The Sonos Playbase speaker that sits under your TV

Sonos has a brand new speaker for the first time since 2013. 

The company has redesigned and refreshed some existing products in its popular lineup of multi-room audio speakers since then, but today marks the introduction of Sonos’ first wholly-new device since the Playbar. Yes, it’s called the Playbase, and yes, it’s another speaker meant to be paired with your television. The $699 Playbase, which starts shipping April 4th, has a relatively simple reason for existing: most TVs — Sonos says roughly 70 percent — aren’t wall-mounted. Those people, who just attach their TV to the stand in the box and call it a day, are who the Playbase is for. If your set is mounted, Sonos is still selling the Playbar at the exact same price point. This isn’t so much a successor as it is an alternative.

The Playbase supports TVs up to 75 pounds. If your TV stand sits beneath your set at the center, you can just put it directly on top of the Playbase. If not, for TVs that have legs on each side, the unit’s height (2.28 inches) should allow it to fit between them underneath the display in many cases.

It’s not an attention grabber in the grand scheme of your living room, but if you examine the Playbase up close, the design is pretty impressive. Weighing a little under 20 pounds, the Playbase feels like a solid, seamless piece of polycarbonate. It’s like a squashed, flattened Play:5. Tap on it with a knuckle and it’s not hollow. There’s no rattling inside. Sonos’ designers have structured the Playbase to withstand the weight of a TV “for years” and it feels every bit that sturdy. Up front is the Sonos logo, flanked by 43,000 individually-drilled holes that increase in size as they progress to the sides of the Playbase. The top surface is completely smooth and flat, featuring the same touch controls as the Play:5 speaker. Around back are three ports: ethernet, optical audio, and a power input.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The Playbase can join your existing wireless Sonos system for multi-room audio, and the company claims it to be “equal parts TV and music speaker.” Inside are 10 drivers: 6 of them midrange, 3 tweeters, and 1 flat-mounted subwoofer to cover the low end. Each is custom designed to maximize performance and deliver better audio playback than you’d expect from the speaker’s footprint. Sonos’ designers love talking about the “S port” inside (which carries airflow from the woofer, while also improving bass response and cooling) as just one example of the precise, thought-out engineering that went into the Playbase.

You can pair the Playbase with Sonos’ Sub subwoofer for another $700, add two Play:1 speakers ($200 each) for a proper 5.1 surround setup, or do both of those things for the best possible sound output. That quickly gets expensive, however, and at a recent press gathering at the company’s Boston offices, Sonos was happy to demonstrate how good the Playbase performs on its own merits without the added components. Sonos’ Trueplay feature, which optimizes playback for whatever room you put the speaker in, plays a big part in that.

And by itself, the Playbase did sound nice to my ears. Producer Giles Martin, who holds the position of “Sound Experience Leader” at Sonos, said he conferred with movie composers and music studio engineers alike to find the right balance for the Playbase. The takeaway is the same as with other Sonos gear: if you want to avoid Googling and researching, and if you’re willing to spend a decent amount of money for something that sounds very good, this — like the Playbar before it — will certainly rise to the top of any recommendations pile.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

But home theater enthusiasts might be disappointed with some of the technical omissions. For one, the Playbase uses Dolby Digital for surround and doesn’t support DTS multichannel audio. Neither does the Playbar. Here’s what a company spokesperson had to say about that decision (emphasis ours):

Source: http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/7/14828738/sonos-playbase-tv-speaker-soundbar-announced