EEVblog 1514 - Sonos: The Juicero of Wifi Speakers? (TEARDOWN)
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Dumpster teardown of a Sonos Play 5 Gen 1 Wifi speaker system.
Is this the Juicero of wifi speakers? or is it just a really well designed active speaker?
Amp Hour Interview with a Sonos designer: theamphour.com/474-an-intervi...
Forum: www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/ee...
Gen 2 teardown photos: www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/...
00:00 - Another Dumpster Diving find
02:09 - Bonus dumpster item, new in box
03:14 - Does it work?
03:33 - The Sonos app really sucks
05:21 - Removing the front grill
06:07 - FINALLY got the stupid thing connected, and likely the reason it was tossed
06:34 - Teardown
07:34 - The very nice Wifi antenna
08:01 - Inside
09:07 - Main Peerless drivers
09:56 - Anti-vibration as far as the eye can see
11:18 - Is this Juicero levels of engineering?
14:26 - That's not a board mount, THIS is a board mount
16:43 - Surprising class D amps
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#ElectronicsCreators #dumpsterdiving #sonos - Наука та технологія
I think I remember a former Sonos engineer on the Amp hour. Maybe he can tell who designed this.
So there was, episode 474 with Chris. He was a digital designer.
2 of the 6 amplifiers will be powering the _subwoofery type thing_
Hi Dave, great video! I've been working at SONOS for 10 years. I help manage and develop their acoustical facilities. We're definitely meticulous when it comes prioritizing overall quality. It seems excessive, but the foam and glue are necessary to mitigate buzzing parts and fortify components for longevity. Despite not being inside the acoustic volume, the foam near the antennas is meant to mitigate buzz between the plastic foot and the enclosure. Keep in mind that the original PLAY:5 was made in 2009 and was our first "all-in-one" speaker. We've learned a lot in 13 years. We now design our own transducers in-house amongst many other improvements you might enjoy finding in one of our newer products. Cheers
Pretty awesome, I've had a lot of free sonos gear from a supplier over the years, and took a few apart for fun, and coincidentally, the same one dave took apart because the application didn't work anymore. Was pretty bad of you at sonos to do that. But yes the products do seem good and I got everything for free so can't complain.
In short, good products CW!
@@colinofay7237 Glad you appreciate the product from a hardware perspective. I live and breathe hardware development so some of the other aspects of the business I'm less versed with. With S2, we got to the point where our early products were lasting so long it became a limiting factor for coexistence with the modern products we were developing using the same SW platform. We have a bit of a novel approach when it comes to designing consumer electronics that are not meant to be thrown away after a couple of years. We design our products to hopefully last a decade or more. I'm not sure what the exact statistic is, but around 90% of every Sonos product ever made is still working in the field. Basically, we got to the point where we had to diverge and develop a new software platform that would enable the technologies we wanted to build into our products going into the future. The road hadn't been paved for us when it comes to smart speakers and networked audio so we definitely hit some stumbling blocks as we forged a path forward. I think we've all learned from the S2 implementation and I hope that we're listening to our customers better than before!
Yet your company goes out of their way to make sure that the new app doesn't work with old hardware, so people think it's broken and throw it away when there's nothing wrong with it.
I cannot stand companies who go out of their to ear as much money as possible and add towards Ewaste.
@@TheManLab7 sorry to hear you feel that way. We actually went out of our way to not brick older components that were incompatible with the new software. As I mentioned in my common above, we needed to redesign the software platform to evolve our products. Our older products literally did not have the CPU power or memory to work with our more evolved products which is why the split between S1 and S2 happened. Rather than brick the old components, we gave customers the choice to use two apps which is inconvenient but much better than having old gear turn into a paper weight.
@@CW-vo7ty I get technical debt can bite you but you misunderstand the core issues behind that backlash. People were buying an *ecosystem* and the break with compatibility meant that if they wanted to extend their system they would have to rebuy everything. This is really a slap to people who had already kitted out multiple rooms. It should have been a priority for S2 gear to fall over to compatibility mode to mesh with S1 stuff at the user acknowledged loss of newer S2 features…
I liked Sonos a lot but after that I didn’t extend my system at all and there is no incentive to ever do so… :(
Vibration is nasty, causing rapid system aging unless ruthlessly damped. Back when I worked on aircraft instruments, we had solutions certified for both piston and jet cockpits that had excellent field performance. Moving the same instruments to the helicopter market (with a few software changes) opened up a can of worms when we reached vibration/shake testing. We had to add physical clamps for our larger capacitors, more mounting screws for the PCBs, and lots of silicone snot.
All of this paid off when we targeted the military market, when the US FAA and DoD finally agreed that military aircraft should have a complete civilian instrument load-out when flying in civilian airspace, and the DoD had a sudden need for "plug & play" cockpit upgrades (which was our niche). Boeing and other military suppliers tried to add FAA software upgrades to their military cockpits, but needed to charge so much that it would have been cheaper to retire the aircraft early!
