SONOS PLAY:5

As of November 25 you'll be able to get yourself the new SONOS PLAY:5 – a juggernaut of a speaker that prides itself on delivering what SONOS call 'the ultimate listening experience'.

SONOS pretty much cornered the market for linked speakers that you control from your smart device. Now other speaker brands have rushed out their own versions of the technology SONOS are upping their game with this £429 beast that'll make your current Bluetooth speaker sound like a hornet hissing out of a beer can.

So the sound is amazing. But how? When you set up the SONOS you have to go though a strange ritual that involves you sneaking around the room you intend to put the speaker in, waving your smartphone up and down whilst not making any noise. The reason is the speaker links to your phone, and listens through your phones microphone for any variation in the pulsating noise the PLAY:5 makes during this sound test. You feel like a wally, shoes off, waving your phone around like a wizard casting a spell in slow-motion – but you're assured you're doing this for the good of your rooms acoustics. Based on the feedback the SONOS adjusts its output settings and then you're all set.

That is unless you want to use Apple Music or Spotify Freemium – those are still not SONO compatible – but we're assured the former will be working by the end of 2015.

You can link it to existing SONOS speakers in your house so you can have the same music follow you around the house of even different music in different rooms. Plus you no longer need to buy a separate SONOS Bridge. Plus it looks like SONOS have listened and have added a line-in input too so you can connect it to other devices. It'll even throw the noise in different directions to enable stereo from the single unit. But you still need it plugged in at all times – it's not portable or park ready.

Whether you're looking to add more oomph to your main party room or you're upgrading an existing SONOS set up, the PLAY:5 is a formidable speaker if you're happy to shell out the best part of a monkey for the kudos. Perhaps one for the xmas list if you've been particularly good this year.

For more see http://www.sonos.com/en-gb