Sonos Play 1 and Sonos Subwoofer. Great sound. Great fun. Great Value.

Sonos Play 1

As much as I love high end audio equipment, I have to admit it's something that only a small minority of folks have a similar passion for. Very few people bother to sit down just to listen to music these days. Maybe because they've already heard "Stairway to Freebird" or "Dark Side of the White Album" so many times they can't stand to hear them again. The sad thing is that there's quite a bit of good new music being made but it does require a little effort to find it. A lot of it is from your favorite artists, and a lot of it is from new artists that are right in your wheelhouse of music. Don't expect to hear it on your local radio stations. That is where you are more likely to hear The Eagles, Eric Clapton, Traffic and weather. (Yes, that's a pun.) But there is another way.

The Sonos Play 1 and Sonos Subwoofer:   For those of you who are not yet familiar, Sonos is a hardware system for playing music directly from the internet via Rhapsody, Pandora, Spotify and lots more. It will also play music from your iTunes library, FM radio, your iPhone, iPad, and on and on. You can go directly to the Sonos website to read more about it's capabilities.

Today I'll be commenting on two specific Sonos components. The Sonos Play 1 speaker and the Sonos Subwoofer. Both are self contained powered speakers that require little more than plugging them into the wall. When first installing a Sonos system you will need to connect a Sonos Bridge or a Sonos Boost to your router and download the free app to your phone or tablet. The bridge sells for $49.00 the more powerful Boost for $99.00. It's a snap to do and won't take more than a few minutes.

Once it's configured as a system, a left and right speaker along with the sub, you're pretty much done. It's just a matter of positioning the speakers where they sound best in your room. If you are one of the few remaining audio enthusiasts who sit down and listen to music and care about things such as sound staging and imaging, you will be rewarded by placing the Play 1's in audiophile approved positions. If you've never heard of sound staging or imaging, pretend you didn't read that last line and move on. Put the Play 1's where they look good. Hopefully along the same wall. Put the Subwoofer in the corner of the room and hold on tight.

Sonos Subwoofer

The Play 1's and Subwoofer when combined as a system will provide you with music that goes from the deepest bass that most people will ever need in their home, up through the highest highs anyone old enough to know Paul was a Beatle can possibly hear. It has excellent tonal balance, as well as good detail in the midrange and treble. It plays darn loud too, and if placed properly according to audiophile guidelines, images quite well! Want to have some fun? Put on "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" by Bela Fleck. The bass will rattle anything that's not nailed down. Want to really have some fun? Try "Get Low" by Lil Jon. Make the kids leave the room first and be sure Tipper Gore is nowhere in the area. This guy is the poster boy for the "Explicit Lyrics" label.

The really cool thing about Sonos is the enormous quantity of music that it puts at your fingertips. Once you've connected the system you can subscribe to Spotify, Rhapsody or any of the available subscription services, and start listening to your favorite music for about $10.00 per month. You can also store the music in a library. You'll have access to free Pandora and a lot of other free services. Check out the Sonos website for more details.

So that's just one way I like to get great sound for little money.  It's a really fun way to get back into music again. That's a good thing.


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A Budget Legacy Audio Aeris

The Legacy Audio Aeris priced at around $20,000 a pair, depending on finish, is considered by many to be one of the best value audiophile speakers currently available. Its combination of Air Motion Transformer tweeters, titanium encrusted low midrange and powered subwoofer system all loaded into a stunning cabinet would be enough to qualify as a remarkable achievement. When you couple that with the included 24 bit DSP room correction equalizer you have what truly is one of the most flexible and capable speaker systems available at or anywhere near its price. I've had the system in my home now for over a year and I am constantly amazed at its capabilities. Even after dozens of hours of working with it I don't think I've taken full advantage of what the system can do. Mostly due to the tremendous amount of flexibility of adjustment of the WaveLaunch processor, the name given to the DSP unit. But this is not a review of the Aeris, which I'll get to in the future, but a review of what I've come to think of as the poor man's Aeris. Poor being relative, I know.