We made a bundle on those deals. But only because the civilian and military vibe/shake testing specs for helicopters were very similar, and our instruments met mil-spec with only retesting, no hardware changes at all.
Having a full-spectrum high-power vibration source INSIDE my instrument would drive me crazy! The Sonos folks didn't miss any tricks, so far as I can tell. Just treat it as a hostile environment, and design accordingly.
helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so violently the earth repels them
Vibration inside a speaker cabinet really isn't that much of an issue. A sturdy cabinet should barely vibrate at all and what's coupled through air will not be anywhere near aircraft levels especially not with a 4" bass driver. That's why even active computer speakers with shoddy engineering (Logitech etc). will usually last for decades.
We made PCBs for railway traction control, they were the thickest PCBs I had ever seen and mostly through-hole.
Vibration is tough to overcome.
Yes helicopters are a different ball game when it comes to vibration. Every instrument panel is on shock mounts, and those have no rubber in them to do damping, as that fails too fast. Changed a good number of those metal mounts because there was almost nothing left of the steel wire brushes that are used to damp them, though the springs in the middle were still fine. Take it out and the cup that holds them is full of small metal filings, that used to be stainless steel wires. There is a reason every fastener on a helicopter is either lockwired, or self locking of some sort, because otherwise there would be nothing in them after a while.
Most common repair was putting floor attachment points back in, because they tore out of the honeycomb floor. We used to get Araldite slow set epoxy in 5l cans, not the little dinky 50ml tubes, and would often need 2 or more cans to fix a floor. When those tore out again the Araldite was not the failure point. That and the rolls of 3M blade tape.
@@westelaudio943 Logitech speakers (the cheap 2.1, 4.1, 5.1 ones) will last for decades :)
Found a 4.1 system in the trash recently - looks like hell, but works perfectly still)
Also; Cambridge Soundworks (which might also be Logitech now). Not too expensive, but my 5.1 sub has lasted for about 20 years now.
No buzzing or anything
The foam and glue is going to be to reduce vibration noise, I don't think it is over engineered, nothing more annoying than a speaker that vibrates and rattles ! A speaker enclosure is a pretty harsh place for vibration. The external foam pads on the bottom will be to help stop cabinet buzz from the plastic foot contact point.
Yeah that was my thought too.. Even if it's not directly part of the "accoustic chamber" ... it will at least influence the walls of it...
Sonos created a bit of a storm back in early 2020 when they wanted everyone to brick their existing units in exchange for 30% off the new units that would allow them to implement all the new features that the existing hardware wouldn't support. I remember a bit of a kerfuffle because updates were coming to an end and some people had just bought units that they were dropping support for.
This helps a lot understanding the kind of company ethics driving SONOS. Thanks for your prompt.
It is a misstatement to say that Sonos would "brick" units. They quickly changed from that plan with a bit of internet backlash to rather than bricking traded in units, to let them continue, and they would still work using the old software. Users had a choice. You could get 30% off for each existing of the old units, and they wouldn't even disable the old unit, it just wouldn't play with the new software. Even then the youngest units they stopped supporting were over 5 years old if I remember. I still have an old unit that I use in a garage where I don't care if I cannot group it with my other speakers. Sonos overall has been great, and only improved with the newer units. The WiFi is strong, I almost never have connectivity issues. Some units I am using in a really hot/humid environment (In Florida on a covered lanai) and they have lasted 6 years with no issues so far. Much better than many TV's do in that environment! I think the Sonos stuff sounds decent and works flawlessly. This from a company that was the first to make this work... long before Google Amazon or Apple had such devices as even a glimmer in their eyes.
@@brianfritz575 _You could get 30% off for each existing of the old units, and they wouldn't even disable the old unit, it just wouldn't play with the new software._ That wasn't the original plan, certainly not as described on Sonos' own blog. To get the discount it was necessary to enter a menu option that would permanently disable the unit and render it inert. I have no idea if this changed after the backlash, I wasn't that interested - I do know some people successfully created new firmware to work independent of Sonos entirely but that is the extent of the interest I had (I seem to recall the reverse engineering to break in was interesting).
@@brianfritz575 oh how merciful of them to not disable your own property you already paid for ... and only after back lash...
eevBLAB #44 - Sonos Deliberately Bricking Products!
ua-cam.com/video/Ac1zZo7wLo8/v-deo.html
We are not allowed to throw away tech items at my work. We have to use the ewaste bin. That way we can feel self rightious about not filling our landfill with electronic trash, and insted, it probably fills a landfill somewhere else.
Instead they ship it to India where they burn it to extract the precious metals.
In England, we are (generally) NOT allowed to take *anything* (electrical or electronic) from recycling centres, which IMHO is criminal. People chuck perfectly good stuff in those skips, including vintage stuff which really needs to be preserved for future generations and can also be worth a fair few beans.
