I have been a fan of Sonos speakers all these years and I’ve collected a few sets of Sonos Play speakers myself. This round, it was nice for TC Acoustic to loan me the Sonos Beam and the Sonos Subwoofer, and to me for this Sonos Beam review and Sonos Subwoofer Introduction.

Sonos Beam Out of the Box

Out of the package, the Sonos beam is about 65cm wide and weighs about 2.8kg, much lighter and smaller than it’s siblings; the Playbar and the Playbase. At the top of the Sonos Beam, you will find a few buttons, one to activate the mic (more on this below), play/pause, and to toggle the volume manually; that’s all. At the back of the speaker, you’ll see the power socket, the sync button, ethernet port, and the HDMI ARC port.

The HDMI ARC Audio Return Channel is a cable that seamless cable that connects between your speaker with the television (this could be found in the newer model). Since mine is a legacy model, the Beam also has the optical audio adapter to plug into my television’s optical output port.

Sonos Subwoofer Out of the Box

I almost broke my back while carrying this 16kg Sonos Subwoofer out of the box, and I had a lot of expectation on this mammoth instrument. I’ve placed it beside my TV console with only the power cord tapping on to the power socket because the subwoofer was linking to the system via the Sonos apps.

There is also an Ethernet port if you can want to connect the subwoofer to your LAN or a router. I feel that it is not necessary to connect your device via LAN in your apartment. Till date, I did not experience any hiccups while using the setup around my home unless you are staying in a multi-storey housing, and you have LAN ports planted in every corner of your house. 

Home Theatre Performance – How does it sound?

I’ve planted two of my existing Sonos Play:1 on the side of my sofa and placed the Sonos Beam in front of the television, with the Sonos subwoofer sitting by its side; my Dolby Digital 5.1 set up is finally complete!

I’ve watched a medley of my favourite movies, such as John Wick, Pacific Rim, Blade Runner, IP Man etc. Dimmed the lights and seeping some whiskey on my sofa, the movie experience was heavenly. I could hear bullets ricochetting from left to right from the surround speakers, movie characters shouting besides my ears and I could felt IP Man’s Wing Chun punches as if I got hit by him.

At a point, I turned up the Sonos Subwoofer Sub Level to the maximum, and I could hear my window grilles rattling! It sounded like the whole house was going tear apart; when the Jaeger (Pacific Rim) stomped thru the town. I have no doubts about the Sonos Subwoofer’s capability.

Sono’s Speech Enhancement is another useful feature that clarifies the characters’ speech and especially listening to news from the news broadcasters.

Additional Features

Sonos Beam also comes with a microphone input for Google Assistant currently. It is useful to activate voice control for me to check the time (I don’t have a clock in the living room), read some news, play music, pause and play a movie.

The Sonos application is a gateway for a vast number of music services such as Spotify, YouTube Music Premium, TuneIn Radio and many more.

Another feature is the alarm allowing me to set the alarm by playing songs from the available music services. Don’t you think it is nice to wake up by chirpy songs around the corner of your house like a morning reveille? I’ve also set some smooth Bossa Nova tunes at 11:30 pm daily to place me in the mood to sleep.

My Overall Thoughts

Being an existing owner of Sonos speakers for around five years, Sonos is not only a speakers producer, but it is also a technology company. They have been consistently updating their software, and it is almost as frequent as compared to Apple and Android system, and I’m confident that this product will get better and better in terms of software support.

I highly recommend pairing the Sonos Beam and the Subwoofer as a set. The beams produce impressive mids and highs given for its small size, and the subwoofer fills in the deep lows. Both Sono Beam and Subwoofer work hand in hand to provide the full dynamic range of sound production and has become an essential entertainment for my family.

Where are the best places to experience these sound system?

• TC Acoustic at Adelphi, 1 Coleman Street The Adelphi #01-17 S179803
• Harvey @ Millenia Walk, Challenger @ Bugis B1

Where can you buy?

• Purchase from trysonos.sg
• Offline stores include stores such as Challenger, Harvey Norman, Courts and Gain City

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