Sonos Beam (Gen 2) vs Sonos Five

The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) wins overall on price and versatility: it costs less and is the only one of the two with built-in voice control, supporting Alexa, Google Assistant and Sonos Voice Control. The Sonos Five is the stronger pure music speaker with dual-band Wi-Fi and a line-in, so it wins for hi-fi listening.

Microphones and purpose. The Sonos Five has no microphone, so there is no voice assistant at all, and it is built as a large stereo-replacement music speaker. The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is a soundbar with far-field mics, TV remote sync and speech enhancement, designed to sit under a television.

The Sonos Five. Six amplifiers driving three woofers and three tweeters give it deeper bass and more detail than the Beam, and it has a 3.5 mm line-in for a turntable or CD player. The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) sounds impressive for its size but rolls off low bass, which is why a Sub is the usual upgrade.

Neither. Both the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sonos Five stream over Wi-Fi and AirPlay 2 only, with no Bluetooth. Both include an Ethernet port, and the Five adds 5GHz Wi-Fi support that the Beam lacks, which can matter on a congested network.

Buy the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) if you want a compact soundbar that rescues TV dialogue, mounts on a wall, works with your existing remote and answers to Alexa, Google Assistant or Sonos Voice Control. It expands into a full surround system with a Sub and rear speakers when you are ready.

Buy the Sonos Five if music is the point and you want one speaker that can replace a stereo system, with room-filling bass, crisp detail, dual-band Wi-Fi, Ethernet and a 3.5 mm line-in for a turntable. Just remember there is no voice assistant, no Bluetooth and no TV connection.