@@BG101UK I expect its for 2 reasons health and safety, and to avoid people taking the items with scrap value and scrapping the for profit (like the copper in the leads, as that offsets the costs of disposing of the other bits). I agree though a shame, luckily there are charity shops here which sell used electricals
@@BG101UK whats wrong with English people, why they are so obnoxiously insane with electrical things, they are super afraid of electricity, its kind of funny
I have a dude who collects my E-waste and pays me... he separates the recycle stuff and then sells that.... we both win.
I have one of these, and it is still going strong. The sound is great and fills a room with no problem. This was the flagship model and was probably over-engineered. I have two Play 3 and a Play 1, which are also engineered to a high standard. The newer Sonos gear does not work with the S1 app, and the older equipment has frozen in time and features. If you buy the newer gear, you must run two separate Sonos systems or retire the old equipment. That is most likely why this Play-5 is in the dumpster.
Isn't it a bit embarrassing to buy into these time-sensitive devices? I now learn from the comments they had the kill-switch ready for any connected 1st gen device. I know one might argue: but only if you wanted to upgrade. Ask to Windows 7 users if they also wanted to upgrade.
I can find schematics and parts for my 90s Hi-Fi, I can still tie in new components to it... and this system from a handful of years back was already on the kill-list from SONOS?
This tells a lot about the company ethics... I was absolutely right in my guts' feelings about this company and products.
@@m80116 Did you not buy a cassette player because in 12 years time a CD player was going to come out, I'm not sure this is all that different. It still works, its just not supported going forward, doesn't mean you can't keep using it.
@@edc1569 There's a substantial difference: nobody at Mastushita planted a backdoor in my cassette deck, I still can find most parts for it, the schematics are freely available on the Internet.
We're talking of a mid 90s deck, an almost 30 years old deck. How is this stuff supposed to be environmentally friendly if it's in the dumpster 5 years after it was sold!
It's out of my mind... I just get familiar with one piece of equipment in 5 years.
@@m80116 As someone who repairs vintage cassette decks as a hobby I can guarantee you that you can NOT still find old parts for a Matsushita cassette deck. Save for the belts and and modern knockoffs (read: lower quality Chinese examples) of the motors, those parts are fully unobtanium unless you cannibalize another deck. Nobody, and I mean nobody is still manufacturing heads, gears, pulleys, or idlers for those old decks - and the bespoke ICs are long gone. Dolby hasn’t licensed B/C/S NR in an IC in almost two decades, and none of the major manufacturers still have stock - so, no.
@@christodd3361 I repair too. Heads of RS-TR on AliExpress. Belts, rollers, most components except ICs obviously, even reproduction gears. Finding new belts at this point would be irrelevant being over 25 years old.
I recently repaired a Panasonic RQ-V15x with original volume pot found well... I won't say. It's the only place in the world that I know of still having a stock, almost 30 years after production. Good luck finding parts for the modern garbage: no schematics, no parts and should you ever cannibalize they're serialized so it's pointless anyway.
Worth saying those 2009 high tech devices are still supported by today's Sonos systems. Definitely my best buy 10 years ago. Still using it everyday. A wonderful product imo.
The 74AC over HC will be because they are being used as gate drivers. Faster switching means lower dissipation in the driver, improving the efficiency of the amplifier and lowering the internal heating.
holy crap i havent watched this channel in years and seeing sagan as a young man instead of a lil baby is absolutely crazy
@@Okurka. I mean one can be aware of the passage of time and still be shocked by its effects. The world's a big place, lots to not be aware of, and it's all always changing.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw him.
i actually have two Gen 1 Play:5s set up in a stereo pair in my office right now! They are definitely some of the best all-in-one wifi speakers i've ever heard, especially after you do the room tuning.
If I remember correctly the Sonos speakers also create some sort of mesh network for synchronization of the music, which is probably what all that Wi-Fi antenna stuff is for.
You are correct. That was my favorite thing about them. The only thing I hated was the pricetag.
I've got a gen 2 Play five and love it, that little thing rattles the kitchen cupboards and windows with it's bass output, very impressive.
When I was Sagen's age I was riding around on my bike dumpster diving for tech stuff!
Speakers were always my favorite
Worked on it, you're pretty much right on, it's a ppc computer with 6 dac-amps mounted on. The later ones cut costs better but the first one was both over and under-engineered, still pretty good, expensive as hell.
Now that's an epic title. I used to have a pair of Sonos speakers. Wasn't super thrilled with them, but found someone who was and got most of my money back out of them.
Foam around wiring and plenty of sealant is to help stop vibrations. Everything has it’s natural oscillating frequency and inside a speaker it’ll be quite intense. It’ll help audibly as well as increasing reliability.
I have a lot of SONOS gear, never had an issue and love them, one is pushing 6yrs old now and still fully supported in the new app.
Very nice to see they have done so much to avoid vibrations causing issues. When you consider the frequency range of vibrations, it is not surprising they have gone to town. Nothing worse than having a speaker system that vibrates at certain frequencies.
