Sonos Roam SL: What kind of experience is it to use portable audio with 1699 yuan
Sonos Roam SL: What kind of experience is it to use portable audio with 1699 yuan

At one time, I thought that more than 1000 portable audio systems were IQ tax.

Sonos is a sound brand in Santa Barbara, California. It is the earliest manufacturer of multi room wireless home smart sound. The Sonos Roam SL is its first portable product (Roam means roaming), which is designed to meet both indoor and outdoor needs. The Bank of China version was released on October 20, with a price of 1699 yuan, even though the National Day holiday is 1399 yuan.

With it, even the ordinary people of Shenzhen Bay No.1 who survived the harsh environment of "Mr. Feiwei can buy Shure 846 from Amway" also experienced what is called foreign spirit.


Parameter repeater

  • 168 x 62 x 60mm, 430g weight, IP67 dustproof, waterproof and anti drop;

  • 1 tweeter+1 mid bass speaker, dual class H digital amplifier;

  • Wi Fi+Bluetooth connection, Apple AirPlay 2;

  • Four core 1.4GHz A53, 1GB memory+4GB storage;

  • 18Wh battery+15W fast charge, 10 hours of life, 10 days of standby in sleep mode.

Roam SL is the world's first product, and the foreign version is Roam. There are also products with SL suffix in the One series. "SL" is the abbreviation of speech, so as the name implies, Roam SL is the version that cancels voice assistant and array microphone, because Google Assistant is a 404 service that does not exist in China.


Packaging and appearance

In the process of unpacking, Sonos Roam SL wrote "environmental protection" vertically and horizontally.

Magnetic wireless charger base and Sonos Roam SL ↑


It is also environmentally friendly than Apple's kraft paper box packaging, 100% recycled paper, easy to tear and seal, and claims to reduce ink consumption without disposable plastic,


Sonos Roam SL Accessories Family Photos ↑


Magnetic wireless charger base of Sonos Roam SL ↑

The Sonos Roam SL is wrapped in a reusable cloth bag, which saves the storage bag and even the packing handle is changed to cloth. Environmental protection packaging is just like the pursuit of low fuel consumption for high-end cars, which is an attitude.

The only environmental regret of the whole machine is that the 5V 2.1A charging head is distributed for wireless charging, but the wire and charging head of the national bank version are bundled with a piece of transparent plastic.


Sonos Roam SL is available in two colors: shadow black and moonlight white. If you want to use it, white is strongly recommended. The whole side of the machine is made of hard plastic, gray white+ultra-fine grained frosting, which is the most textured "Plastic" treatment we have seen in recent years.


The Sonos Roam SL is slightly longer than the mobile phone. Its volume and weight are about the same as those of small mineral water. It uses an interesting triangular prism shape. There is only a Type-C charging port and a power/Bluetooth connection button on the side. The portable speaker is a button with first-class "anti touch" performance. The pressure required is large, and the feedback is not clear. If Bluetooth pairing was not just an ultra-low frequency operation, I might never forgive these portable audio devices in my life.


Both sides of the Sonos Roam SL are made of silica gel, which can also be placed vertically regardless of the front and back (if you can't press the key when you put it back). This shows the advantage of the palindrome logo "SONOS" (both front and back readings are the same).

There is only one bottle of water in the outdoor or home. It can stand and sing. The shape of the triangular prism is also comfortable to hold. The Sonos Roam SL has waterproof and dustproof IP67 and simple anti-collision. Industrial design is impeccable in personal aesthetics. If you really want to find fault, it is easy to leave scratches when the hard shell body rolls down outdoors, as well as American bold and unconstrained workmanship.


There is a hidden LED indicator at the end of the fuselage, one is responsible for power supply, and the other is responsible for Bluetooth/Wi Fi connection status indication.

The magnetic suction wireless charging of the Sonos Roam SL uses the Qi standard (input 5V 2.1A). The base can charge the mobile phone, and the Sonos Roam SL can also use the wireless charging base of the mobile phone (you have to solve the alignment problem yourself).

The wireless charger base is also made of white silica gel similar to the body. Like Apple MagSafe, the base can be sucked up by the mobile phone without alignment. If you like, it can also be charged horizontally without being blocked by the line.


tone quality

Although it is a Bluetooth audio body, the Sonos Roam SL essentially makes the "traditional" Sonos Wi Fi wireless audio smaller, adds power and adds Bluetooth functions. The original set of software and hardware functions of Sonor are all universal.

It is not very accurate to say that the Sonos Roam SL (daily 1699, double 11 1399) is the Bose Soundlink mini (daily 1199) and JBL Charge 5 (daily 1299), which are Bluetooth audio competitors.

Wi Fi audio is an unpopular category. Generally, only fever brands do it, so the price is on the high side. Because it is Wi Fi streaming, the upper limit of sound quality is very high, and the price of the whole family bucket is also very high. The audio quality limit of the Bluetooth device is placed there and compared with the Bluetooth audio, which is the biggest insult to the Wi Fi audio.

