Ambient room-filling sound from Sony's slick new speakers
Sony has taken the covers off of a new speaker duo at CES 2021: the SRS-RA3000 and RA5000 are the latest Sony speakers to from the 360 Reality Audio conveyer belt but – and this is the most interesting thing – both are capable of being part of smart speaker multi-room audio systems.
There’s no digital assistant baked in the new duo but both can be added to either an Alexa multi-room setup or a Google Home multi-room group.
Alexa multi-room systems have been, in the past at least, notoriously terrible and despite the Alexa Multi-Room Music (MRM) initiative being live for developers for over 2 years now, the take-up from brands is slow going; only Marshall had previously offered up compatible speakers so far.
So these new Sonys – along with the new JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam Soundbar – signal a new horizon for Amazon’s Sonos-rivalling ambitions.
Multi-room Google setups have always been a more open affair, thanks to Chromecast, which is what makes things possible on the SRS-RA3000 and RA5000.
Sony actually showed off 360 Reality Audio prototypes at the past couple of CES expos, so it’s good to real world examples finally breaking cover.
Sony states that its 360 sound tech provides “three-dimensional sound location data” with the Immersive Audio Enhancement algorithm transforming 2-channel stereo tracks to room filling audio.
As well as the Alexa and Google multi-room smarts, they both have Spotify Connect compatibility, as well as both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board, giving you a plethora of streaming options.
They also can be paired with select Bravia TVs for wireless audio, as well.
There’s no US pricing at present but we know that The SRS-RA5000 model will costs £500/€599 and the SRS-RA3000 will be £280/€359.
The pair will go on sale next month.
