The Lure of Sonos (Premium)

We were sitting in the sunroom late one Friday night in mid-2020, so still early in the pandemic, listening to a YouTube Music playlist via a pair of thunderous Sonos Play:5 smart speakers, when my wife suddenly announced, “We should get more speakers in here.” We jokingly refer to such sudden exclamations as “pronouncements,” as if they were edicts handed down by the queen. Which, when you think about it, they kind of are.

To be clear, we do not need another pair of speakers in the sunroom.

I’ll get to that bit in a moment. But first, I think it’s important to note that adding more speakers to the sunroom was a topic that had never come up when we were listening to music in that room with $99 Edifier R1280T powered speakers connected to a $30 Chromecast Audio dongle. We’ve held music nights as a sort of evening ritual or traditional almost once each week since we moved to Pennsylvania about three and a half years ago. And adding more speakers, or even getting better speakers, just never come up. The sound was incredible.

But I have a theory about how successful experiences with premium or luxury products spur the acquisition of more premium or luxury products. And I’m convinced that that’s what happened with the speakers in the sunroom. When Brad offered me a pair of Sonos Play:5 smart speakers last February at half price---$500, the normal cost of a single Play:5 speaker---I knew I had to say yes. But I also knew that we were stepping into familiar but uncomfortable territory: My wife would grow to love the quality of the sound. And she’d want more.

I knew this because I’ve seen it happen before. When my wife’s beloved VW Jetta TDI Turbo Diesel wagon was found to be singlehandedly causing global warming, it was purchased back by Volkswagen for an astronomical $25,000 as part of the diesel scandal. So she obviously had to buy another car. And we faced the standard choices: Whatever $25,000 buys in a new car, or a used BMW or Mercedes of the same price. We went the latter route, with a used BMW X1, but I cautioned my wife that it was a one-way street: Her brain wouldn’t want her to go back to a lesser vehicle once you’ve taken that step.

And that’s fine: Buying premium products that you know are going to last is a reasonable strategy. I’m a frequent customer of Apple’s refurbished store, for example, and I often buy hardware there for my own use and recommend doing so to all of you. It makes these premium/luxury products more affordable.

But the Sonos thing escalated quickly. I just realized that over the course of 2020, I purchased seven---seven!---Sonos speakers, including two IKEA Symfonisk Wi-Fi bookshelf speakers, the two Sonos Play:5s, a Sonos Beam soundbar, a Sonos Sub (subwoofer), and a Sonos Move portable speaker---and then we added a turntable, which connects to one of the Play:5s, in January. (I will write bout vinyl separately soon.)

If you’re familiar with Sonos ...

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