Up next in 10
The Gorgeous Sonos One - REVIEW
1K views
May 30, 2025
Sonos has always been synonymous with high quality, audiophile multiroom speaker and sound systems, working with oodles of streaming services like Tidal, Spotify, and Pandora. The Sonos One marks its first move into voice-activated smart speakers, utilizing the Amazon Echo third-party access system, and it's a bit of a mixed bag on launch. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ explores the features of the new Sonos One and talks about how it compares to an Amazon Echo, Google Home and similar. Is it worth the premium cost? Does it really sound better? And what's not quite working properly yet on the Alexa side? Watch and find out! Sonos One at BestBuy: http://bby.me/l9k8h #ad
View Video Transcript
0:00
is this the speaker Alexa should always
0:01
have been in let's find out
0:11
Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at
0:13
another voice-activated speaker system
0:16
this is the Sonos one and it actually is
0:20
basically the Sonos play:1 but they
0:23
added alexa so this little redesign and
0:25
stuff but here's the thing
0:27
it sounds amazing it is a little bit of
0:30
a work in progress but boy this sounds
0:32
really good
0:32
let's give it a super quick whirl and
0:34
I'm gonna do that Alexa resume hopefully
0:42
[Music]
0:45
so I can only play a little bit of this
0:48
because of licensing rights but there's
0:50
a full and rich sound here that just
0:54
doesn't exist on any of the other
0:56
voice-activated speakers in the market
0:58
Alexa
0:59
pause Alexa volume down Alexa what's the
1:10
weather right now in Boulder it's 46
1:14
degrees with clear skies and Sun today's
1:17
forecast has clouds and showers with a
1:19
high of 60 degrees in a low of 38
1:22
degrees well there you go but even with
1:25
the voice-activated system and I'm gonna
1:26
actually mute it so we don't get into
1:28
arguments easily done with a button
1:32
right on the top which is good to know
1:34
but even just with the voice system boy
1:37
this sounds better than the echo does
1:39
these second-generation echo does the
1:42
Google home does any of the devices that
1:44
are out there that are freestanding
1:46
individual voice activated speakers
1:48
Sonos has them all beat but let me
1:52
actually take a little side road and
1:54
show you the box it came in because this
1:56
is pretty fantastic this is like a
1:58
treasure chest right so you open it up
2:01
very nice you pull out the actual box
2:04
and this is the box that the Sonos comes
2:10
in and then you have this which I don't
2:14
really know I don't know if this is how
2:15
you would get it if you bought it from
2:16
someone like Best Buy but it's a really
2:19
big box so we'll just put it aside
2:21
um so here's our box so nose and here's
2:27
the actual speaker and let me tell you a
2:29
little bit about it so it's six and a
2:31
half inches tall and it's four and a
2:33
half inches wide and round you can see
2:36
it's it's the same front and side let's
2:39
make sure it's muted and there is a
2:44
microphone on the top that lets you mute
2:46
it and then there are three very subtle
2:49
buttons on the top for a volume down
2:51
volume up and pause play I don't know
2:55
why volume up and volume down look
2:57
exactly the same maybe there should be
3:00
some differentiation whatever there's a
3:03
little light that if I turn this on
3:05
Alexa cancel
3:11
so you can see the light gives you some
3:13
feedback on what's going on which is
3:15
nice and then really it's just a big
3:19
substantial speaker on the back there is
3:23
a pairing button you can get two of
3:25
these and when you pair them
3:27
automatically they become left and right
3:29
channels which is very nice
3:31
unfortunately it won't pair with any
3:34
other so no speaker so you don't get
3:36
that benefit if you have a play one and
3:38
you want to upgrade to a Sonos one they
3:41
don't actually seem to know each other
3:42
I'm not sure why that happened but
3:44
that's how they've set it up and there's
3:47
an Ethernet plug so if you want to
3:49
really have this beyond your wired
3:51
network instead of wireless network then
3:54
you can do that and that's pretty much
3:56
all there is there's a very unique and
3:59
funky power plug on the bottom and it
4:02
goes right into a wall there's no big
4:03
bulky transformer nice job integrating
4:06
that Sonos thank you and then on the
4:09
sides there are actually six microphones
4:12
and so it has directional microphones
4:15
and as you saw when I was playing the
4:17
music and talk to it it can hear you
4:19
talking even when there's music playing
4:22
so that's really nice now a lot of
4:25
people have complained that this first
4:27
generation first release of the Sonos
4:29
one is missing tons of features it's not
4:32
it's missing some features which will be
4:35
into the system hopefully in the next
4:37
few months but I will tell you that
4:39
right now out of the box once you set it
4:42
up with both the Sonos app and the Alexa
4:45
