The market for multi-room speakers has been steadily growing for years, but Sonos stands out among the competition not only for the sheer size of their product selection, but for consistent quality in their speakers. The company has been around for over two decades and offers one of the best app platforms out there, with native support for many of the big streaming services.
How Sonos Trueplay can upgrade your speaker game
You can use your iOS device to improve the sound of your Sonos speakers with just a bit of arm waving.
The Sonos lineup of speakers covers a wide spectrum of use cases and price points, from soundbars, to subwoofers, and everything in between. We’ve put together a round-up of the best Sonos speakers to help you work out which is the best Sonos speaker(s) or soundbar for you.
We’ve reviewed — or seen and heard — the entire Sonos line-up and these are the products we would highly recommend buying if you’re in the market for a Sonos speaker or soundbar.
The best Sonos speakers: Our top picks
Sonos Era 100
1. Best speaker overall
A great starting point
The Sonos Era 100 is one of the newest Sonos speakers available, replacing the Sonos One. It delivers excellent sound quality for its size, offers a lovely design and carries plenty of features on board. The Era 100 is the perfect starting place for a Sonos system, as well as a great addition to an existing one.
- Lovely compact design
- New intuitive controls
- Great performance
- No Google Assistant
- More expensive than Sonos One
Sonos Era 100 is one of the newest speakers within the Sonos portfolio, replacing the Sonos One and One SL. It’s more expensive than the outgoing One and One SL, but you get a range of extra features, including Bluetooth capabilities, stereo sound instead of mono and a fresh design that’s more modern and seamless.
There’s no Google Assistant on the Era 100 — with just Alexa and Sonos Voice Control on board, and it doesn’t support spatial audio and Dolby Atmos like the larger Era 300, but the Era 100 sounds great and offers brilliant sound performance from its size. It also has all the standard Sonos features, like AirPlay 2, the ability to adapt EQ, support for over 100 music streaming services, and Trueplay tuning.
Sonos Era 300
2. Best mid-range speaker
Great Dolby Atmos support
The Sonos Era 300 has a unique design that some will love and others might not. Despite it’s potentially polarizing aesthetics, The Era 300 sounds great, and comes packed full of features, including Bluetooth and Dolby Atmos support.
- Unique design
- Great performance
- Bluetooth and USB-C line-in
- Quite expensive
- No Google Assistant
Sonos Era 300 is the company’s all-singing, all-dancing speaker that launched alongside the smaller Era 100 a little higher up this list. It features a slightly different design to your average speaker, though it has the same control panel at the top as the Era 100 and there’s a USB-C line-in port on the rear too, as well as Bluetooth capabilities. It’s smaller than the Sonos Five below, but it offers support for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos content, designed to offer a more immersive experience when listening to compatible content.
The Era 300 also features AirPlay 2 support, along with Alexa and Sonos Voice Control and it comes in black and white color options. You can stereo pair two together and they can be used as rear surrounds with a Sonos Arc and a Sonos Sub for a 7.1.4 multi-channel setup.
Sonos Five
3. Best speaker for a larger space
Feature-rich and sturdy
The Sonos Five doesn’t have Bluetooth, Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant support like some other Sonos speakers, but those are about the only downsides we can leverage at this otherwise superb speaker. The Five shows what two decades of experience can deliver. It’s an ideal way to start a Sonos multi-room system, or add a badass centrepiece to an existing one.
- Excellent sound quality
- Great features
- Solid build quality
- Expensive
- No Bluetooth
- No direct Amazon Alexa/Google Assistant support
Sonos Five is the biggest speaker in the Sonos line-up. It features capacitive touch controls and can be positioned vertically or horizontally. There is no built-in voice control from Alexa or Google Assistant, and there’s no Bluetooth or Dolby Atmos support like the Era 300, but there is Apple AirPlay 2 compatibility and superb sound performance.
As with other Sonos speakers, you get the same option to pair two Five speakers together for a full-fledged stereo pair, have multi-room audio, combine it with Sonos soundbars for surround sound, place the speaker where you choose when connected to the Wi-Fi mesh network, as well as the streaming options and app features.
Sonos Ray
4. Best value speaker
Smaller soundstage for a smaller price
The Sonos Ray is a soundbar offering a lovely design, great sound quality for its size, and a range of excellent features.
- Compact design
- Good range of features
- Quick setup
- Not as strong at lower volumes
- No HDMI ARC or eARC
The Sonos Ray is the company’s budget soundbar and while it misses out on some features compared to the Sonos Beam, it’s a great upgrade to your TV sound for a good price. It uses optical instead of HDMI so it’s compatible with older TVs and it can be a standalone Sonos speaker when not in use, offering a number of Sonos features.
There are no smart assistants on board and the soundstage isn’t as wide as the Beam, nor are there features like Atmos, but the Ray is a fantastic soundbar for its size.
Sonos Arc
5. Best smart soundbar
A smart soundbar, great for Dolby Atmos
The Sonos Arc smart soundbar presents an exemplary sound experience. With Alexa and Google Assistant built-in, plus AirPlay 2, support for Dolby Atmos, and Sonos’ own feature-filled music platform, you have yourself a very compelling, if pricey, speaker.
- Excellent Atmos experience
- Alexa and Google Assistant on board
- Easy to setup and integrate with Sonos multiroom solution
- Requires compatible TV for Dolby Atmos support
- Pricey
- Only single-band (2.4GHz) Wi-Fi
The Sonos Arc is a 5.0.2 bar with HDMI eARC and a completely re-tuned experience over the Playbar, which it replaced in the line-up. It comes with a newer design aesthetic, with sleek, curved edges and rounded ends that look similar to the Sonos Move speaker if you look at that from above, tying it in with the rest of the Sonos family.
