You've Got to feel the Music! A Brief Review of the Sonos Play1.

Introduction.

Santa was very good to me this Christmas! He brought me not one, but two Sonos Play1 devices. I'd heard about players from Sonos through internet radio and friends on Twitter who have them, and I was keen to try them, so I was very lucky to get two this year to evaluate the experience. Thanks very much Lulu!

What Are Sonos Devices?

Put very simply, Sonos develop a range of sophisticated speaker systems which do a good deal more than amplify sound you may care to stream from your audio device. You can listen to any one of a hundred thousand radio stations on the TuneIn platform, hear podcasts, stream music from a variety of online streaming services (including Spotify and soon to come Apple Music), hear radio shows on MixCloud and so much more. To hear a radio station, a computer does not need to be switched on.

The Sonos Website also claimed that you could stream music from your computer or i-Device. Streaming from the computer was something in which I was very interested. We have a lot of music stored on the computers, already divided into our favourite folders for listening, so this was important. If you have a NAS storage device (or similar) hooked into your wireless network, Sonos players can also use that as a means of streaming content for you to hear.

What should be obvious to you by now is that there has to be a way of you selecting what you want to listen to, and there is. It's called the Sonos Controller app, available for the i-Device, Smartphone, tablet or computer. As a blind person, you'll understand that this kind of thing filled me with a little apprehension, because you always wonder how accessible such an app is going to be with screen-reading technology. We'll get to that in a moment.

Sonos develop a range of players depending upon your budget and circumstances. These include the Play1, Play3, Play5 and PlayBar. So, which one to purchase? A good comparison of the features of each player is contained on the Sonos website.

What other people think is good in terms of audio reproduction may not have matched our expectations. Baring in mind we hadn't heard the sound of such a player, or worked with the app, we thought it was safer to go with two Play1 devices initially. We could then build the system up if we wanted to or purchase alternative products in the range.

The Sonos website states that the Play1 contains deep, crystal clear sound and is compact and surprisingly powerful. Two Class-D digital amplifiers are perfectly tuned to match the speakers and acoustic architecture. One tweeter creates a crisp and accurate high-frequency response. One mid-woofer ensures the faithful reproduction of mid-range frequencies crucial for accurate playback of vocals and instruments, while also delivering a deep, rich bass. Turn two Play1 devices into separate left and right channel speakers to create wider, bigger, and deeper sound.

The weight of the Play1 is 4.08 lb (1.85 kg). The dimensions are 6.36 x 4.69 x 4.69 (in) / 161.45 X 119.7 x 119.7 (mm).

Unpacking and Setup.

I always like to do some research first to find out how I should be using the device, and this I tried to do. But as with many things, I found mixed reactions. Some people said there were accessibility concerns with the I O S app. Many people said the PC app for Windows was not suitable for screen-readers. But there was a podcast on Applevis and, while it was just a brief overview and contained no specific instructions including those for setup, it did at least tell me that the app for the iPhone appeared to adhere to good standards of accessibility. So I started out on the basis that I should use my iPhone to set up the first device and work from there. I did not read the instructions, a testimony to how easy it is to set up.

In the box you receive the Sonos Play1, a power cable, and a lead to connect it to a router via ethernet if you wish. I have not done this and have chosen to use our wireless network to provide more flexibility. The Play1 needs internet and/or network connectivity of some kind in order to function, together with electrical power. It is not battery driven.

There are two controls on the top of the unit, a button for turning the unit on and off/Play/skipping to the next track, and a second for the volume control. This latter button can be pressed in any one of two positions to increment or decrement the volume level. I pressed the power button, waited for a moment, and pressed the volume up button. I heard a musical chord sound, so I knew things were going well.

I then installed the iPhone app from the App Store. The setup process walked me through the procedure to set up the device and connect it to our network. While there are references to visual indications, (such as proceed to the next step when a particular light is being displayed), I basically followed my nose and hoped for the best. There is also a step where you need to hold down the two buttons simultaneously as illustrated on the screen, but simply holding them down for a couple of seconds will suffice.

Apart from having to enter the password for our wireless network, the rest of the installation and registration procedure is very easy to do.

Finding Music.

It was now time to find a radio station to listen to since I thought that would be the easiest thing to do. Everything in the app is accessible on the iPhone, and sequentially moving through it by flicking right in the usual manner will take you to each element in turn. I found the area to enter a station name, (although you can also browse by station musical genre or style), and I typed both Mushroom FM and Rewound Radio, as those are the stations I listen to most. On each occasion the station was quickly found and activating each of these in turn caused it to begin playing. I could see the song title, change the volume, and add each station to my favourites, right from the app. How cool is that? I could also set an alarm to wake me up in the morning or a sleep timer so as to shut down the unit after a defined period.

Because I wanted to add music from the computer as described above, I then turned my attention to the Windows app, downloadable from the company's website. I needed to tell the PC Controller app that I was adding it to an existing system rather than setting up a new one.

