Sonos has dominated whole-home audio for years, but JBL clearly wants a bigger piece of the action. Announced at IFA 2026, the company’s new Cove range launches three wireless speakers that are all gunning for a spot on your shelf.
More specifically, the JBL Cove M1, P1, and X1 are Wi-Fi speakers built around JBL’s own multi-room platform and controlled through the JBL One app. You can put them in different rooms, group them together, create stereo pairs, or simply use one on its own.
That’s familiar territory for anyone who’s used a Sonos system. Sonos speakers can already do something very similar by holding the play/pause button to bring audio from another room into the one you’re in, but there’s still one Cove feature I particularly like the sound of:
Music Follows Me lets you press and hold the Moment button on a Cove speaker as you enter another room, and the music you were listening to moves with you. If you’re rocking a compatible JBL Bar MK2 soundbar, you can keep up with your favourite shows while you move from room to room, too.
There are plenty of shared features across the range. All three use a two-way speaker design, automatically tuning their sound to best suit their location. JBL’s Constant Sound Field technology also promises to help keep the sound balanced as you move around a room, while AI Sound Boost is designed to reduce distortion when you crank up the volume.
There’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, and Roon Ready. Spotify Tap lets you start playing Spotify with a press of the Moment button, while Alexa+ voice control is coming via an update later this year, although only in the US for now.
JBL’s timing isn’t bad, either. Sonos has spent the past couple of years rebuilding trust after its troubled app redesign launched with bugs and missing features. JBL, meanwhile, is making simplicity one of Cove’s main selling points, with a three-step setup, and controls that don’t always require the app.
With that said, here are some more specifics on each new JBL speaker:
JBL Cove M1
The $229.95 / £199.99 JBL Cove M1 is the smallest and cheapest of the three. It’s the compact option, roughly the sort of size you could comfortably sit on a bookshelf, desk, or kitchen counter, with 110W of power coming from three tweeters and a single woofer.
It still gets the same core multi-room features as its larger siblings, and can also be paired with compatible JBL Bar Series MK2 soundbars and used as a wireless rear channel.
JBL Cove P1
Portability is the big difference with the $399.95 / £399.99 JBL Cove P1. It’s noticeably chunkier than the M1, but it has a built-in battery that’s apparently good for up to 14 hours, so you can lift it off its charging dock and carry it from room to room or take it outside.
The P1 puts out 120W of tune-shifting power and has an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance. Its four tweeters include an upward-firing driver for Dolby Atmos, and it can also pull double duty as a wireless rear speaker with compatible JBL Bar Series MK2 soundbars.
JBL Cove X1
If you want the heaviest hitter in the range though, the youllthat’s the $449.95 / £429.99 JBL Cove X1. It’s a much more substantial living-room speaker, with 200W of power, four tweeters, and two woofers.
One of those tweeters fires upwards for Dolby Atmos, while the extra woofer should give it more low-end punch than the M1 and P1. It also works with JBL Bar Series MK2 soundbars, although there’s one limitation – unlike the other two, the X1 can only join them for multi-room music, rather than being used as a wireless rear channel.
We’ve yet to take any of them for a spin ourselves, so we can’t give you the definitive JBL vs Sonos verdict just yet. But our team of intrepid reporters will be scurrying around the cavernous IFA halls in Berlin this week, where first impressions will hopefully match the on-paper specs. Stay tuned.
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