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How Sonos made the new Playbase sound a lot better than it should
Amazon upended the home speaker space with the Echo, causing other companies to start figuring out voice control systems of their own. Sonos, which has made WiFi-enabled speakers for years, has repeatedly reassured customers that it, too, would eventually offer voice connectivity. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, Sonos' newest product has nothing to do with voice control. Instead, the company's first device since 2015's Play:5 speaker is its second attempt at simple, excellent home theater audio. Sonos already sells the Playbar, a wireless three-channel speaker meant to be mounted to the wall below your HDTV, but today it launched another product that does the same job in a completely different form factor. The $699 Playbase is a massive wide and narrow speaker that looks like a Play:5 after it's been run over by a steamroller.
