries and without Bluetooth or an Auxiliary input - this is not a speaker that will ever be taken on the go. I recommend saving your money and buying a more feature rich Bluetooth speaker. The Sonos One SL simply does not have enough features to be used on its own and building up a whole Sonos speaker system becomes expensive quickly. But, if you are willing to invest in Sonos - this speaker is a good addition to the larger whole. Just be aware that you will need to purchase several Sonos speakers before your audio set-up reaches its intended potential. Cons: - No Bluetooth - No Auxiliary Input - Audio is forward facing only (does not project 360 degrees like other speakers in its class) - No voice controls - No voice assistants - No internal battery (Not portable) - No audio channel presets - Touch controls are not clear (There is nothing to visually indicate tracks can be changed by sliding or swiping. Also, they do not use the standard + - Volume indicators).

The little guy looks & feels sleek. The instructions were old and seemingly for another speaker but once I figured it out, it was easy to connect and start using. No new features that are out of the ordinary. The sounds really excels. Not being portable would be the only downfall.

Sonos - One SL Wireless Smart Speaker - Black My first Sonos. I’ve always strayed away from Sonos because I thought they were overpriced even though their products were always highly rated. Listening to this One SL makes me wonder now why I never gave them a listen. This One sounds great! It delivers clear highs and very deep bass without overpowering each other. The mids are balanced with the highs and lows so dialogue in a movie can be clearly heard. It can easily fill a living room or two with spacious sound from just one tweeter and one mid-woofer. The audio sounds different at higher volume levels where the lows and highs get cut-off a bit to decrease distortion I guess but I don’t listen to music blaring loud. Comparing it to the Bose Soundlink Revolve portable speaker, the Bose had a more prominent voice or mids where the Sonos had higher highs and deeper, more powerful bass. The Sonos had a more powerful sound. The Bose projected sound in almost 360 where with the Sonos you have to be in front of it to hear the richest sound. It has AirPlay 2 so you can stream directly from your Apple devices. It connects via WiFi 802.11 b/g 2.4GHz. When you’re setting this up, you have to make sure that your device is also connected to the 2.4GHz band. It also has a 10/100 ethernet port just in case your wifi isn’t good. No bluetooth. This is AC powered and I really like the way they designed the way you plug the power cable in to the speaker. It plugs in underneath the speaker and it becomes part of the bottom base. You can add the popular music services like Apple Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, Spotify and a bunch more. You can add a second One SL or One for stereo sound. This speaker is hefty at 4.08lbs, stands at 6.36” and is 4.69” wide. It is incased in metal with a mesh grille. I got the black and so far no signs of fingerprints. The top of the speaker has the capacitive touch controls for volume, play/pause and gestures for previous/next track and they work as they should. It is humidity resistant so go ahead and plug it in the bathroom and sing with it. Don’t worry, it won’t record your singing because it doesn’t have a mic. That means no voice control capabilities. Oh and I guess this unit doesn’t turn off because I couldn’t find a way to do it and nothing in the documentation. The indicator LED stays on. Overall, I like this speaker because it is simple, it sounds awesome, it looks great and it is actually reasonably priced. Sonos will now be part of my list of favorite audio brands.

Didn’t think these would make that much of a difference but it really adds to the quality and watching movies is awesome. It makes you even look behind you sometimes thinking you heard something but was just the movie. Set up was again a breeze with the app. They have some mounting options for a little overpriced option in my opinion. Bought together for a discount. Again. See if they will price match to Costco. I wish I would have done this as it would have saved me 30 bucks I think.

SONOS will forever be my go to when it comes to Audio. I cannot believe how this sounds in the house. Love this product!!!!