The audio configuration of the Sonos Roam SL is a mid bass speaker+1 tweeter+dual class H digital amplifier+special tuning by Oscar winning audio engineers. The sound quality is basically in line with the expectation of a 1000 yuan small speaker, which is better than those bluetooth speakers at the same price (users who spend more than 1000 yuan to buy a small bluetooth speaker back home may have deeply experienced the meaning of the word "gap").  

its The tuning is similar to the bass enhanced "apple water" , is a more durable setting. It may be to give consideration to outdoor and indoor use scenarios. The maximum volume is enough for square dancing. The sound is full, high frequency is clear, low frequency is sufficient, and the connection between medium and high frequency is slightly empty. Listening to music or watching movies will not be too competitive.

Sonos Roam SL is designed for small rooms and outdoor use. It can be used as audio for computers or in rooms. A single Sonos Roam SL is sufficient. If the living room is used, it needs another one. It's better to find other home theater products of Sonos.


Use experience: shocked

If it is the first time to contact Sonos products, the use process of Roam SL is "full of two words".

The usage of Sonos Roam SL is a normal Wi Fi wireless sound system, which can be paired online. As long as you click Play in the APP under the same Wi Fi, whether it is a mobile phone or a computer, you can start a party.


Roam SL is the first Sonos product connected to Wi Fi and Bluetooth at the same time. Roam SL is really a normal Bluetooth speaker when offline, and supports AAC at most. What the official does is non sensory optimization. When the network is disconnected, it will seamlessly switch to the Bluetooth connection. In addition, the Sonos Roam SL will cache songs. When it runs out of the Wi Fi range, there will be no intermittent music. Generally, only after the songs are sung, it will know that it is disconnected, but the machine has already switched to the Bluetooth connection.

But the most interesting way for Sonos is to make Sonos Roam SL become the Bluetooth transit station/entrance of other Sonos devices, so that the traditional Sonos audio without Bluetooth function can also play Bluetooth music. Using Bluetooth to control the whole Sonos Wi Fi audio system, it is very rich.



For the mobile audio part, the 18Wh battery of the Sonos Roam SL can play for 10 hours continuously and sleep for 10 days. It wakes up quickly even if it is not connected to the power supply, and can be played immediately by clicking the APP or manually.

The charging specification is 15W wired charging+10W wireless charging, because in normal times, wires must be connected or placed on the wireless charging board indoors, not like many Bluetooth speakers, when you suddenly go out and forget to charge.


Very long official instructions ↑


In order to carry the voice assistant (the Bank of China version does not carry it for well-known reasons) and Sonor's wireless audio system with up to 32 room partitions, even entry-level Sonor devices such as Sonos Roam SL have significantly higher hardware specifications than conventional routers (4-core 1.4GHz A53 CPU, 1GB memory+4GB storage), the instructions are exaggerated. After connecting it to WiFi, the local computer can even see a media server like NAS/router storage (just can't store anything), which is full of foreign flavor.


  Sonos S2 mobile phone APP


PC client ↑

The core of the Sonos system is the app of Sonos S2 (the old product line uses Sonos S1), including Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and even Amazon's FireOS version, Surprise!



The Sonos S2 looks and works like a normal music player, but it brings me the most surprises. With this app alone, it can open a Chang'an Street from its friends.

It is not necessary for the APP background to complete the Wi Fi networking and connection of its own audio system. It is a normal operation to combine multiple Sonos devices to make stereo sound, or to set up multiple rooms.

 

The top point of Sonos S2 is that it aggregates multiple music sources, can batch synchronize playlists/lists, and even log in to multiple accounts on a single platform (log in to several QQ music or online cloud suppression accounts at the same time), can also search music on multiple platforms at the same time. An authentic aggregation tool is just right for merging resources scattered on various platforms, or for merging the songs of the whole family.

There are dozens of services supported, including Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora and Pocket Casts abroad, and Netease Cloud, QQ Music, Kuwo, Migu, Kuke Music, Litchi, Penguin FM, Phoenix FM and Lazy People in China.

However, if its APP can work without audio and let the mobile phone play the sound source of multiple platforms directly, the mobile phone can remove a lot of APP, which is a pity.


summary


S. The thousand yuan Bluetooth speakers of J and B have taught us about brand premium. In front of them, HomePods of large and small sizes are cost-effective, while Sonos Roam SL with unique appearance, good sound quality, Wi Fi audio+cross platform music aggregation is like doing charity. Even compared with Sonos' own products, buying all the black and white versions of Sonos Roam SL is still a bit cheaper than other products. The best promotion ambassador of Sonos S2 APP belongs to.

However, returning from the stratosphere to the troposphere, even 1399 is more expensive for most domestic users, and it is still a product of high-end users for the time being. As a civilian of Shenzhen Bay No.1, I am looking forward to its performance in the shopping festival and seafood market in the future.


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