Sonos Ray review: A soundbar that nails the basics

With the $279 Ray soundbar, Sonos goes after a brand new market. The corporate’s earlier residence theater merchandise have all been $400 or extra and have primarily been geared towards individuals intent on getting the very best sound attainable. The Ray, in the meantime, is extra accessible for individuals who need higher sound than their TV audio system can present, however don’t essentially care about issues like Dolby Atmos help or room-shaking bass. The Ray isn’t precisely a finances speaker, although, so I got down to uncover if Sonos made the best compromises right here in its effort to make a extra mainstream soundbar.

{Hardware} and setup

Bodily, the Ray is smaller than the already-compact Beam, with a tapered design that’s wider within the entrance than it’s within the again. In contrast to different Sonos soundbars, although, the Ray’s audio system are all forward-facing; on this approach, it jogs my memory a little bit of a wider and flatter model of the Sonos 5 speaker. This design means you possibly can tuck the Ray right into a media stand and never have to fret in regards to the sound bouncing off of close by surfaces. Because the Ray doesn’t have a mic for voice assistants, you don’t want to fret about whether or not it may hear you if you happen to place it in a media stand, both.

Professionals

• Superb sound high quality for each TV and music
• Compact and unobtrusive design
• Simple setup
• Good bass efficiency for such a small speaker
• Affordable worth

Cons

• Sound isn’t as immersive as you get from bigger audio system
• Folks with massive dwelling rooms would possibly desire a louder speaker
• No voice controls

As with nearly each different Sonos product, the Ray has touch-sensitive buttons on high to start out and pause music and alter the quantity. There’s additionally an LED standing mild on the entrance, relatively than on the highest as it’s on most Sonos audio system. Once more, that is in case you place it on a shelf that may in any other case conceal the sunshine if it was on the highest. On the again, there’s an influence jack, setup button, ethernet port and optical audio jack; Sonos ignored HDMI help to chop prices, and for the reason that Ray doesn’t help extra superior audio codecs like Dolby Atmos, the extra bandwidth HDMI permits wasn’t wanted right here.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The setup course of was easy: I simply plugged the Ray into the wall and related it to my TV with the included optical audio cable. From there, I completed setting it up within the Sonos app on my cellphone. The method will take a bit longer if you happen to’ve by no means arrange a Sonos speaker in your house earlier than, since you’ll have to do issues like authorize the varied streaming music companies you need to use. However I merely wanted to attend for the app to acknowledge there was a brand new speaker to arrange, inform it which room the Ray was in after which look ahead to it to get related to my wi-fi community.

As soon as that’s performed, you might have the choice of tuning the Ray utilizing what Sonos calls Trueplay. This makes use of the microphone on an iPhone or iPad to stability the speaker’s audio primarily based on how your room sounds. It’s a little bit of a bizarre course of, strolling round your house slowly elevating and decreasing your cellphone, however I’ve discovered it all the time makes my Sonos audio system sound higher, so it is definitely worth the 5 minutes it takes to set it up when you have a appropriate system readily available.

How do motion pictures sound?

I’ve spent the final week or so watching motion pictures and exhibits with the Ray and it’s an apparent enchancment over my TV’s built-in audio system. Sonos stated it centered on dialogue high quality, bass response and a large soundstage, and it undoubtedly succeeded on two of these fronts. Dialogue sounds extraordinarily clear, whether or not I used to be watching a drama like HBO’s The Staircase or having fun with Galadriel’s narration at first of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The latter additionally supplied an incredible probability to listen to how the Ray carried out in additional intense, action-filled sequences. Because the prologue of Fellowship continued to its large battle in opposition to the forces of Sauron, swordplay and arrows flying stuffed the house across the narration in a well-balanced combine. And the rumbling explosion and large thud of Sauron’s helmet hitting the bottom after his defeat had been an excellent alternative to listen to the Ray flex its bass muscle tissues.