I fixed one of these for a customer a month ago. Absolute treat to work on!! I was was gawking at the quality like you are. 😂😂
What was the fix
Then second Ethernet port is typically called a "courtesy port" . It's basically allowing you to connect PC to the other port without needing an external additional Ethernet switch.
New fangled :) Made in 2009... I bought a few of these and a sound bar probably 10 years ago now, and they're brilliant - fab sound quality, very easy to use. The gen 1 vs gen 2 thing is annoying, but at least they are still supporting it.
You may say Juicero level of smart speaker, but their smart power amps (Sonos Connect:Amp) from 2006 still sells for 200€/$ on Ebay because they still support Spotify and are absolutely bulletproof even when plugged in 24/7 for 15 years.
I really like the "discrete" output stage. Makes it really repairable!
Likely to be the most reliable part, the only failure will be power supply related and those coupling capacitors for the speakers finally going high ESR or open, or leaking over the board.
The Sonos speakers actually sound really good for their size and work well in a multi-room setup. They are just horribly expensive, especially if you go all out (stereo pairs, sub, ...).
Catering to a niche wealthy market, like Devialet for example. What really sucks is the planned obsolescence by software. That's inexcusable.
I was involved in Sonos at the really early stages and can tell you the original philosophy was best possible in x size.
Looks like early production, before they got the design down to cut price. Likely later units had a lot fewer fasteners and a lot fewer components, as they Muntzed the design. Likely later on they got all the power devices into a single package or three, using the integrated amplifier to drive the H bridge units. 5 channels of audio, only 5 drivers, 4 being single ended with DC coupling capacitors in a row, likely the middle of the 5 being the board decoupling, and the fifth one uses 2 inductors and differential drive for the "big bass" drive. Good filtering as well, likely actually passed all EMC compliance first pass with a good margin, and likely rev 2 and later on they sort of optimised it to get the cost of the filtering down.
Separate antennas needed, and good ones, as these tend to be used far away from the music source, or in a garden, so need great wifi connectivity, and the BT side also has to have pretty decent range so as to work over 15m range or more.
For years Sonos were the only company who could pull off functional multi-room - its because of the antenna solution you see here.
An excellent example of overkill hardware and lacking software
Oh no, the software is just perfect for the audience they want to sell these things for. More tech vice people are far from people they want to hoover cash from.
The discrete open-loop Class-D amplifier construction was pretty interesting and I didn't expect that in the beginning. However, I teared down a Canton DM90 (first gen) soundbar a couple of years ago which falls into the same time of that Sonos Play 5 shown in that video and there was a similar amplifier construction powered completely by Renesas products. A DSP with direct PWM outputs and then having some external dumb power-stages. So it seems like that was common practice in the middle 2000 years (I think the start of having class-d in consumer products). What I personally think is even more interesting is the Freescale-CPU. For the fact that it is a single-core 400 MHz chip, running most probably linux, very slow SDRAM, handling all the DSP stuff, networking and audio-decoding in software this is impressive to have that running on such a low-power computing platform.
Running various Sonos Gen 1 gear here. Runs like a Swiss watch. Must be 14-15 years old. I use AirSonos to bring them into Home Assistant and provide AirPlay. Brilliant :)
What is this term "over engineering". Does not compute. Well done to anyone involved producing this.
Sonos make fantastic speakers. I have many of them and constantly use them daily!
I see a lot of love for Sonos, in the comments, but no mention of the debacle and the reason for the "first-gen" app.
Sonos made an announcement a number of years back that basically said: "We are deprecating these speakers [insert list of speakers here] and they will no longer be updated. We will give you money off if you trade-in." Well, that went over about as well as a lead balloon because they were deprecating tens of thousands of dollars of equipment. I know when they announced it my total Sonos system cost me ~12,000 freedom eagles (no, I didn't drop 12K in one purchase. I added on to my system little by little over years.)
They walked that statement back about two weeks later and said: "We are deprecating these speakers BUT, you will still be able to use them. They will not work with our new speakers but you can keep using your old ones and we will continue to update them with security and bug fixes."
I would say, because of that debacle, that the answer to your question is: Yes, they are the Juicero of speakers, but unlike Juicero, they haven't gone out of business. They would have if they stuck to their "your speakers are now non-functional, have a nice day" guns.
Looks like a nice speaker - the layout reminds me of the Bowers and Wilkins A7, which I really like the sound of.
I own 3x original Play 1 speakers that are now powering the music in a corner store I work for. They were $230 a piece but I felt like they were worth the money, I worked as an installer for an electronics retailer and we sold a lot of Sonos and customers were pretty satisfied with them. I had heard that they were ex-Apple engineers that started the company, so it helps explain the very closed, locked-down system it is - they do very good tech support, but you’re stuck dealing with them to figure out what to do if for example you have a VERY old unit that needs to be updated, there are “commands” to make it do the updates manually but they don’t publish it... so yeah, very Juicero except they haven’t gone bust.
