Audiophiles are often dismissive of mainstream brands and technologies.
Take Sonos, the biggest name in wireless audio.
Todays subject is the $399 Sonos Move, the companys first portable, IP56-rated, Bluetooth-enabled speaker.
Im just here to talk about the data.
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Lets see how it achieves this.
The Sonos Move is a difficult speaker to measure because its drivers are in an unusual configuration.
This has two theoretical benefits.
One: it helps verify the speaker sound good no matter where youre standing.
It outputs nearly the same sound 90 degrees to its side as it does right in front.
The vast majority of people prefer a sound that is flat.
Lets see how the Sonos Move does.
First, we have the direct sound the sound when the speaker is aimed directly at you.
Note that Im not yet including the bass performance in this data.
It seems were not off to a good start, but bear with me.
Normally, wed want the sound to be flat all the way through for this measurement.
This is an average of measurements within a 30-degree horizontal and 10-degree vertical window.
you might see the bass extends cleanly down to 40Hz an impressive result.
I suspect the curve would be even smoother if Id taken measurements in tighter intervals.
Lastly, like most smart speakers, the Move uses digital signal processing to enhance bass performance.
The trade-off is that Sonos places a volume limit on the bass to protect the drivers from going kerplunk.
We can see how the bass performance changes from 50 percent volume to 100 percent.
It extends down to about 40Hz, which is more than most proper bookshelf speakers.
Once you pass that level, the bass is limited to 100Hz, which isnt too bad.
(Note the notch around 50-80Hz is an artifact of my room, not the speakers).
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