Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a HUGE Sonos fan. I own 3 Play:5's and a Sub. I'd been wanting to replace my bulky 5.1 speaker system with a Playbar since it was rumored. All their products have incredible sound quality so I was optimistic about this set up. Set up is easy, sound quality is good for the unit. It's a nice product and looks great while being easy to operate (although more reliant on the Sonos application than I'd prefer). It's the typical awesomeness that you get with any Sonos product. When testing the Playbar with a direct connection to a device (e.g. Apple TV) and running it compared to my 5 speaker system through my receiver I was impressed with the quality. Sound was more spread out and filled the room better but dialog/center was ultimately a bit shallow feeling. If you turn on speech enhancement in the menu it helps out but something still feels slightly off. It's something you're unlikely to notice unless you're actively comparing like I was but to the Playbar's credit it was no slouch. I had a few people compare with me and everyone picked the typical 5.1 setup for better sound but had positive things to say about the Playbar - mainly noting its shallow feel in certain rangers and with dialog as the main issues. Here's the issue though: Sonos says they want you to use your TV as a hub, all the inputs going to the TV and then optical audio out from the TV to the Playbar. Great idea - but the problem is that most TV's won't pass Dolby Digital (DD) 5.1 surround from HDMI to the digital/optical audio. If it's from the TV itself (such as Netflix on a smart TV) or input directly from the coaxial cable it will pass 5.1 through the optical port BUT not from HDMI. This is either required to be HDCP compliant or is a licensing/cost issue (not sure). There are a few tv's that do this but they're few and far between and hard to verify. So if you have multiple sources (say an Xbox 360, Blu-Ray player, Apple TV, etc) there's no way for those sources to ever deliver 5.1 to the Playbar as Sonos intended (assuming you add a sub and some Play:3's to the mix). And you can't wire multiple inputs directly to the Playbar because they have a single input for the sake of simplicity. Normally I'm fine with this, but in light of the limitation with HDMI => optical pass through on TVs this became an oversight to me upon learning about the pass through issue. You can solve this by finding a TV or receiver that does pass through DD 5.1 through the optical audio, but you shouldn't have to. Alternatively you can use an optical audio switch, which is fine most of the time but may not work with a blu-ray player since Playbar lacks DTS support and are also limited on inputs, but this doesn't solve what to do for certain devices that don't have an optical audio port (e.g. most computers, Wii U, etc). In the end you're left with a system that is capable of producing much better sound (especially if a sub and some Play:3s are added) that most everyone won't be able to hear and results in this not sounding as good as it costs. And that's just a shame to me. Pros: ++Easy set up ++Sonos +Decent sound from stereo source Cons: ---Single optical input only --No DTS support --Entire package is expensive for 5.1 (or even 3.1) The only scenario I can see this being a good thing is if you have a room where you want to add a Sonos component and a soundbar to and you want to do it in a single package without caring about other components, like for a Den or a bedroom. Any other solution seems like there'd be a better option. Ultimately I'm disappointed. Had Sonos included multiple audio inputs or HDMI pass through, or even better yet HDMI switching (in place of a receiver) then this could have been an amazing piece. But the reliance on a single optical input being provided from the TV, one which will down convert any HDMI source's audio to stereo sound, in the name of simplicity just seems like a bad idea. Had I known about the tv's not passing through audio I wouldn't have bought this. My mistake, honestly, but it just makes it baffling as to why Sonos didn't provide different input options. As it stands I'm returning it. Hopefully Sonos will look in to making an HDMI hub option as an accessory. ** Update ** The landscape has changed in terms of tvs that do pass 5.1 through and it's better. It's still difficult to determine precisely so I'd suggest checking forums to see if your TV does in indeed pass 5.1 out. My 2015 LG OLED does not but I'm under the impression the 2017 models do, possibly the 2016 models for example. That all said I think my points made above still stand. Most existing TVs don't do this and it's still very hard to verify. Additionally I'd like to note the omission of another audio format, Dolby Atmos. Sonos says they elected to omit this on the Playbase (the related product to this) because so few things used it and they wanted to focus on streaming but the issue is this limits user choice. Vudu, Netflix, and iTunes support or will support Dolby Atmos. There are likely more services that do as well. They have their very specific viewpoint of how people should use this product and with what (5.1 over optical in DD, steaming services) and that options aren't needed. There are better products out there, especially for the total money spent. I'm not saying there's no market for this or it's terrible - if you have a TV that passes 5.1 and you don't care about DTS and Dolby Atmos it's a fine product and exactly the scenario that Sonos has in mind. But if you want options or don't have a TV that will and you'll be limited to stereo, look elsewhere then. You can do better or cheaper. It's just a shame that Sonos continues to limit this product as, when it works as they want it to, it's great.