Sonos goes architectural

Sonos has made one of its rare range expansions with the announcement of new architectural speakers for inside and outside the home.

The new speakers have been developed with architectural speaker specialist Sonance to work specifically with the Sonos Amp, and Sonance has done well to persuade Sonos to title them ‘Sonos In-Wall by Sonance’ and ‘Sonos In-Ceiling by Sonance’.

Up to three pairs of the new ‘Sonos Architectural’ models can be powered by one of the new Sonos Amps, which is also now available after being announced last year. When paired with a Sonos Amp, the In-Ceiling and In-Wall speakers allow Trueplay tuning, where you wave a smart device slowly around the room to apply a certain level of room EQ to account for the room and furnishings.

But we’re trying to work out how this could operate with three pairs attached, since the Sonos Amp has a single set of speaker outputs. It seems unlikely that individual control of music, volume or room EQ would be possible in this scenario.

Both In-wall and In-Ceiling models have round (optional square) grilles which can be painted to match the ceiling. The Outdoor speaker (on the right in the image here) is the first Sonos speaker designed for outdoor use, with a weatherproof design “engineered to withstand humidity, water, salt spray, heat, UV rays, and freezing temperatures”.

Interestingly, Sonos is on record as saying these speakers are not intended as consumer items.

“Our goal isn’t to get these into a bunch of consumer hands,” Sonos’ director of business development Ryan Taylor was reported as saying by CEPro last year. “We’re not trying to drive direct sales of in-ceiling speakers.” More info: www.sonos.com.au