Sonos Playbase

Two Sonos soundboosting devices go head-to-head

Your TV sounds rubbish. No, honestly, it does. It’s just the nature of the thing. Thinner TVS have meant smaller speakers, and no amount of processing jiggery-pokery can fully compensate for those physical deciencies.

That’s why the hi-fi world is awash with soundbars and soundbases. These all-in-one, plug-and-play units are the quickest, cheapest and neatest routes to better TV and movie sound, and that has made them very popular.

But what if you want more than that? What if you want a neat, Tv-boosting speaker that also doubles up as a music-streaming supremo capable of accessing practically all of the music in the world at the jab of a touchscreen?

If that sounds like a tall order, it isn’t, because Sonos makes not one but two devices that fit the bill – the Playbar and its new sibling the Playbase. Sonos will tell you that choosing between the two depends on whether you’re looking for something to wall-mount under your wall-mounted TV or a base you can plonk your TV upon. With respect to Sonos, there’s more to it than that.

Build

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the Playbar is a bar and the Playbase is a base, and while there are more things to consider than just the design and placement, those are still the biggest and most significant differences.

If your TV is wall-mounted and you want to mount a speaker system underneath it, the Playbar is the obvious choice, though the wall bracket is £40 extra. It does have rubberised ‘feet’ so it can be placed on a shelf or other piece of furniture, but they’re on the same panel as the wall-mount screws, which means that the drivers are facing upwards rather than forwards – something that badly impacts the sound.

You could ignore the feet and stand the Playbar up on its edge, but that involves raw metal rubbing against the surface of your furniture and potentially obscuring the bottom part of your TV’S screen. You also risk blocking the IR sensor and therefore preventing signals from your remote getting to your TV – the Playbar has an IR repeater, but it’s designed to work only in the “correct” orientation.

All of which means, if you’re not a wall-mounter, the Playbase makes more sense. It’s a simple, minimalist slab with a large, flat surface to place your TV upon. It needn’t be more complicated than that, but you can opt for an even neater set-up by adding a Sanus WSTV1 swivel mount, which basically replaces your TV’S existing pedestal stand with something that incorporates the Playbase.

There are differences in the materials used in the two devices, too, with the Playbar having a metal and cloth outer shell and the Playbase being entirely plastic, but each device is equally stylish and impressively solid in its own way.

Features

The only real feature difference between the Playbar and Playbase is that the Playbar has an extra ethernet socket, taking its total to two. That can be handy if you want to daisy-chain devices, but it’s not something many people will take advantage of. Most, we suspect, will choose simply to make use of Sonos’s reliable wi-fi.

Other than ethernet, the Playbase and Playbar have just power and optical connections, with the latter being the only method of getting sound from your TV to the speaker. That’s right; neither allows for HDMI. Sonos argues that a single optical connection from TV to speaker makes everything simpler, and there’s certainly some truth to that. But we can’t help but feel that a soundbar or soundbase that accepts almost any input, strips out the audio and sends the video to the TV is just as simple and ultimately more flexible.

It can be tricky, for example, to ensure that your TV isn’t downgrading your source’s audio signal before sending it to the Sonos as Dolby Digital (the only surround format it recognises).

Surround sound

But that’s a similarity rather than a difference, as is the fact that both the Playbase and Playbar can be expanded to proper surround sound through the addition of two Play:1, Play:3 or Play:5 speakers, and/or can be granted a huge extra dollop of bass via the Sonos Sub.

Going the whole hog in such a way doesn’t result in a better surround experience than a more traditional AV amp and 5.1 speaker setup, but it is far neater, with each element being wireless except for the power connection.

There’s nothing to separate the Playbase and Playbar when it comes to music streaming either, as both devices are as fully featured as

“Sonos has tuned the Playbar and Playbase so they sound as close to

any other Sonos speaker. Whether you subscribe to Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music or Deezer, you’ll be able instantly to access all of your chosen service’s tunes via the Sonos app, plus integrate any music stored on your phone, computer or NAS device, and access internet radio thanks to Tunein integration. And, should you be lucky enough to own more than one Sonos speaker, you’ll be able to integrate the lot seamlessly into a multi-room system.

Ultimately, there’s little to separate the Playbase and Playbar in this category, unless you feel the need for that extra ethernet socket.

Sound

This is where things get interesting. Sonos has specifically tuned the Playbar and Playbase so they sound as close to one another as possible, with the aim of making positioning the only factor in deciding which one to buy. The truth, though, is that the two sound significantly different.

Both have a rather prodigious ability to produce a wide soundstage and project it a good distance into the room, assuming you’re using the Trueplay setting (and you should). Both also aim for neutral and natural sound, prioritising tonal balance over huge quantities of bass, and that’s a good thing as far as we’re concerned.

But in terms of bass, the Playbase’s physically larger enclosure and cleverly configured woofer allow it to produce more natural deep notes. The bass here is impressively weighty and full-bodied, but also quite tonally nuanced and flexible. In comparison, the Playbar sounds as though it’s compensating for a lack of subtle bass with more of it, and as a result, the bottom end is more monotonal.

The Playbase is the punchier, more attacking speaker. However, it’s also overly zingy and sibilant, to the point that it distracts from the rest of the presentation. Cymbals and snares sound grating and draw the ear away from what is otherwise an enjoyable sound.

The Playbar may be a little softer and less enthusiastic in its delivery overall, but it’s also more controlled in the treble and, ultimately, that makes it a more enjoyable listen.

Verdict

If you’re lucky enough to be flexible in the positioning of your Tv-boosting speaker, we’d recommend the Playbar. It has a handful of flaws whereas the Playbase has just the one, but it’s the comparative size of these that makes the difference.

Even when taken together, the Playbar’s slight lack of punch and bass nuance are less of a big deal than the Playbase’s grating treble. The Playbar’s likeable and smooth balance is never annoying, and that makes it both more flexible in terms of content, and nicer to live with.

There’s not a huge gap between the two, though, so if you’ve decided that you want to transform your TV’S sound with a Sonos speaker and aren’t wall-mounting, the Playbase still makes more sense. But, ultimately, it’s the wall-mounters who will be getting marginally the better of these two Sonos devices.