Had I not had the JAWS Convenient OCR feature, (to scan the screen content in environments which do not render standard text), this could have been more difficult but not impossible. As it was, I could use this feature to read the explanatory text on each setup screen. However the actual controls themselves were accessible, navigated through with the Tab and Arrow keys.

When the app was customised, I could then select my music folders I wanted to add to Sonos. This is because once the app is set up, all aspects of it are accessible. The Tab key can be moved through controls, a standard menu bar exists (activated with the ALT key), and a set of keyboard shortcuts can be used to activate (or move to) the most common elements, such as to carry out a search or move back to the main menu. I was therefore not only able to add my music folders, but I can search by artist or track, play a folder and even shuffle its content or apply cross-fading which is very nice. In summary, you have exactly the same level of flexibility with the Windows app that you do with that for the I-Devices, and I would go as far as saying its probably easier on the computer, although that could be because that is the way I prefer to interact with most things if I can.

What I Like About the Sonos Play1 So Far.

Do please bare in mind that I've only been using the Play1 for about 3 hours at this point.

The most obvious advantage is that I can have one of the Play1 units on my desk. When I want to hear some music or the radio, I turn it on, and it immediately plays the last item being listened to, whether that is a song available on a PC on the network, or a radio station. The Sonos is capable of accessing up to 16 PC's on the network.

When I listen to a radio station for example, I am not interrupted by push notifications, extraneous chatter from the screen-reader, phone calls, alarms, and so on. Because it is a self-contained device, I can hear music while working away on something quite separate. For those people who constantly ask me questions such as, "Why do you want a specialist talking book player when you can read on your iPhone", that is the primary reason. You turn them on and they just work without fiddling around loading up an app, and without unwanted "verbal clutter". The same applies here.

If you have two Play1 units, you can either have them as a stereo pair, you can hear the same music source in two rooms, or separate items in each room. The choice is yours.

Turning first to the stereo pair configuration, the separation is impressive and the Sonos deals with this very well. I listened to some music by the Beatles and Frank Sinatra as a first test. I was very impressed with how the stereo separation sounded and I am extremely particular about how audio does sound.

I have to now write a little about graphic equalisation and room settings. If the items are not a stereo pair, the concept here is that you assign a device to a room type, I.E., where the unit is situated. This can easily be done during or after setup. There is a long list of room types and you choose the one you think best suits the environment. When you use the app thereafter, you can select the room accommodating each unit and decide how you want to work with it in terms of what it is playing.

Clearly, these "room types" contain specific acoustic settings which hopefully showcase best performance for the device. However, you can fine tune this by changing the graphic equalisation settings through the Controller. I wouldn't say the range of settings provided ultimate flexibility by any means, but certainly you can change the bass and trebble. As you do this, the results are instantaneous, so you can immediately appreciate whether what you are doing is to your liking. Remember too that, just because you've placed a speaker in the lounge does not mean you have to choose the setting which Sonos think would suit your living area. You might choose "Family Room" as an example which may yield a more favourable response.

Summary.

I am very pleased with the Play1 so far. I'm already using it to listen to the radio, I know that I can hear music from my computer and that it shuffles and crossfades nicely. So I am a very happy recipient of the Play1 and I know I'm going to discover a good deal more about it during the days and weeks ahead. We're already talking about adding our movies folder to the Sonos so we can watch the films we enjoy, receiving high quality sound in the process.

One further point to note. Unlike some of the other devices in the Play series, the Play1 is not equipped with a line-in socket, so I cannot connect my Victor Reader Stream for example to it to hear my books. However, it would be possible to purchase one of the other devices in the series which does have such a socket included, connect the talking book player to it via a cable, and stream the output to the second speaker. So that is a useful workaround. When you add subsequent Play-devices, the process for adding it to an existing system is far faster than configuring the first unit.

So far then, I would highly recommend the Sonos devices if you are visually impaired and I look forward to sharing further thoughts on them over time.

Post Script.

Having experimented much further, we have now added a Spotify and an Apple Music account to the Sonos. Apple Music is currently in beta.

With both services, you can find songs, view the content of playlists, play a song from a playlist, or hear it in its entirity. You can also see songs recommended for you among other things. What I like particularly is that irrespective of the service you are using, the interface is consistent. Even the names of categories are the same across platforms, arranged in nice easy to use lists. All music services (including Apple Music) can have Sonos settings applied, such as equalisation and crossfading.

Because of the thought that has gone into the implementation, I would go as far as saying that this product is revolutionary. That is not a word I would use lightly, but I don't think I am overstating this. The fact that a person can have access to all their audio content (including radio listening) in one place, and the ease of access for a blind person, will help an enormous number of people. Many people simply do not want to become involved with the complexities of TuneIn, Spotify, Apple Music and others. This interface shields the user from having to work through them.

While there are some small accessibility niggles in respect of initial setup and customisation, these can be corrected either through scripting or modifications to the app on the PC side. But if you are willing, you can get around these very small deficits without such modifications.

Congratulations to Sonos on a marvellous product!