 Hey, it's Chris Welch with The Verge. We're here in Boston at the Sonos office. We've been touring their space all day, checking out their first new speaker in a long time. It's called the PlayBase. Now you might know the Sonos Play Bar. That's a sound bar for your living room. The PlayBase also goes in your living room. But instead of a sound bar, it's a speaker, big and flat, that sits underneath your TV. Sonos has been working on this for years. We've spent the day touring all their chambers and test labs and talking to all the engineers who obsess over every detail about this speaker. We've seen this style of speaker before from other companies. But Sonos wants you to know just how much work went into this one, like the 43,000 individually drilled holes around the sides, or the S port inside where airflow travels through. Now that's all well and good, but for you, this is still just a speaker that's going to sit under your TV. The PlayBase is equal parts TV speaker and music speaker, so it works with all the same popular streaming services for multi-room audio. There are only three plugs in the PlayBase, optical audio, ethernet, and power. Inside are 10 amplified speakers, six midrange, three tweeters, and one woofer, all of them custom designed by Sonos. You can buy a subwoofer for a deeper rumbling bass, or add a pair of Sonos PlayOne speakers for a surround sound setup. If you add a sub, we have engineered it so it outperforms with a sub, because the sub takes a lot of the strain away from some of the transducers as far as the low frequency goes, so it performs differently with a sub, and is a better experience. That's Giles Martin, who was Sonos' sound expert. I asked him whether someone who already has a PlayBar should actually upgrade to the PlayBase, and he said no. You know, what I would say, if someone had a PlayBar in there, they wouldn't spend their money, I wouldn't say get rid of your PlayBar in there, buy a PlayBase. Me personally, I'd say, you know, put some speakers around your home and have music around your home. But in truth, the PlayBase sounded pretty terrific without those things in the demos I saw. Unfortunately, not all is perfect. PlayBase doesn't have some features important to home theater fans, like DTS decoding for the best quality surround sound, and the PlayBase doesn't support HDMI ARC, so you can't use one remote to control all of your home theater gear. But ultimately, that's not what Sonos cares about. Sonos wants this to be the do-everything speaker for people who can spend a little bit of money on something that looks pretty good and sounds pretty fantastic in their living room. The PlayBase is going to ship in April for $700. That's the same price as the PlayBar, and we're going to have much more on it soon. But for now, make sure to subscribe to The Verge on YouTube for more great videos.
 Hey, it's Chris Welch with The Verge.
 We're here in Boston at the Sonos office.
 We've been touring their space all day, checking out their first new speaker in a long time.
 It's called the PlayBase.
 Now you might know the Sonos Play Bar.
 That's a sound bar for your living room.
 The PlayBase also goes in your living room.
 But instead of a sound bar, it's a speaker, big and flat, that sits underneath your TV.
 Sonos has been working on this for years.
 We've spent the day touring all their chambers and test labs and talking to all the engineers
 who obsess over every detail about this speaker.
 We've seen this style of speaker before from other companies.
 But Sonos wants you to know just how much work went into this one, like the 43,000 individually
 drilled holes around the sides, or the S port inside where airflow travels through.
 Now that's all well and good, but for you, this is still just a speaker that's going
 to sit under your TV.
 The PlayBase is equal parts TV speaker and music speaker, so it works with all the same
 popular streaming services for multi-room audio.
 There are only three plugs in the PlayBase, optical audio, ethernet, and power.
 Inside are 10 amplified speakers, six midrange, three tweeters, and one woofer, all of them
 custom designed by Sonos.
 You can buy a subwoofer for a deeper rumbling bass, or add a pair of Sonos PlayOne speakers
 for a surround sound setup.
 If you add a sub, we have engineered it so it outperforms with a sub, because the sub
 takes a lot of the strain away from some of the transducers as far as the low frequency
 goes, so it performs differently with a sub, and is a better experience.
 That's Giles Martin, who was Sonos' sound expert.
 I asked him whether someone who already has a PlayBar should actually upgrade to the PlayBase,
 and he said no.
 You know, what I would say, if someone had a PlayBar in there, they wouldn't spend
 their money, I wouldn't say get rid of your PlayBar in there, buy a PlayBase.
 Me personally, I'd say, you know, put some speakers around your home and have music around
 your home.
 But in truth, the PlayBase sounded pretty terrific without those things in the demos
 I saw.
 Unfortunately, not all is perfect.
 PlayBase doesn't have some features important to home theater fans, like DTS decoding for
 the best quality surround sound, and the PlayBase doesn't support HDMI ARC, so you can't use
 one remote to control all of your home theater gear.
 But ultimately, that's not what Sonos cares about.
 Sonos wants this to be the do-everything speaker for people who can spend a little bit of money
 on something that looks pretty good and sounds pretty fantastic in their living room.
 The PlayBase is going to ship in April for $700.
 That's the same price as the PlayBar, and we're going to have much more on it soon.
 But for now, make sure to subscribe to The Verge on YouTube for more great videos.