Legacy Aeris

One of the best things about the Aeris can also be viewed as one of its greatest drawbacks. If you simply want to set up the Aeris and crank up your tunes you may as well forget it. At least if you're looking to get the best from them. If you're new to the system and want to set them up yourself plan on spending a few weeks learning the intricacies of the Wavelaunch processor and spending some additional money on a good measuring system. I use the XTZ Room Analyzer and have had good results. If you're an avid audiophile, computer savvy and like doing this kind of thing the Aeris is right up your alley. If you're more interested in listening to music than learning a new software program or two then I have what may be the audiophile deal of the century.

Most audiophiles already have what they like in an amplifier and in most cases don't really need a powered woofer system or at least can do without one. Most really don't need the WaveLaunch Processor. In my opinion most of the benefit of the processor comes from what it can do to ameliorate room problems in the bass region. With such prodigious bass capabilities the Aeris can easily overwhelm a room with bass and most certainly will create resonant frequencies that will tend to muddy things up and rob the system of the incredible clarity that it's capable of. To be fair that's the case for virtually all floor standing loudspeakers in almost all rooms and I believe its the one area that needs addressed the most.

If the Legacy Aeris is one of the best values in high end speakers what does that make the Legacy Focus SE? An even more incredible high end value. The Focus SE at a bit more than half of the Aeris's price brings almost everything to the table that the Aeris brings with a couple of minor exceptions. First, the stunning cabinetry had to go. You'll still get excellent fit and finish and gorgeous woodwork but the accent trim that makes the Aeris such a pleasure to look at simply cannot be included for the price. Second is the powered woofer system. If you're already happy with your amplifier no big deal there. The Focus SE's are very efficient and easy to drive. Third, no DSP unit. A mixed blessing depending on your view of such things.

Legacy Focus SE

What do you get with the Focus SE? You get the same AMT tweeter system that's responsible for the remarkable clarity of the Aeris. You get two 7" midrange drivers that are to my ears fully the equal of the Aeris's titanium encrusted midrange. You also get two 12" aluminum cone woofers that produce some of the deepest and cleanest bass your room is likely to accommodate. Essentially you get a system that has almost all of the attributes of the Aeris save the room correction. I can attest to this because I've spent many hours swapping the Focus SE's and Aeris's in the same room. One thing that does suffer when the Focus's replace the Aeris's is bass clarity. The room where the Aeris's are located in my home is smaller than optimal and one of the main reasons I purchased the Aeris's was because of the room correction system. I knew with some work I could get them to sound their best. And a lot of work it was.

Enter the DSP: Anti-Mode 2.0. This is not intended to be a review of the Anti-Mode 2.0 but I will talk briefly about its use. The DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 is essentially a two channel automatic room correction equalizer. It works up to 150 hZ, as it's set from the factory and is designed to remove the most egregious room modes. It sells for about $1200.00. Suffice it to say that it does its job very well and seems to do it quite transparently. It did an excellent job of removing the bass bloat from the Legacy Focus SE's in my room and did wonders for increasing bass clarity. Just as significantly it did the same for lower midrange and midrange clarity. The difference on most music was immediately obvious and quite startling . The Anti-Mode has a bypass mode so comparing the results to the unequalized speaker is quite easy. Not once did I prefer the unequalized results. I'll have more to say about the Anti-Mode at a later date. The Anti-Mode 2.0 is so simple and easy to use that within 90 minutes of opening the box I was getting excellent results that I could easily live with on a long term basis.

DSPeaker Anti Mode 2.0

So with the Focus SE/DSPeaker Anti Mode combination you get for essentially about half the price of the Aeris about 90% of the performance. There's absolutely no science in that number but that's how subjective reviews work. Granted you won't get the stunning cabinet work of the Aeris or even the cool lighting in the crossover, but you will get an awful lot of what makes the Aeris such a great value in high end audio. That in my opinion makes the Focus SE/DSPeaker Anti-Mode combination a spectacular high end deal.

Next up. A really fun alternative to a two channel high end audio system. Prepare to be surprised!


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