It had been leaked a few days ago, but it’s official. Sonos has introduced its new soundbar, the Sonos Ray. We are facing a bar that seeks to offer the simplicity of the Sonos system to users who have a somewhat tighter budget. It is a compact soundbar, with a four-speaker setupwhich seeks to improve the sound of the TV and offer an easy way to play music from virtually any streaming service.
According to the manufacturer, the Sonos Ray delivers perfectly balanced sound, clear dialogue, and powerful bass. All the speakers are at the front, which makes them easy to place even in closed cabinets. In addition, it connects to the television via an optical cable and is controlled by the TV remote or the Sonos app. It is compatible with Apple AirPlay 2 and offers expandability, since we can add rear speakers to obtain surround sound. Let’s take a look at everything the new Sonos Ray has to offer.
Sonos Ray: A soundbar designed to enhance TV audio without the hassle
The new Sonos Ray offers quite a different concept than that shown in the Sonos Arc and even the Sonos Beam. This new model is equipped with four speakers, two tweeters that create a clean high-frequency response and two midrange speakers high-efficiency amps that ensure faithful reproduction of mid-voice frequencies and powerful bass. To move these four loudspeakers it has four class D digital amplifiers that have been adjusted to the acoustic structure of the soundbar.
As with the rest of the manufacturer’s equipment, the Sonos Ray offers some very interesting acoustic characteristics. For example, use custom waveguides that project the sound throughout the room and that, together with the advanced processing that positions each element where it belongs, achieve a better immersive sound.
On the other hand, the new Bass Reflex system and proprietary design create a more balanced bass, while custom acoustics precisely harmonize mid and high frequencies. Sonos ensures that the Sonos Ray has been fine-tuned with the participation of Sonos Soundboard, a group made up of professionals from the world of music, film and other disciplines. Also, use the True play technology to further adjust the sound for the best possible quality in any room.
In the Sonos application we can find the Voice Enhancement feature, which ensures greater clarity in dialogues. We also have the night sound function, which reduces the intensity of the loudest sounds so as not to disturb anyone at home. We even have at our disposal an adjustable equalization, which allows us to adjust the bass, treble and loudness.
The Sonos Ray connects to your TV via an optical cable, which tells us that it doesn’t support HD sound formats. That is, we can play tracks Stereo PCM, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS digital surround soundbeing able to see in the Sonos app the type of sound that is being decoded.
In terms of connectivity, in addition to the aforementioned optical output, it has 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11/b/g/n and 10/100 Ethernet port. This will allow us to introduce the Sonos Ray in our Sonos speaker system, being able to listen to music with AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect or any other streaming platform.
As we said, the Sonos Ray is a compact and simple sound bar, designed for users looking to improve the sound of the television without complicating themselves. It has dimensions of 559 x 71 x 95mm (width x height x depth) and a weight of 1.95kgbeing able to be mounted on the wall if we wish.
The Sonos Ray will be available worldwide from June 7, 2022 with an official price of 299. It will come in two finishes, black and white. You can already pre-order on the Sonos website.
