Sonos Port is a replacement for the venerable Sonos Connect that promises to make any analogue source you have into a multi-room component – the most obvious being a record player. Aimed primarily at the custom install market, it's also going to have allure for a lot of turntable owners.
Once your trusty old record player (or trendy, new vinyl turntable) is plugged in, you can stream your old Jethro Tull LPs, or 90s rave 12-inches, all around the house… to the delight of your partner and children! And it's officially on sale NOW.
Sonos announced the all-new Sonos Port today at IFA 2019, alongside the Sonos One SL – essentially a Sonos One without Alexa or Google Assistant – and Sonos Move, Sonos' first battery-powered speaker, which also introduces Bluetooth streaming to the range for the first time.
Sonos says it settled on the industrial, discreet and matt box design of the Port with the professional installer community in mind. As such, three Sonos Ports can seamlessly onto a standard AV rack.
Port features a digital-to-analogue converter that's been greatly improved from the Connect, and a 12V trigger, which automatically turns on an amplifier when signalled from the Sonos app.
As you'd expect from a Sonos product, you're able to stream direct from the app, tor use AirPlay 2. Voice control with Alexa or the Google Assistant is also possible via an Echo or Home speaker.
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As well as the Sonos wireless output there's also an analogue audio output and a coaxial digital one. Again, these are of much more use to custom installers than 'normal' consumers.
This is also reflected in the pricing, which feels a tad high for the high street, but is a figure most in the custom install market will not even blink at.
Sonos Port price and release date
Sonos says the Port is available in 'limited quantities' from today. It's unclear exactly how many units will be available, as Sonos says 'broad global availability' isn't coming until January 2020. So get stuck in, is what we say.
Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.
Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.
A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."
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