One other favourite of mine for testing soundbars is the 15-minute intro of Pacific Rim. The start of this over-the-top film has all of it – big battles between big robots and monsters, cities being destroyed as panicked residents flee and a stable heroic narration, all of which the Ray faithfully reproduced in a well-balanced combine.

The Ray pulls this off regardless of having a lot easier acoustics than the Beam: it contains two middle midwoofers, two tweeters with cut up waveguides to broaden the speaker’s soundstage, a bass reflex system that gives a shocking quantity of low-end efficiency, and 4 Class-D amplifiers. It’s an efficient system, however my major criticism is that the waveguides and computational audio can solely accomplish that a lot to widen the soundstage. Whereas the Ray clearly has a stable stereo presence, it’s not practically as immersive because the first-generation Sonos Beam that I often use. Regardless that my older Beam doesn’t help Dolby Atmos, its bigger dimension and extra advanced speaker array give it a giant benefit over the Ray.

The Ray can be not the loudest speaker on the market. Once more, this isn’t an enormous shock, as Sonos is advertising and marketing this system to be used in comparatively smaller house. That doesn’t imply it was too quiet for me, however I did often have its quantity up over 50 % for it to be loud sufficient. If I actually wished to kick issues up whereas watching a giant film, I would get nearer to 70 %. Should you’re the sort of one that actually desires theater-style audio, you’ll be higher off with a extra highly effective system.

The excellent news is that, as with all different Sonos residence theater units, you possibly can pair the Ray with the Sonos Sub to enhance bass efficiency. You too can use two Sonos One audio system as rear surrounds to make for a way more immersive expertise. The Ray may be a perfect alternative for a primary soundbar to improve your TV’s audio after which use it to construct out a extra advanced setup down the road. That stated, the Sonos Sub prices a whopping $749; it’s arduous to think about somebody shopping for a Ray after which spending thrice as a lot on a subwoofer.

What about music?

Whereas the Ray is supposed to be hooked as much as your TV, it’s additionally a succesful music speaker. Sonos says that when it builds its residence theater merchandise, music high quality is simply as essential as the way it works with motion pictures and exhibits. In my testing, the Ray sounds nice – songs like Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Reduce to the Feeling” have loads of low finish and super-clear vocals. In the meantime, the arduous left- and right-panned guitars in Metallica’s “Wherever I Could Roam” had been fairly distinct. Whereas it’s nonetheless not the loudest speaker, the Ray is greater than able to filling a medium-sized room with clear and energetic music.

Naturally, the Ray has all the identical multi-room audio options as different Sonos audio system. This implies you possibly can concurrently stream the identical music to a number of audio system in your WiFi community, or play one thing completely different on every one. You possibly can arrange customized speaker teams (simply the audio system in your first flooring, for instance) and stream audio on to the Ray utilizing AirPlay 2. The one actual characteristic it’s lacking in comparison with most different Sonos audio system is voice management. There’s no mic, which implies you possibly can’t management the speaker instantly with Alexa, Google Assistant or the upcoming Sonos Voice Management characteristic. That stated, when you have different good audio system, together with another Sonos speaker with a mic, you need to use them to regulate the Ray.

Wrap up

There’s no query in my thoughts that the Ray is a critical improve over a TV’s built-in audio system. What’s much less clear is how a lot better it’s in comparison with different small soundbars, like Roku’s $180 Streambar Professional. Sonos has an extended historical past of delivering wonderful sound, and the Ray continues that custom. And simply because the transportable $179 Sonos Roam is an efficient gateway drug into the Sonos ecosystem, the Ray is an efficient first Sonos for somebody who desires to enhance their TV audio. Sure, you’ll find cheaper soundbars, however Sonos is betting its status for wonderful sound high quality will make the Ray a hit. After spending a while with it, I’d haven’t any drawback recommending the Ray to anybody who desires a straightforward option to improve their TV’s audio however would not care about having the very best speaker that helps essentially the most codecs. For lots of people, notably these with smaller dwelling rooms, the Ray shall be simply the best soundbar for his or her house.