Additionally, there’s a stack of speaker drivers inside, with center, left and right channels, plus a couple angled for a wider surround effect than the Beam (for example). Two additional drivers are angled upwards to send Dolby Atmos extra channels to your ceiling and down to the seating position that envelopes you in immersive audio.
You can add two Sonos Era 300 speakers as surrounds for a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience.
Sonos Sub (Gen 3)
6. Best speaker for bass
Big and bass-heavy
The Sonos Sub isn’t for everyone, but it is a device that is all about sound, and makes a great addition to the Sonos system if you can swing it. For those intrigued enough to pony up for the price-tag, you won’t be disappointed.
- Great bass
- Easy setup
- Excellent addition to Sonos system
- Big and heavy
- Will be too loud for some
- Expensive
Audio settings are automatically adjusted to balance the Sub and the paired Sonos component and like the rest of the Sonos system, the Sub can be controlled using the Sonos app, and it connects wirelessly to your home network.
Sonos Roam SL
7. Best budget speaker
Great value in a portable design
The Sonos Roam SL is a great portable Bluetooth speaker that is perfect for those looking to start a Sonos system but who still want the flexibility to take their speaker out of the home.
- Lovely design
- Great sound performance
- Good price
- Some features missing
- No smart assistants
The Sonos Roam SL has the same design and sound architecture as the Sonos Roam, but it doesn’t offer a microphone and therefore misses out on a couple of features. There are no smart assistants on board, and the Sonos Roam SL doesn’t have Sound Swap or automatic Trueplay tuning, but it still switches automatically between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and it delivers great sound in a small package.
Apple AirPlay 2 vs AirPlay: Differences and perks explained
AirPlay 2 improves upon Apple’s original AirPlay, including multi-room audio, listening to different songs on different speakers, and more.
There’s AirPlay 2 on board, waterproofing, and it will switch seamlessly between being part of your Sonos system and being a Bluetooth speaker as you move around.
Sonos Roam
8. Best portable speaker
Packs a punch on the go
For those looking to take your music on the go, the Roam is a no-brainer. For those considering a Bluetooth speaker and wondering if the Roam is worth the investment — it delivers everything a Bluetooth speaker should, plus so much more.
- Lightweight and very portable
- Great sound quality in a compact size
- Water resistant
- No accompanying case
- Battery life a little below claimed
The Sonos Roam is the smaller of the portable, Bluetooth speakers from Sonos and the smallest Sonos speaker available (alongside the Roam SL), as well as one of the smartest. It offers automatic switching between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – which the larger Move doesn’t – allowing for a more seamless listening experience when moving from outside to inside, and vice versa.
Along with all the standard Sonos features, the Roam also has a feature called Sound Swap, and it comes with both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, as well as AirPlay 2 and Automatic TruePlay. It can’t be used as part of a surround system or paired to a Sub, but it is small, light, very portable and sounds great.
The bottom line: What is the best Sonos speaker?
Based on our years of listening and testing, we’ve found that the best Sonos speaker overall is the Sonos Era 100, thanks to its great sound and simplicity. This speaker is easily the best for Sonos novices to start building their ultimate home surround-sound system.
Sonos Era 100
Editor’s Choice
Great starting point
The Sonos Era 100 is one of the newest Sonos speakers available, replacing the excellent Sonos One. It delivers excellent sound quality for it size (from what we have heard so far), offers a lovely design and there are plenty of features on board. The Era 100 is the perfect starting place to a Sonos system, as well as a great addition to an existing one.
What are the different types of Sonos speakers?
Traditional Sonos speakers: The non-portable speakers within the Sonos line up include the Sonos Era 100, Era 300 and the Sonos Five. The Era 100 replaces the Sonos One and One SL and brings Bluetooth capabilities, while the Era 300 sits below the larger Sonos Five, but offers a few extra tricks like Dolby Atmos and spatial audio support.
Sonos soundbars: Sonos has three soundbars in its offering, including the budget Sonos Ray, designed for smaller TVs, the Sonos Beam (2021, Gen 2) that has virtual Dolby Atmos support and the all-singing, all-dancing Sonos Arc with full Dolby Atmos support. Within the home theater line-up, there’s also the Sonos Sub and the Sonos Sub Mini, with the latter offering the same low frequency response but a bit less power than the larger Sub.
Portable Sonos speakers: There are three portable speakers in the Sonos line up. These include the Sonos Move, the Sonos Roam and the Sonos Roam SL. There are a few differences between the Sonos Roam and Sonos Move, but in a nutshell, the Roam is an ultra-portable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speaker that is smaller and cheaper than Move, and the Roam SL is a Roam without the built-in microphones and smart assistants.
Sonos Ikea Symfonisk speakers: In addition to the portable Sonos speakers and the standard Sonos speakers, the company also collaborated with Ikea to offer the Symfonisk range of speakers. There’s the Wi-Fi Bookshelf Speaker, which is a speaker that doubles up as a bookshelf and the cheapest way to enter the Sonos system. Meanwhile, the Table Lamp Speaker doubles up as a table lamp and the Picture Frame Speaker doubles up as a piece of art. All the Symfonisk speakers work as traditional Sonos speakers while also featuring Trueplay tuning, multi-room audio, and compatibility with over 100 music services. They also offer voice control via Alexa or Google Assistant as well as AirPlay 2 compatability.
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