My aunt swears by these, she's got the little cube version. I had the pleasure of repairing it as she brought it from a 3-year business trip to the US and forgot that we've got double the voltz here in the EU. Done blew the PSU! But in the end I got it working and she's been happily using it ever since.
Was built pretty solid, but lots of steps/hidden clips to get to the meat and as expected every single cm³ is used.
Man whoever cost-optimized the Gen 2 was sure gifted with an epic amount of low-hanging fruit
sonos sound really really damn good..no resonances detected they are impressive sound wise, first time inplayed one i was shocked..
Glad I'm not the only person using Juicero as an adjective. 👍😄
Juicero, haven't heard that name in ages! That thing is really well built, nothing should vibrate in that thing. Foam and hot snot everywhere!
I think all of the silicone/hot snot is there so that there will be ZERO chance of anything vibrating. If I spent $800 on a speaker, and I heard the slightest hint of vibration, that would be returned so fast it would make their heads spin…
Absolutely !
My goodness, seeing Sagan was a shock! As we used to say in the US, "growing like a weed."
I'm seriously considering moving, at least temporarily, to Australia just to nicely-furnish a home from Dave's work dumpster!
You'll know me when I get there, I'll be the only one driving a Camry sensibly (and it'll be left-hand drive, I'll ship mine out just to confuse everybody). 😆
I'm pleasantly-surprised at the build quality of this unit. It seems to be built with attention-to-detail. Customized bass ports, each driver acoustically isolated, obsessive effort taken to mitigate PCB vibration, every single wire foam-wrapped, plenty of mounting screws from several sides (case vibration), the WiFi antennas... A fair bit of the MSRP was obviously in the engineering.
"This thing has more screws that a spectrum Analyzer can, in a brothel"!
I was an Engineer at a boutique manufacturer around 2012, I found the Sonos guys very hard to talk to at the trade shows [ Aren't they a French company? ], meanwhile I got cards from many other manufacturers.
As for all the complaints about clamps being stuck down...
You know how a single rattle in a £500 speaker will send it back immediately to the seller and we have at least a year to return in the UK. [ guessing Aus may have real consumer protection too ]
We hot-snotted the crap out of our £500-£5,000 sub-woofers. We found the tech too latent or expensive for the audiophiles we mostly sold to.
Love the dumpster finds!!!
My Sonos kit is still going strong, it's got to be about 7-8 years old and I barely ever think about it.
I know a guy with a large number of these in his house. Pair with the subwoofer it has amazing sound and volume levels. Can’t say I like the app experience though. I’m not surprised it wants your information to get an update 😂
About a week ago I found a pair of cat RGB LED bluetooth Brookstone headphones. It had a loose connector on the left speaker. They originally sold for like $250.
There's a lot of yesteryear tech out there that can be upgraded and used with modern things. Adding a simple Arduino type board can give you WiFi, BT and music storage. The quality of the sound didn't really go up since the 80's, it's just that they added new ways to connect.
It's always a shame to see perfectly serviceable hardware killed off by software updates
“I don’t know if I should be impressed or disturbed” 🤣 spit my coffee out
When it comes to all the belt and braces retainment - when it comes to speakers you need all the screws and Silastic you can get.
I've had many many expensive speakers that ended up rattling because they didn't go far enough.
The one I can remember the best is the TDK boombox from around 2011... I saved all my pennies for this $400 speaker - and it ended up buzzing every time a certain bass note hit.
I exchanged it for another one, thinking I got a dud - but the second one was just as bad.
Could have been just a wire that didn't get foam and Silastic, and was slapping against something. But it ruined the product for me.
I have a Gen 1. Yes, they work, but you do need to go through and set up an account, IIRC. It sounds pretty decent. I use it in my shed workshop.
But it's not like a phone BLE speaker. It has its own connection and it's not streamed from your phone.
All the silastic makes sense for something that is going to vibrate with bass.
Oldversion for the win. As I recall the original Sonos would create its own mesh and provide moderate bandwidth connectivity over that mesh to anything connected to the Ethernet ports. Great system, upgraded to dumpster fodder.
I made a short wave transmitter out of a 74HC04 once .. also all in parallel. Was heard in Florida from Switzerland, using WSPR mode.
Novel! I knew about 74HC4066s being used as balanced mixers, fairly high IP3 until you get to the high end of shortwave. (Somewhat effective band-filtering is obviously required due to them being the switching variety which would act as a sampling mixer unless restrained.)
Presumably the woofer is being driven bridge-tied across two of the six channels (for extra oomph) and the other four speakers are regular mode
I recently trash picked a wireless subwoofer (not bluetooth or wifi) and the construction was fairly similar, though the case is MDF instead of plastic. It was a Denon, so a fairly mid-high end consumer brand. I've actually had it apart near my bench for a while because as far as I can tell it should work but without the matching home theater base station it's a brick. I'll eventually put a normal wired amplifier in it I think... it's a nice piece.
