Should you buy a Sonos?

From the voice-activated Sonos One to the Alexa-enabled Sonos Beam, Sonos has quite the lineup of premium audio listening devices. If you're looking for a premium audio experience, easy pairing and streaming of audio, loads of audio services, excellent design, and near-universal compatibility with mobile devices, you're going to want to give Sonos at least a little bit of your time. Want to learn a little more? This guide can help you decide if the Sonos system is right for you.

What is Sonos?

It used to be that if you wanted to play music in any room of your house other than the room with the stereo, you had to run wires and connect them to at least a pair of speakers in each one. Talk about cumbersome and labor-intensive work! And let's not forget all the holes in the walls and yards of unsightly wires running everywhere.

Well, those days are over: Sonos is a speaker system that connects wirelessly to your computer, phone, or tablet to play music in any room or every room of your home. It also plays music directly from music streaming services.

Here's the current (extensive) list:

  • Apple Music
  • Pandora
  • Spotify
  • Amazon Music Unlimited
  • Google Play Music
  • SiriusXM
  • SoundCloud
  • Deezer
  • TuneIn
  • Napster
  • iHeartRadio
  • 7digital
  • AccuRadio
  • Anghami
  • Audiobooks.com
  • Bandcamp
  • Batanga
  • CalmRadio
  • Classical Archives
  • Concert Vault
  • CustomChannels
  • DAR.fm
  • DASII
  • Daytrotter
  • FIT Radio
  • Focus@will
  • Gaana.com
  • Groove
  • Hearts of Space
  • Hotelradio.fm
  • Hype Machine
  • Live Phish
  • Mixcloud
  • MLB.com Gameday Audio
  • Mood:Mix
  • Murfie
  • Nugs.net
  • Radionomy
  • RadioPup
  • Rockbot
  • Rusc
  • Saavn
  • Slacker Radio
  • Soundmachine
  • Spreaker
  • Stingray Music
  • Stitcher Radio
  • Tidal
  • Tribe of Noise
  • Your personal music library

How does Sonos work?

Sonos uses your existing Wi-Fi setup to establish its own secure wireless mesh network (SonosNet). Over this network, the speakers connect to and play music from any device with Wi-Fi capability and the internet. All of this is managed by the Sonos app, which is available for Windows computers, Android phones and tablets, iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers.

If your Wi-Fi connection isn't reliable, Sonos speakers and devices have ethernet ports so you can hardwire a speaker into your router to guarantee a secure connection, or daisy chain speakers together in rooms where the Wi-Fi strength is lacking.

Can you tell me more about the Sonos lineup? What speakers and devices are available?

Whether you're an audiophile who wants premium sound for their television, living room, and office, or a person who wants to enjoy music wirelessly in your home, Sonos probably has a player for you.

Good to know. But should I buy a Sonos?

You should definitely consider Sonos if you want to play music from any of your Wi-Fi capable devices or your favorite music streaming service in any room of your house. While it's not the only company that produces similar devices, (Bose comes to mind,) Sonos has received positive reviews from audio-snobs and regular music lovers alike.

Whether you're one of the aforementioned audio-snobs, or regular-joe-music lover, give Sonos a try! If you've got any specific questions or want to share your Sonos experience, be sure to leave a comment or send me a reply over on Twitter!

Mikah Sargent

Mikah Sargent is Senior Editor at Mobile Nations. When he's not bothering his chihuahuas, Mikah spends entirely too much time and money on HomeKit products. You can follow him on Twitter at @mikahsargent if you're so inclined.