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: https://theamphour.com/474-an-interview-with-nash-reilly/
Forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1514-sonos-the-juicero-of-wifi-speakers-(teardown)/

Gen 2 teardown photos: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/sonos-play-5-(gen-2)-dismantle-and-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

So would I be wrong in saying that this is the juicero of Wi-Fi Speakers: The Garbage Room is a stainless steel fan here. um, somebody actually put in the dumpster. so I took it back out and just in put it here just in case anyone wants it and Sagan's in the Garbage room with me. It's one of those Wi-Fi speakery things.

It was in the bottom of the dumpster. I did have to actually, uh, bend over and get in there to get it. but um, yeah, I'm gonna take that back and do a tear down. um I don't know, it's yes.

Sonos it's a Wi-Fi thing, right? No idea. Yep, you're accurate description of a Wi-Fi thingy. a Wi-Fi thingy. All right.

Hi, it's dumpster diving time again. and on off the heels of that Sony uh, find that we had in the dubstep. Technically something even more expensive. it's a Sonos um, one of these newfangled Wi-Fi um speakers.

It's the Play Five model and uh yeah, it came with a spare lead and a power lead and a audio lead as well. It's the Play Five, but it does seem to be slightly different to. uh, the Play Five that well, at least for sale in Australia is for sale for 800 bucks. So um, but it doesn't seem to have the physical button seems to have like a touch button so it's slightly different.

and I don't think it has this indentation here so I'm not sure if that was like the original Play Five model all or whatnot. Um, looks like we've got a uh a port there on the back. Yeah, it's got multiple speakers in there. don't know if you can see them, but there's obviously one in the center.

There's one over here, one over here and something up there has got mids or something I Don't know what the deal is, but yeah, anyway, it's one of those new finger Wi-Fi speakers. Got no idea if it works, but I thought that Sony one wouldn't work. So what are the odds of this? I mean it's dusty. It's got some paint here.

We go for those playing along at home. assembled in China designed in the United States of America risk of electrical shock, Do Not open I'll bugger that. Anyway, there was another thing in the dumpster. This was new in box I Know it's kind of daggy, but I'll just show you.

um I I took it. It's one of these, you know, all-in-one LCD TV things. It was like actually brand new in the box. But the good thing about this is it's got uh, you know, the composite and SVGA input and stuff like that and as well as VGA this is just quite handy for like you know, plugging into like old computers and stuff like that.

So I've got a a larger version of this but this is smaller. more handy anyway. So yeah, someone had it in storage and they just went. Yeah, no those cleaning stuff out.

But anyway, here we go. Ah, here we go and I'm going to plug it in see if it works if we get lucky. I know I'm supposed to take it apart before I turn it on but you know? but I got to know nothing went Bang Okay, so oh yeah, a little lead. oh, it's flat.

it flashed off slash in slushing I assume it's trying to connect I Think this will probably work I don't know how these newfangled things work. The um. Ethernet. Why does it have two Ethernets on the back? Okay, let's do the home battery storage again.
They wouldn't even ballpark hold onto your hat. Yeah, so it actually works. It looks like it's probably like it and it uses the software registration problem or something. Why they toss this thing out.

Oh all right, another stupid app. couldn't figure out how to get it on the Windows PC oh Ab workout app open Sonos horrible Brown sort of like thing they had there uh stream from yeah. a few terms of you say go wait oh we've got it I have to view it Australia except that crap set up new system. Oh God what career I Go to account and then create an account.

Unbelievable. So I told it to bug her off I'm not putting in my email address and I installed the Windows software uh, driver software and sure enough, it actually detects it over the Ethernet network. But it seems to want me to do an update like this. and if I do an update, it says that.

I We found an update great and then you go in there as part of it. You'll need to add your email address and create a password to update. It looks like it doesn't let me get out of this and use it. I've got my Spotify app in the bracket and it won't show up.

Looks like it doesn't let me use unless I update and to update I've got to give them what my details. Unbelievable. Screw Sonos Nope. This is a complete turd.

I've tried this on both the PC app and this I've tried to update it and it will not let me. Seems to not let me proceed at all unless I update the firmware in this thing. Um, it. I can't connect at all and I do know who who threw this out because their email address was registered it? Let me override that and put in a new one and nope.

Nope. Nope. nothing. What an absolute turd.

Oh, has anyone got one of these things? Do they actually work? I Found out this is like Gen One I believe with like the indented thing and the buttons on here. the Gen 2 is smoother and I think it's got touchy feely I don't know. Is there like a reset button hidden somewhere that I can just nuke the whole thing and do it from scratch? There you go. It's just got a grid that's uh, held on with uh, velcro here and uh yeah, it's a bit.

