The Sonos Move is the company’s first portable speaker, costs $399

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Sonos (SONO) is known for its high-quality yet pricey speakers including the Sonos Beam, Sonos One, and Play series. But none of those is built to be taken outside. That’s where the new Sonos Move comes in. An indoor and outdoor speaker, the Move automatically adjusts its audio levels based on where you place it.

What’s more, Sonos says the Move can survive drops, spills, getting blasted with dust, and even being soaked with a hose. The price for that kind of sound quality durability? $399. Pricey. In fact, competing offerings from Bose top out at $349. But based on my brief experience listening to the Move, it may be worth it.

Big sound, big package

The Sonos Move is a portable speaker, but it’s not one of those tiny bluetooth speakers you can throw in your backpack and take to the beach. This is a beefy unit that requires at least one arm to carry. A handle on the rear of the unit makes it a little easier to bring with you, but its bulk is definitely something you want to take into account.

That big size, however, also means the Move has plenty of room to push out serious sound. The unit has a downward-firing tweeter that pushes audio into a specially crafted waveguide that helps more evenly reflect higher frequency sounds. Sonos says that the waveguide ensures that high frequency audio is able to reflect off a surface, making sound clearer for listeners.

The Sonos Move is the company's first portable speaker, and starts at $399. (Image: Howley)
The Sonos Move is the company's first portable speaker, and starts at $399. (Image: Howley)

That’s because in outdoor environments there typically aren’t many walls for sound to bounce off of, which can impact overall audio quality and make music sound dull or muted. The waveguide helps overcome that.

Sonos also poured the power on with the Move, allowing it to reach volume levels that sound downright uncomfortable indoors.

Outdoors, though, that extra power can mean the difference between being able to hear songs clearly or having them sound muffled.

Sonos has equipped the Move with the company’s TruePlay technology, but this time around, the feature will automatically adjust the speaker’s audio quality based on its location.

To use TruePlay with Sonos’s other products you normally need to use an iOS device to act as a microphone that can capture the way sound reflects off surfaces in your home.

TruePlay would then create a sound profile for your room that uses the equalizer and filters to ensure you get the best possible sound regardless of where the speaker is placed.

With the Move, however, you don’t need to use your smartphone. Instead, the device uses four built-in microphones to capture the way sound reflects inside and outside, and create an audio profile. In a demonstration, a Sonos representative took a Move playing music on a TV stand and placed it in a cubby.