Orders begin today at 1pm EDT for Sonos's latest addition to its line-up, the Limited Edition PLAY:1 Tone. Coming in full, murdered-out black or pristine white, these new skin variations on the PLAY:1 make a visual statement. Depending upon your color and placement choices these new models will either be the centerpiece of the room or completely fade into invisibility, either of which may work quite well for you.
Under the hood they're PLAY:1s, of course, which means that the sound is the same excellent quality and fullness you can get from the existing line-up of PLAY:1s, including the latest enhancements to the sound of all PLAY:1s that Sonos added with software update v5.4. Now you just get even more choice with how it looks.
Speaking of Looks
The Tone's looks don't just stop at the speaker, it's an entirely visual experience starting with the packaging. The one I received to review was black. ALL black. None More Black. So much so that these photos simply needed to be lightened a bit in order to show them to you effectively.
The fun parts of the packaging include the blacked-out box and the black-cover booklet:
The speaker itself is a black-on-black (or white-on-white) matte finish, giving it both elegant looks and feels.
The booklet contains some inspirational, musical quotes. A nice touch as you're opening the box for the first time (or listening to your favorite tunes):
You get your choice of Tone, black... or white! (but not Tone Lōc).
Like the Blue Note version before it, there's a $50 price premium for these limited edition models. If color and aesthetics don't matter to you – or if the color and aesthetics of the existing PLAY:1 work fine for you – you can pass these by. But if you do care about the aesthetics and these match what you want, order now because they'll sell out (the Blue Note version already did, and that was only announced in February).