It's a bit crusty, looks like it's got a single subwoofery type thing here and uh, two, uh, Main and uh Tweeter and yeah, that that's a domey thing. So that's all right. it's um, yeah, supposedly sound, you know, wanky. It apparently has like six class D amps in it or something.

um I don't know. Only got five speakers, but apparently it's got six um class D amplifiers that are matched to the the you know to the acoustic properties of the enclosure. Looks like it is uh, ported like that. but I don't know I like these ones out here can be sealed and that Port could only be for, uh, the subwoofer there I'm assuming that's the case I Finally got this turd to work.
apparently I had to download an older version of the app because this Gen 1 is not compatible with the new version of app. So that's probably why they've you know, tossed it out because they tried to use it with the new S2 app or something I don't know and it and it didn't work and it still didn't work the first time I did it and then I had to reboot it and log into the account and do all sorts of crap. but it finally updates it so I don't know what that means I don't know, bloody should work. Now let's open it with the comically long screwdriver.

Oh, metal threaded insert for your own protection. It's important not to get too close to these dumpster objects. Well, it seems to be a real dog to get apart. I The clips I I Don't know, it's it.

It's really ugly. Sneaky sound system. Get it. I'm here all week I Saw a UFO and nobody believed me and uh yeah, it's got plugs on two of the screws.

Ah, still annoying though. Clips on bottom. thought there might be a screw under the velcro. there's not.

I'll tell you what, this thing has more screws than a spectrum analyzer can in a brothel. Um, like I Had to get all the rubber rubber off here to. well, no, didn't get it fully off. I Had to peel it all back.

the screws all the way around here. You get this out and then it looks like the front panel still won't come off because it looks like there's probably more screws on the top there. Anyway, isn't this very nice? look at the arrangement of the antennas here. That's a Bobby dazzler.

Wow. They've gone to another like little, you know, like patch antenna or PCB antenna. Rubbish. They've actually got little dedicated standoff antennas there that is absolutely fantastic.

I get I'm very impressed by that. Anyway, more screws and it might eventually try and get into this thing. Aren't like unbelievable. There you go.

Wow. this thing is choker block. um, our two main drivers here. It looks like they're in uh, seal thought enclosures and then they're using the rest of the enclosure as the uh subwoofer here and then our tweeters down here.

they're actually hard backed I Like the look of those. um I Don't know where the drivers come from, but you know they claim wanky acoustic performance. uh for these Sonos uh speakers. but yeah, they've gone to a lot of effort and boy, yep, somebody's had fun actually designing this.

Look at, Look at this like a big I don't know. trump. It looks like a, you know, some sort of wind instrument. um kind of thing for the port on there.

So for the Dual ports on this thing, there's two of them in there and they've got acoustic foam dampening material in there that's not stuck down, but they've put Woolen uh, that looks like you know good quality stuff that they put in here so they've really spared no expense there. and massive two board construction. Look at the size of that. Wow.
And these screws holding this chain number in? They're all uh, glued down. Unbelievable. Look at the uh, the the rubber chain. but look, we've got the uh Woolen acoustic um foam in there.

so they've really gone to town. Don't know who manufactures the uh, the speakers there? that's a four Ohm Joby oh uh Peerless yeah I have they're a name? I Haven't heard that name in ages. but um, yeah, um I do believe they're reputable. It's just a lot of action on this board and like it's enormous.

Anyway, the top boards obviously like the processory Wi-Fi board because it's all, uh, it's all shielded. Somebody had fun with this elastic gun. Check that out. Fantastic.

And down in the inductors there as well. I mean they've really gone to town. Um, and anyway, attention to detail. They've put the foam on the ferrite and the wires and everything else they've got.

Yeah, so that, uh, the wires, don't you know Resonance of the wires. um, you know in there don't actually affect the acoustic performance. or at least you minimize, uh, the effect of the acoustic performance. So acoustically, they've really got somebody to go to town.

Um, hands up. if you know who actually designed this thing because yeah, um, they've taken a serious amount of effort to, uh to get the Acoustics Well, the way they want I'm not going to say right, but you know the way they want them. Um, and yeah, look at that. it's just I used a whole corking gun of Silastic on this thing now.

annoyingly I can't get that out because that the the clipped hole in the board seems to be glued down in there I can't spring that out. So there you go. Well, there you go. It looks like the processor was under here.