If you can identify the amplifier chip inside, you can solder a line level in just fine. Just be careful as some amplifiers only accept a balanced signal. A quick pdf search of the amp chip let’s you identify the pins.
@@FAKEAXIS From what I remember it actually has a chip that incorporates both the digital decoding and the amplification. I want to say it was a TI chip made just for this kind of wireless subwoofer application. Normally that's exactly what I'd do.
I repaired a faulty Sonos Play 5 speaker a few years ago. It turned out it had a popped FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER, which was quite surprising, as it was quite a chunky one.
(we're in 240V land, in the Old Dart, so it's not like somebody plugged in a 110V speaker which popped the bridge rec. Maybe a power surge or lightning damaged it? Just don't often see a bridge rec that dies unless it's on a much larger device.)
It sounded pretty good after, but the one HUGE downside is that it only worked via Sonos app, so you couldn't use it for playing music from UA-cam etc. At least I don't think it gave you that option. It would only play back files using their app. Hate that.
It looks like the app has changed since, or the speaker allows a direct Bluetooth connection.
Back when I repaired the Play 5, it definitely didn't allow that without the app.
EDIT: Oh, if you were only playing music via a cable, then that explains it. lol
Man, I miss my dumpster diving days from back when I use to work at the mall lol.
My first gen play ones are working great even after 10 years
Foam like that is probably to address issues with foot buzz. Building powered speakers that don't buzz in injection molded plastics is a lot harder than you might imagine.
repaired a few of them (play5 gen1) so far, they still work unless they are in recycle mode (which bricks them and gives you a discount on newer models.. they cancelled this program but allready bricked ones are dead)
they (90% of the time) die by a spike in the mains .. bad filtering, new rectrumfryer and fets and a fuse. but some times no sound or silent sound is coming out, then a resistor on the bottom board near the connector to the top boards is dead. R27835 or the ones nearby (to switch power for the class-d amps.)
they work fine.. if they work. just that account and update stuff is annoying. if they had the recycle program for longer people would have made a custom firmware for it.
its not quite juicero. you need a account yes but you dont have to pay to use it. you can stream from free services or local music libraries.
they have LAN ports to sync them for lower lantency if you are using them as tv speakers or something, over wifi you got a second or two, fine for music but not movies.
Couldn't one just replace the digital board with an raspberry pi / esp32 (squeezebox)?
Looks like i2s audio, add a dsp chip inbetween to generate the individual channels from 2 and bypass the sonoff board
Would be interesting to reverse engineer a bricked one buut... I have none :P
Sonos is not a "speaker" per se. Sonos is a complete sound system. Good to see they were thorough in their design and assembly. I have Sonos in my apartment, and it's just so lovely to have it all working together as one sound system - sharing the same audio in multiple rooms or dividing into more areas, taking the sound from my TV to my kitchen, waking up to music in my bedroom and bringing the morning news and music to the kitchen and even the bathroom. Sure, you could do some of that with traditional amplifiers with multiple outputs, CD player, radio, etc., or Bluetooth, but not really and not half as elegant as a set of Sonos speakers does the job, wirelessly and requiring nothing but a power cable.
The glue is for vibration, so the parts don't get metal fatigue and break off of the PC board. Nice.
I know your stick is being outraged, But the sonos is not the Juicero as that thing could barely squeeze already crushed fruit despite all it's engineering. The sonos play on the other hand for a wifi speaker sound pretty good. And remember it was their first product, so ofcourse it was over engineered.
Also sonos as a company has been brilliant with support, they still support an app for a product that is over 13 years old. I have two that are still fully functional and the only repair i've had to do on both of them, is loose screws that hold the antennas pcbs down, that started rattling around.
Very few companies support products older than 5 years, let alone 10, but sonos play 5 is coming on 15 years.
The only features they haven't add via software for the old units are:
- S2 Controller compatiblity: (but they did offer discounts on new models, initially they did brick your old unit intentionally, but they changed their mind after the public out cry)
- Airplay support (due to licensing/hardware issues)
- Google Assitant (due to lacking a microphone)
The SO14 and SO8s are probably the active crossovers - 3rd Order on the voltage plus commoning the low frequencies. The 6 amps will be the number of drivers plus bridged for the bass. The hot melt glue is definitely needed for the amp output inductors to keep them at right angles. They'll be about 12W or less for the main amps and 50W, probably at 10% THD to keep the figures up. Check the rail voltage to get the figures. And that foam will be nothing acoustically, though the ports will. They need to be long in small volume cabinets like that.
Nah, they're just paralleled buffer/inverter's to manifest enough current to drive the push/pull pre-drivers for small power FET's that make up the class-d amplifier output stage. It's an open loop class-d amplifier based on a 4 output part from Cirrus Logic that only has PSU feedback for ripple gain modulation rejection. Any crossover work would be handled in the DSP domain, the audio then comes to the Cirrus part via I2S or TDM. All the backend crap you see inductors and air cores are the LC output filter for the class-d amp which avoids driving that high frequency switching energy into the speaker load (while it's quite inductive, the inductance is pretty lossy at HF) and mitigating EMI. The air core inductors indicate to me they had some higher order harmonics which were troublesome...
