Sonos Ray Soundbar

Sonos Ray SoundbarAbout The Sonos Ray Soundbar The Sonos Ray is the company's most affordable soundbar, designed for small to medium size rooms and perfect for putting into a cabinet as all the sound comes from the front of the unit. Whether it's settling back for a spot of TV, getting fully involved in the latest blockbuster movie or chilling to your favourite music the Sonos Ray has the ease of use and sound quality that brings everything together. The Sonos Ray

About The Sonos Ray Soundbar

The Sonos Ray is the company's most affordable soundbar, designed for small to medium size rooms and perfect for putting into a cabinet as all the sound comes from the front of the unit. Whether it's settling back for a spot of TV, getting fully involved in the latest blockbuster movie or chilling to your favourite music the Sonos Ray has the ease of use and sound quality that brings everything together.

The Sonos Ray offers surprisingly powerful sound in a small package. Each of its built-in speakers is driven by a matching amplifier and expertly tuned by Sonos's award-winning engineers for rich, balanced audio. This sound bar is slim, and all of its speakers are front-firing, making it easy to tuck the bar under your TV or into a media cabinet. And like every speaker in Sonos's impressive lineup, the Ray makes streaming music, where and how you want, as easy as pie.

Connect With Sonos: The Ray is part of the Sonos wireless multi-room ecosystem, which means you can group it with other Sonos speakers to stream music, podcasts, or audiobooks throughout your home. The Sonos app has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to play whatever you want, wherever you want.

You can play the same content everywhere at once, or pop on something different in each room. Start up the Audible version of Harry Potter in the living room for the kids, while you chill out to a little Stevie Ray Vaughan in the den.

Wirelessly Expand Your Home Theatre: The Ray provides a big upgrade to your TV's audio, but it also serves as a foundation for a wireless home theatre system. The cool thing about Sonos is that you can add on to your system as you go, expanding as you gain more room or your budget opens up.

You can pick up a Sonos Sub if you're looking to add low-end impact to your listening. Incorporating a couple Sonos One SLs as surround speakers adds wraparound effects. And it's all wireless too, so you only need to plug each speaker into AC power.

Instant Access To Endless Music: Sonos liberates the music on the Internet, your computer and more, so you can wirelessly play it all over the home. With the Ray (or any other Sonos player), you can tune in to over 60,000 Internet radio stations, shows and podcasts and stream millions of songs and stations from the most popular online music services including Deezer, Tidal, Apple Music and Spotify. Plus, you can play your entire personal music library, like iTunes, using the super convenient Sonos App S2 on an Apple or Android tablet or smart phone or a PC or Mac computer.

Stream With AirPlay 2: Apple fans are in good hands. AirPlay 2 lets you stream from an iPhone or iPad and connect the sound bar to the AirPlay ecosystem. If you're a subscriber to Apple Music, you can use Siri to control and play that service with your voice too.

Match Your Sound To The Room: If you have an Apple iOS device, you can calibrate the sound bar using Trueplay*. This lets you use your iPhone or iPad to match the bar's sound settings to the specific shape and acoustics of your room. This feature measures how sound reflects off your walls, ceiling, and furniture and optimizes it to fit the space.

*Please Note: Trueplay is not supported on Android devices, mainly due to the extreme variability between the microphones on these devices.

2.0 Channel Active Soundbar: The Sonos Ray active soundbar features a 4-driver stereo array with two tweeters that create a crisp high frequency response and two high efficiency midwoofers that ensure faithful playback of midrange frequencies and solid bass. This 4-driver array is housed in a bass reflex system with two proprietary low-velocity designed ports that minimize distortion and add to the soundbars low-end bass frequencies. The drivers are powered by 4 discrete Class D amplifiers that have been fined-tuned to the soundbar's unique acoustic architecture and characteristics.

System Configurations: The Sonos Ray can be used as a stand-alone soundbar speaker or it can paired with an optional Sonos wireless powered sub and/or optional Sonos wireless rear surround speakers (sold separately).