app little tedious then you can actually
4:47
play music from Amazon Prime music from
4:51
Pandora from I Heart Radio from Sirius
4:53
XM there's a lot of sources you can use
4:56
it does not curiously work with Spotify
4:59
right now
5:00
now rumor is that should be implemented
5:03
by the middle of December we'll see how
5:06
that goes but it's confusing because
5:09
Sonos has a relationship with spotify
5:11
and amazon has a relationship with
5:13
spotify both of them work but the sonís
5:16
one as of yet doesn't actually work with
5:19
spotify it also has some limitations and
5:23
these are apparently limitations with
5:24
how well
5:25
LexA is working with third-party
5:27
speakers but you can't make this part of
5:30
like a smart home group so what we have
5:32
is we have all our different Amazon echo
5:35
products all in the same group so we can
5:37
push music out to everything
5:39
simultaneously except for this guy this
5:42
guy it does not see which is really kind
5:44
of frustrating it also has no bluetooth
5:47
support unlike the Google home unlike
5:49
the Amazon echo so that's a little
5:52
disappointing worth knowing but honestly
5:54
if you're gonna get something like this
5:56
using it as a Bluetooth speaker might
5:58
not be an optimal use of this particular
6:01
device now let's see it does support a
6:04
variety of other Sonos based music
6:07
streaming services through the Sonos app
6:09
so if you're a fan of title you can
6:12
still get to it
6:13
you have to use the Sonos app instead of
6:15
Alexa stop and that means see I told you
6:19
this would happen
6:19
and and that means that you won't get
6:21
the voice controls that actually will
6:24
work in a sophisticated manner bit of a
6:26
drag but at the same time you still get
6:29
all the Alexa functionality cancel I
6:32
have to mute this I'm telling you it's
6:34
gonna drive me crazy you get all the
6:36
functionality of the Alexa feature set -
6:40
a couple of bits and pieces that I think
6:42
will show up early in 2018 and one of
6:45
the things that Sonos recommends when
6:47
you are first getting it that you set it
6:49
up with something they call true play
6:51
and true play is pretty cool it runs
6:54
music out of your speaker and then you
6:56
walk around with your phone and it's
6:58
samples in your room and figures out a
7:01
sound configuration that will work best
7:03
for where you put this speaker now I
7:06
haven't done this yet because I tend to
7:08
move all my devices around a lot but
7:09
that could be really great to get
7:11
perfect sound and coming in 2018 with
7:15
the Sonos one is it will support Apple
7:18
AirPlay - it's apparently a new
7:20
generation of airplay coming out and it
7:23
will work as a Google assistant which
7:25
means that this will also work as a
7:26
Google home and obviously it works as an
7:29
Amazon echo and it will work as an Apple
7:32
home play whatever they call their Siri
7:35
powered speaker device that isn't yet on
7:37
the
7:38
market this will actually function for
7:40
all of those pretty nice and as I said
7:43
it has fantastic sound this is really
7:47
nice sound stop it's driving me slightly
7:54
crazy about a it still has really good
7:56
sound and that's really why you get this
7:58
and it's pretty expensive I'll get back
8:00
to the price in a second but it's just a
8:03
full lush rich sound it gets super loud
8:06
you can really fill a room with this and
8:08
of course if you have to and they're
8:10
paired it's gonna be a really nice
8:12
stereo separation but even without that
8:14
this is such a nice way this would be so
8:17
great for a dorm room if you want to
8:19
actually have loud party music that
8:22
sounds good you know for an office for a
8:25
smaller apartment or condo or just for
8:27
your bedroom this could work really
8:29
really well so not much else to talk
8:32
about it comes in black or white before
8:34
I get to the price though let me ask two
8:36
favors of you number one do me a favor
8:39
and click the subscribe button and
8:41
number two if you appreciate this video
8:44
and find it useful then I invite you to
8:47
go ahead and click the thumbs up icon
8:49
cool oh there's one more thing I didn't
8:51
tell you it's almost four pounds in
8:54
weight it's a pretty substantial speaker
8:56
but again it's not portable it doesn't
8:58
have a battery it's not designed to move
9:00
around it's designed for you to plug in
9:01
and enjoy so the Sonos one and it's now
9:06
work in progress you know to be fair
9:08
it's gonna be way more cool in a couple
9:10
of months so us however will be able to
9:13
upgrade everything via remote so if you
9:16
get it now it will just get all these
9:18
additional features over time super cool
9:20
so knows one in black or white it's a
9:23
hundred and ninety-nine ninety-nine you
9:25
can pick it up at Best Buy comm or
9:27
wherever your favorite retailer is this
9:30
is Dave Taylor I'm gonna go back to my
9:32
classical music and I'll catch you in my
9:34
next video
9:40
[Music]
#Audio Equipment
#Entertainment Industry