@@JamesReedy Thanks. I made a number of errors in that comment, which was written before the video had finished. I should have looked up that Cirrus part and I'm not sure why I didn't think the XO would be done in DSP when even tiny BT speakers are.
@@ChristianRThomas No worries mate, I do this sort of thing for a living. It’s definitely a min viable sort of approach…the amp that is.
@@JamesReedy Funnily enough, kinda so do I. In fact I' did a bit of work on trying to improve those output filters a couple of years ago, and make them less load dependent, which was a harder task than I thought it would be. A bit easier here where you know what your load is going to be, but here they seem to have left them all the same. I did conclude that these simple LCs were a pretty good solution, which was not what I expected.
Yes to have to register these things to get them to work. There is a button sequence to factory reset the device, which i cannot remember.
A couple of comments on Sonos.. firstly, one of their big selling points was having multiple devices in sync with each other. They communicate via their own proprietary wireless mesh network (called SonosNet, but not sure of the specs) which may have been what the plethora of antennae were.
Second, the thing with the apps... a few years ago, Sonos decided to discontinue support of some of their older gear, by making a new app, which only supported their new gear (after a certain cutoff) and if even *one* of the pieces of hardware on your network was one of the unsupported ones then you couldn't upgrade to the new app, and use new features etc. This perfectly good speaker might have been the only gen1 device on someone's network. But still, the dumpster?!
Registration or useless.. Classy.
That's why I love my UE Boom speakers - they'll function without an app (just via Bluetooth) or even without Bluetooth (3,5mm input)
The UE Boom app (no registration required) just offers some extra features, like turning the startup/shutdown/button sounds off.
And it allows for pairing up to 99 speakers, using them as stereo speakers (one L, one R signal), and has EQ settings.
I think THAT is the way to go.
No reliance on apps or registration.
Because if Sonos goes bankrupt or just quits... Your 800$ speakers have just become a paperweight.
UE = Ultimate Ears = Logitech, by the way. (Thumbs up to Logitech)
As far as I know, they're also the only BT speakers that allow the signal sounds to be switched off.
JVC (Samsung) doesn't allow that, for instance.
Thats a mini-PCI wifi card. we used to use them back in 08-09 while setting up long range wifi with off the shelf hardware. The WMP series is i believe by this company called Compex or something like that. These pci(not pcie) cards usually used an atheros chipset and quite stable.
Edit: i can bet anything that the processor ran a custom linux and used the linux drivers for the wifi connectivity
Also looks like an early prototype. Just get a base board,a wifi pci card and a sound circuit and bam you got a product.
The cirrus logic control chip would be the DSP, EQ and volume control of the system, the main CPU would send audio and control data to it, this type of topology is very similar to modern car touchscreen car Hifi and certain BT soundbars.
I personally don't think its over engineered. But I rather get a pair of powered studio monitors, nowadays you could get wifi built-in, although not exactly the same as an all in one solution. I suppose these are more treated like a ghetto blasters, but wifi driven. For its price, I would have expected some sort of discrete amplifier design with some protection circuitry. And for the same price you couldn't even get 1 passive reference design speaker from known brands, that is, just 1 speaker no amp no wifi brains, just a box and speaker with crossover network in them. Just something to think about in price differences and what you get for the cost. I'm rather impressed at the attention of details added to secure everything down, because if you are really into audio it matters. But then again im not sure if any of the serious audio fanatics would want a all in one solution.. or even a class-d (mostly).
This is the kind of quality we need. We need serviceable devices. We as humans want things to last, and the environment does not longer supply a fast life.
Wow, discrete switches for the class D amplifier, that's something I've never seen before. I'm wondering if they did did just because they could, or did the existing amplifier ICs were just not good enough for them.
its 6 channels for 5 speakers where every speaker except the woofer is driven single ended and the woofer bridged / btl.
19:40 Those little LCD TVs are well worth keeping. No need for a big CRT to test old equipment.
16:10 no you are wrong: thease days even modern technology from 5+ years ago implemented a tpa3116 or Tpa3116d2 which can output 50w per channel into 4 ohms at 10% thd in a very similar size package, i have had multiple of those amps and i can confirm they do actually put out near rated power! So if i had to guess I'd say those might be 15-25w per each chip.
Should also mention they also have a tpa3255 version (all of which are by Texas instruments if i didn't mention that) the TPA3255 is no joke for around 3-4x the size of a single one of those chips (same thickness) you can get over 500w of power! Which is just crazy! (Needs a heatsink of course) but i have 2 of those amps connected to 2 high power car subwoofers and even though they can definitely use more power the output for what those amps are is crazy!