Soundbar Only: As a stand-alone active soundbar speaker, the Sonos Ray can deliver 2.0ch stereo sound thanks to its dedicated left and right channels.

Soundbar + Optional Wireless Sub: Add a Sonos Sub (sold separately) for 2.1ch stereo sound with a dedicated LFE subwoofer channel for bigger, deep, and more impactful bass response. And because it's a wireless connection between the soundbar and sub, there is no subwoofer cable to run.

Soundbar + Optional Wireless Surrounds: Add a pair of Sonos speakers (sold separately) for 4.0ch surround sound with dedicated rear channel speakers for more enveloping surround sound without running speaker wire. You can even use the Sonos Amp (sold separately) as a rear amplifier with separate rear loudspeakers; in this configuration you will still need to run wire between the rear speakers and the Sonos Amp.

Soundbar + Optional Wireless Sub & Surrounds: Add a Sonos Sub and a pair of Sonos speakers for a 4.1ch surround sound with a dedicated LFE subwoofer channel for bigger bass response and dedicated rear channels for more immersive surround sound - all without having to run a subwoofer cable or speaker wire. You can also use the Sonos Amp (sold separately) as a rear amplifier with separate rear loudspeakers; in this configuration you will still need to run wire between the rear speakers and the Sonos Amp.

Audio Settings: The Sonos S2 Controller App lets you make audio adjustments from your compatible Apple iOS or Android device.

Equalizer: Adjustable EQ settings can be found in the Sonos S2 app. From the app you can adjust Bass, Treble and Loudness.

Speech Enhancement: The Sonos Ray was carefully tuned with the help of Oscar-winning sound engineers to emphasize the human voice so you never miss a word. Turn on Speech Enhancement in the app to clarify dialogue when characters talk quietly or action intensifies.

Night Sound: Night Sound reduces the intensity of loud sound effects. Night Sound allows you to enjoy late night TV without waking the whole house by balancing the sound output of loud and soft passages.

AV Sync: If the soundbar's audio is out of sync with the video, you can adjust the audio delay (lip sync) from the Sonos S2 app.

Easy Setup & Control: It only takes a few minutes to get this sound bar up and running. Plug in a couple of cables and press a button to connect the sound bar with the Sonos app on your phone or tablet. The two cables are an AC power cord and an optical cable between your TV and the sound bar.

The mobile app gives you intuitive control, but the Ray also works with most TV remotes to keep things simple. And the smooth touch controls on top of the bar are illuminated to make them easy to find in the dark.

Sonos Ray Soundbar Review

"Where the Sonos Ray shines the most is dialogue clarity. Voices come out of this soundbar with excellent separation and remain easy to hear no matter how much action is happening on screen. It's a night and day difference compared to built-in TV speakers, where audio is often muddy and dialogue can be hard to follow. The Beam and Arc are technically superior to the Ray in this department since both have dedicated center channels, but I was completely satisfied with the crisp voice reproduction on Sonos' latest soundbar. It's a noticeable strength when listening to music as well.

The Ray fits seamlessly into Sonos' whole-home speaker ecosystem and lets you wirelessly enjoy audio from every major music streaming service. I love how enveloping it feels when I've got the same music playing at different sides of my room on the Play:5 and Ray. Another neat trick is the ability to play TV audio on your other Sonos speakers around the house, so you don't have to miss out on hearing the news or any big sports game moments while working up a meal in the kitchen." The Verge

Our Take

On the good, better best scale you can think of the Ray as being good, with the Beam being better and the Arc being best. So, if you have the money you should always choose the Arc, right? Not necessarily. If you have a smaller room or the soundbar needs to be put into a cabinet then the Ray could very well be your soundbar of choice. It has all the Sonos functionality which we have come to know and appreciate like music streaming, multi-room and surround sound expandability and advanced sound configuration options which truly are second to none. And it's made to the same high standards as the rest of the Sonos range. So, at the price, it's a bargain and for TV's up to 55", smaller rooms or where your placement options are limited it might very well be the best choice available.