Sonos Move 2

Introduction
The Sonos Move 2 is the latest portable smart speaker (released September 2023) from Sonos, a company known for its high-quality wireless audio products. The Move 2 is designed to deliver powerful and balanced sound in any environment, whether indoors or outdoors. It can connect to your home Wi-Fi network, stream music from your Bluetooth devices, or use the Sonos Line-In Adapter to play audio from other sources. It also features voice control, automatic True-play tuning, and a long-lasting 22-hour battery. In this blog post, I will give my thoughts on the Sonos Move 2.

Background
I've never been a huge fan of Sonos. I've liked their stuff, but it's always been expensive and I was already embedded in another expensive ecosystem: Apple. But a few years ago Ikea released the Symphonos speaker system, which was also AirPlay compatible. So rather than fill my house with HomePods at nearly $A500 a pop, I bought a few of these $A150 speakers instead. Everything seemed fine and I had AirPlay speakers throughout the house. Then I upgraded my router. For whatever reason, the Ikea speakers didn't like my WiFi6 dual band system, and I was able to get them registered on my network. Then the HomePod Mini came out for the same price and I used that instead. The Ikea speakers remained in place, but they never worked properly again, for now.

Fast forward a couple of years and the Sonos Roam is on sale for Black Friday, under recommendation from a work colleague. I'd already been using the Wonderboom series of portable Bluetooth speakers, but the thought of a speaker that was both Bluetooth and possibly AirPlay 2 compatible (see previous thoughts on the Symphonos) intrigued me. So I bought one and immediately found that it had to be registered on Wi-Fi first before being able to be used for Bluetooth. Merd. So I try, and found, after a little back and forth, that not only is my Roam registered as an AirPlay speaker, but one of the Symphonos are as well. Sonos require a speaker on the network to act like a server and register itself, and one of them had. So I tried all the others and had them added as AirPlay speakers as well. So that's the background on how I got back into Sonos, so what of the Move 2?
Retailing in Australia for $A799 ($A250 more than the Move 1), I looked into whether this would fit into my world of speakers. There were some improvements over the Move 1:
- Over double the battery life
- Improvements to the physical controls
- Double the tweeters to provide single speaker stereo.

So I added it as a "watched item" and waited for the Boxing Day sales to see if I could snatch a bargain. No bargains were to be had, so full price it would have to be. Still, I have been very impressed with it, and it has now become my home mobile AirPlay speaker filling in around the house where fixed speakers are lacking. The Roam, to a lesser extent, has also been fulfilling this role. And I have been very impressed. The only issue I have is that very occasionally the Move 2 will just give up playing music. I think this was down to the Wi-Fi Power Saving Mode, which I have now switched off and everything seems fine.

The Speaker
This is a chunky boi, weighing a good couple of kilos. It has a hand grip on the back to make it easier to carry, a rubber base, IP56 water resistance, and automatic True-play to analyse the environment and balance the sound accordingly.
Sonos have been thinking environmentally as well, with the packaging being 100% recyclable and the standby power being reduced by a third compared to the Move 1. It also has a replaceable battery, where you purchase a kit with the replacement battery and required tools for $A129. You can even send the old battery back to Sonos for recycling.
The sound is exactly what you'd expect from Sonos: clear and vibrant with a sharp punchy bass. There are plenty of audiophiles out there that have performed acoustic analysis and I've seen some very flat response curves across the range, but trust me, it sounds good and you won't be disappointed.

Final Thoughts
It's expensive, you need to come to the Sonos party knowing that. But, if you have the money, it is worth it. It can integrate well into almost any home ecosystem, and it can also be taken out of its charging dock and used portably as a Bluetooth speaker anywhere you like. It's solid, robust and sounds brilliant. Between this and the Roam, my Wonderboom speakers are easily replaced and it fits in almost anywhere around the house. Recommended.