Technology has really evolved haha :)
Edit: ah that's very interesting haha like the way they use those smaller transistors as the amps
Dave getting flooded somewhat thematically with portable audio equipment lately out of that dumpster room! :) Wow, this stuff with the powerquicc CPU & the mini PCI 3x3 MIMO wifi card could double as a premium wifi router from around 2013. That amp could well fit in 7.1 surround capable smaller home theater amp receiver. Massive overengineering, but if it was a premium product then there ya have it!
Not to shabby build... kinda like it.
I recall having to set up a set of those in a previous job for a customer, the most unpleasant setup I have ever had to do for a set of speakers.
Peerless was a danish company which became part of danish sound technology which incorporated peerless, vifa and Scan-Speak. This then got bought out by tymphany which was American Chinese. Scan-speak was then broken out to be an individual company whilst tymphany caries on with vifa and peerless. Today it’s still a big player in the oem drive unit supply to companies like SVS amongst others. Minimum order on units is typically 1000 pieces.
You can get individual drivers from a huge number of distributors. They do a lot of custom parts.
@@jrshaul I know, im an OEM manufacturer as well as our sister company being one of the main drive unit suppliers.
@@gr4eme1975 You do the studio monitors?
@@jrshaul which brand?
Just found a JBL Flip bluetooth speaker, fairly clean, but needs the USB charge port to be replaced, ordered one complete replacement assembly for 15 euros.
Unplug the unit, press and hold the mute/play button and plug it back in. Wait for the orange light to flash, it should be ready to set up when blinking green, but only using Sonos S1 app
If the drivers are Peerless pretty sure it was assembled at Tymphany in Huizhou (next to Shenzhen), they own the brand since 2005.
Friend of mine have one of these in his wood workshop, Dust and abuse for over 10 years and still going.
id kinda be interested to make a custom firmware for it to let it take a Dante (common digital audio standard in the pro audio world) input signal
and then make a line array of sonos speakers
just for funsies
The enthusiastically applied silicone had me in mind of Frank Zappa's 'A Little Green Rosetta' : "...arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully-charged icing anointment utensil. And every time a nice little muffin comes by on the belt, he poots forth... "
they seem to use a pcie wifi card for laptop but why a full size mini pcie slot
If my fuse has continuity while mounted on the board, does that necessarily mean that it's ok? Or could the continuity come from the rest of the board via these 2 leads? I'm planning on replacing the 2 blue power caps and bridge rectifier which may have been blown from power surges . Unfortunately my multimeter doesn't have tests for caps and diodes.
Wow I’m very impressed with this build. Now I see why their stuff is money
Tuned port reflex loading for the sub, good stuff!
Peerless is a half decent driver brand, the ports are tuned length to match speaker resonance and the cabinet resonance. Longer the lower they go, this is probably good for ~50Hz or something lol. The screws are to stop rattling and maintain enclosure rigidity. Overall not bad for a plastic speaker system.
It may be the 1st gen model from 2009 but it's certainly not as old since the copyright mark says 2013. ;)
Ah DAVE! I have some appreciation for what they've done here. Clearly, the 74 logic is level shifting to drive the gates of those mosfets! Great teardown none-the-less. Other than the anti-vibration efforts they made, it looks like some solid engineering! (what year do you recon? 2010?)
Yes gate drive boost, likely they had not yet found a lower cost integrated drive solution, which now is around and common from use in inverter drives. Now you can get the 1MHz capable output stage integrated into a low cost SMD package that will handle 10A, thanks to the use of these in BLDC motors all over. Only 2 parts now to get all 6 output amplifiers.
And the AC series has a ton of output current (like 24ma or so). I've used basically the same chip in one of my projects because I needed a beefy gate drive to switch LED strips with ultrasonic-frequency PWM.
@@dannooo548 I used 555 timers for that, piezo driver where the 200ma capacity allows you to do high power, though I also had 2200uF right next to the 2 IC's and a clip on heatsink on both TO100 cans, as they got warm at 40kHz into 200nF of transducer.
@GsaUce Rug Days before mosfets were common, and I had plenty of 555 timers around.....
Ya. I I commented in last video. People are giving you thrings. And now they will continue. So stay on it. They are very generous. They will give. Just keep checkin
Everything is glued on and screwed down so that it does not break with subwoofer frequencies. on other systems, the boards are isolated from sound path
Reason why 6 amps is I'm guessing they use 2 to drive the subwoofer as the other speaker don't handle bass the subwoofer will be drawing the most power, so they use 2 connected together in a bridge mode or whatever to drive the sub.
Doing it with 2 amps not only increases power but also decreases distortion vs if you only used one.
Yes, has to be. No other reason for it.
Two channels are bridged for the sub most likely. The tweeters will barely draw any power at all.
does the hot snot on the heatsink make it less functional on the switching supply?
We have a 2014 sonos playbar in the family room it survived two tv's, this thing is heavy, and still going.
Wow sagen is getting big I remember you did the video with him on postbag and he was so young