That's a free scale jobby and uh, we've got the memory and the uh flash under there as well. So that board over there must just be uh, the Wi-Fi interface board. Um, it's fairly large by modern standards. I Guess so.

I'm really impressed by this. Just a sheer amount of engineering. I Didn't expect this level of engineering to go into this sort of thing. I Guess you know that's why you pay a premium price for this, don't you? I mean it's even though this is an earlier Gen unit.

this uh, the current Gen 2 one which looks, uh, very similar is like an 800 Aussie unit. So anyway, rather into interesting thing that I can see down in here is a whole array. multiple rows there of like So14 packages and then a bunch of and then a whole bunch of sock 23s just like big rows of them. like what's going on in there.

And just like the way they've mounted the boards like these, they've used these bolt standoffs here which have screws underneath there. so if I want to get that out I've got to right take off and this is in addition to taking off all this cover here, this is really belt and braces approach. I Don't know whether or not to be impressed or disturbed at. um, you know this is supposed to be like a high volume consumer item and they've taken seems to have taken the approach of well.
expense doesn't really matter here, They're not trying to cut Corners In fact they're they're They seem to be over engineering this thing so would I be wrong in saying that this is the juicero of Wi-Fi speakers? Um, doesn't anyone want to challenge me on that? because well, there's just like so much belt and braces over engineering that's gone into this. um I mean it's nice, but if you're designing a high volume consumer product like this like you wouldn't use the huge number of screws that they got. Look, everything's metal threaded. Insert the uh, the bolts down here on these uh boards.

look it's just insane to mount a board like that. The number of production steps are involved and they don't seem to like have optimize the uh pcbs at all. They've just like really gone to town on this thing and all the uh, all the shielding and all the whatnot and they've used like an off-the-shelf uh Wi-Fi module. which is you know, fair enough if you're developing like if you granted this is like an earlier unit I'd Love to see the new Uh design Gen 2 Has anyone got a like a tear down or photos inside that to uh see? but I like yeah this is like it's not quite two zero levels of engineering.

but I wow wow it's just this cannot be uh cheap dimension manufacturer that's for sure. Anyway, there's the bottom of the PCB for those playing along at home. Got the ethernet interface, got some additional memory and whatnot on the shield can on the bottom so we've got top and bottom. and then the Wi-Fi module of course and they've got hot snot over here.

Is that like holding down some some of the plastic body of the connector on there like why? I Don't know but uh yeah, somebody in production really had fun here. This is the most robust board mounting solution I've ever seen. It's unbelievable. Anyway, what we've got is our there's our Mains input up there.

so we've got uh there's a common mode choke so there'd be you can see probably just see the isolation around here. We've got some Y-class caps going over uh to ground here so it looks like is that a uh Mob input protection varista. and then here's our Mains switching stuff all on this side over here so that looks really nice but the sheer amount celestic, that's just absolutely amazing. So all that left side of the board is uh Maine's input and then um I like I where's the where's Wally Where's the um six five channel amplifier? Um yeah, it's over here somewhere because here's our caps.

Here's our in big inductors. um unfortunately I can't get these Wi-Fi cables off because they're glued in place I don't want to break them off so I can only assume that the power amps on the bottom. It's class D so you don't and this is not I Don't know the specs of this thing, but it's not. You know it's not pumping out like a couple hundred Watts or something so they probably don't need a heatsink on it.
Class D is pretty efficient. It's a switch in Joby Well, nope. There's absolutely no components on the bottom there. um at all.

Did I miss this thing so they've gone for a single-sided load. Oh geez, they saved some cost. Oh, come on, this is nuts nuts. Get it.

nuts. Mirror Week: Oh, it looks like one, two, three, four, five, five six. There's our six channels. So these little so packages must be the six Channel Power Amp So you know they're probably only like five Watts Uh, a piece.

and like you know, at 95 efficiency for a Class D or whatever. like you know it's they don't dissipate much. Um, you can tell. like the the big inductors here are the giveaway for the Uh switching.

but um yeah, so they use like external. it looks like external sock 23 transistors here to switch to do each channel. So I'm going to look up the number on that. these so packages on the left hand uh column over here.

These are actually sort of all uh, 74, uh, 100 series logic. So yeah. anyway I reckon that is a Class D amp. probably just making out the number there I can't read on the camcorder screen Anyway, for all the serious logic Fanboys up there, Well, you're not gonna believe this.

The I thought this would be a class DF it's not. It's a 74 Ac04 um, hex inverter and you can see maybe just the traces on there. They've actually put them in parallel. So they've actually, uh, paralleled them up and they're actually driving the Sot 23 transistors over here.

