Sonos playbase tv#

Even with PCM audio its powerful (the precise number of Watts is a closely guarded secret) 3.1 array delivers a soundfield that’s dynamic, expansive and sonically well constructed, and one that leaves ordinary TV speakers feeling very sorry for themselves. Watching TV and movies is, for the most part, a real joy. The appeal of the £700 PlayBase is happily not purely a meretricious one. Owners of TVs that don’t have pedestal stands with the weight channelled down the centre should check before they buy, or be prepared to invest in a supplementary stand that floats your screen just above the Playbase such as this from Sanus. The 720mm-wide unit can support TVs weighing up to 35kg, so long as the weight bearing portion of the screen’s stand doesn’t protrude beyond the edges of the soundbase’s top. Also, if you’re listening to music and switch the TV on, the PlayBase helpfully switches automatically to the optical input. Chances are you’ll mostly use the Sonos smartphone/tablet app or computer desktop controller to operate the device.

There are no visible seams and it has the most subtle of physical buttons that can be used to alter the volume, switch between play and pause and select the next or previous track when streaming music. Like the company’s Play:5 speaker, the 58mm-high PlayBase is fashioned from a durable polycarbonate plastic with a pleasing matt finish. The result is that you have no option other than to listen to inferior PCM downmixes.īack on the positives. Another option is to use a third-party HDMI-to-optical converter such as this Flexson.Īnother complaint about the PlayBase is that DTS decoding is not provided, which is a shame given that many Blu-ray discs have DTS surround-sound tracks. It’s not vital that the TV outputs Dolby Digital as a bitstream as the PlayBase can handle the default PCM signal, but the results are noticeably better when Dolby Digital is used. The latter allows the TV’s HDMI ARC (audio return channel) to come into play while other sources can be connected directly to the external speaker avoiding the often complex process of getting the TV to output its signal in Dolby Digital. The idea is that customers connect all other AV devices including PVRs, Blu-ray decks, AV streamers and games consoles to their TV, which acts as a hub, feeding the sound directly to the Playbase via the digital optical output.Īudio visual enthusiasts would prefer to see a slew of optical jacks on their soundbars and soundbases rather than just one, or even better, HDMI inputs.

Sonos playbase