New premium, ad-free, streaming tier goes live
If you’ve been turning to the radio more and more through the long days and nights at home – and you’re a Sonos user – then rejoice, because the experience is about to get a whole lot better. For a price, of course.
The multi-room audio specialist has launched Sonos Radio HD, a new, premium version of its Sonos Radio service.
It costs £7.99 a month, and offers ad-free radio stations at a much higher sound quality. You’ll also be able to skip and repeat tracks, which you can’t do on the standard Sonos Radio.
Best of all, there’s a huge new selection of stations, starting with Songteller Radio, a partnership with legendary singer Dolly Parton which will feature her hits, favorite tracks and commentary.
Artist curated stations are already a feature on the free tier, but the exclusive new stations on premium will be more in-depth – and, of course, offer that high-definition sound quality, at 16-bit/44.1kHz (CD quality), rather than the standard 128kbps.
Look out for a selection of new genre stations too featuring expert DJs, including Nashville Now and Americana Ramble, Unforgettable for jazz, and Distant Kingdom for R&B and soul.
For those of us who use the radio to get to sleep at night, there are be six dedicated sleep stations with white noise, pink noise, brown noise (a deeper, lower-frequency sound such as the roar of a river current), rain, rainforest and piano to choose from, and hopefully aid a peaceful night’s rest.
There’s also a selection of “soundtracks for the home” with stations promoting mindfulness, productivity and relaxation – just what you need to get you through the at-home workday.
So will it be worth the monthly lay-out? It really depends how important sound quality is to you, how much ads annoy you, and whether you feel you’ll enjoy the new stations enough to justify the cost.
There’s a month’s free trial to start though, which feels a no brainer if you’re a radio fan – and Sonos says that its free ad-supported tier, only launched earlier this year, is already the fourth most listened to service on the platform.
Sonos Radio HD only available on the newer S2 app, though, so if you’re holding out on S1 or have older incompatible hardware, you won’t get to try it.
Look out for improvements to the standard Sonos Radio though, which is expanding its range of genre and local stations as well as streaming Dolly Parton’s Christmas special in time for the holidays.