Um, you know. so there's like a uh, it's a push pull uh stage for each one. Okay, so each each channel is going to have uh, two matching Trends in push-pull uh, transistor output stage like that and aha, there might be something else over there. I'm not sure if you're seeing that.

Geez, this is sorry. this is really hard to get in here, but this is all controlled by this serious logic jobby over here. This is a 44 800 and this is a four channel uh, Pwm digital audio uh driver. So it's got four Pwm outputs which then, um, yeah, just they're using uh, these external hex inverters.

uh, using AC Now that HC rubbish. Um AC for the speed because well, Sonic Purity and all that sort of stuff. you can charge extra for that. So yeah, they've got a discrete transistor driver.

Stage for the um, the amplifiers. This is totally unexpected I you know, as we saw in that Sony one we just tore down. Yeah, and have one of those, you know, single in line? well, a surface, no surface mount, you know, power packages with a little heatsink on it and stuff like that I speak to one of those multi-channel integrated uh Jobbies, but nope, we've got a discrete Channel solution here. Interesting.
So there you go. Is that approaching you zero levels of uh, Wi-fi speaker engineering? Leave it in the comments down below. Um I think it's you know it's on its way there. So the Gen 2 saw some photos of that and doesn't seem to be much more optimized.

But uh, I need some better quality photos of that? But yeah, this thing uh, works just fine even though it's an older Gen once. I Update: Manage to get the updated firmware in it and that's probably why it was tossed out because, well, they probably just couldn't get it working with a stupid new app or something and they went ah, does, buggered and uh, toss it out. Unbelievable. Anyway, if you enjoyed that dubstub live and tear down, give it a big thumbs up.

As always, discuss down below: catch you next time. They've even got lock tied on all the screws. They've even put glue on these screws here. Come on.

Why do you need this custom foam in here? It's not even part of the acoustic chamber and there's only eight loctid screws holding this on. Oh.

Avatar photo

By YTB

20 thoughts on “Eevblog 1514 – sonos: the juicero of wifi speakers? teardown”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars popraw a says:

    Useless glue on bottom of PCB could be for resonance, just some dead weight

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars popraw a says:

    Industrial solutions, but in ABS enclosure

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DJ_PaulTUK says:

    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.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jasper Waale says:

    will explain why cost so much

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars savagemadman says:

    I have a bunch of Sonos speakers. Would I recommend them? Not really – their control software is *horrible*. Really wish they had a browser based configuration like my old Sony sets had. But, they work fine as Airplay devices and are cheaper than many of the alternatives. Also, why the heck does the Connect (or whatever it's called these days) cost so much!

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Johnson Lam says:

    Very "audiophile" feel since they seriously treated vibration during music output, and lot of damping material.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars RedwoodRhiadra says:

    Unlike the Juicero, this has a function you can't do with your bare hands…

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars PushyPawn says:

    I've never heard anyone in OZ refer to silicone as silastic(?), and I'm a tradie.
    Maybe it's a boomer habit like calling a pen a Biro or a vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
    Could be a linguistic difference between states too.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars erroltheterrible says:

    Hmmm, great hack potential. Just connect a Pi to the DAC…

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars infango says:

    venture capital i drying out people are throwing away "broken" hardware

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Pete Mundy says:

    So is it correct to say that this audio amplifier design was a 'class B' design?

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars steaker1705 says:

    Iโ€™ve owned taken apart a Gen. 2 and they simplified it a bit, but itโ€™s mostly the same well built as this machine. Sadly the WiFi in those machines are known to die.
    I currently own a Gen. 3 (renamed slightly) and itโ€™s absolutely worth every penny.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Pete Brown says:

    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.

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Elwood Cope says:

    Sagan is making me feel old.

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Stephen Tidwell says:

    I know a guy with a large number of these in his house. Pair with the subwoofer it has amazing sound and volume levels. Canโ€™t say I like the app experience though. Iโ€™m not surprised it wants your information to get an update ๐Ÿ˜‚

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Picobyte says:

    The Devialet speakers beat that on all fronts.
    Got two phantoms here, they are super heavy, have excellent bass down to 16Hz for earthquake effects.

  17. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars blargg says:

    Apparently your request to the universe to find a speaker for Sagan hasn't been closed so it's still causing them to pop up.

  18. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Grey Hodge says:

    Itโ€™s a luxury product, not mass market.

  19. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DashCamAndy says:

    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). ๐Ÿ˜†
    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.

  20. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DeDeNoM says:

    I think I remember a former Sonos engineer on the Amp hour. Maybe he can tell who designed this.

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