Sonos Ray review: Budget brilliance
Source: Sonos Ray review: Budget brilliance
(Pocket-lint) – Sonos already had the top-end Sonos Arc and mid-range Sonos Beam (2nd gen) for soundbar seekers to consider. Now the Sonos Ray has joined the portfolio.
It’s the first option at the budget end of the scale that we’ve seen from the company. And while all three share a similar design language and features, the Ray obviously misses out on a few things.
Are you making too many compromises by choosing Sonos Ray, or could this compact, entry-level soundbar be just the addition you need for your home? Here is our verdict.
The Sonos Ray is a soundbar that offers an attractive design, excellent sound quality for its size, and a range of excellent features, thanks largely to the fact that it’s part of the wider Sonos system.
You’ll make some compromises when choosing the Sonos Ray over its more expensive siblings, such as the Sonos Ray. There’s a lack of smart assistants, HDMI eARC support and Dolby Atmos, for example, and there’s a smaller soundstage overall, but the Ray is still worth considering the right setup.
It can be set up and placed in a TV cabinet in minutes – something you can’t really do with the Beam or Arc – and immediately offer a huge improvement in the sound of your TV. It’s also exceptionally easy to use and works great as a standalone speaker.
If you’re looking for a Sonos soundbar for your living room, we recommend the Beam over the Ray. However, the latter is an excellent choice for those looking to boost the sound of a bedroom TV or gaming monitor. For the price, the overall package here is awesome.
- Compact design is beautiful
- Great sound quality for its size
- Excellent range of functions
- Fast setup
- user friendliness
- Not so good at lower volumes
- No HDMI ARC or eARC support
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Compact design
- 559 x 71 x 95mm; 1.95kg
- Black or white finish available
- Angled sides
- Plastic grid
The Sonos Ray takes design cues from the rest of the company’s portfolio, offering black and white color options, a Sonos logo at the center of the speaker grille, and an overall sleek and premium build quality.
It’s small and compact like the Sonos Beam – actually more compact – but it has angled sides and the speaker grille is only present on the front of the Ray, rather than wrapping around the sides and rear like the Beam and Arc. That small size, and the fact that only the front needs to be exposed, means you can pop the Ray on a TV cabinet shelf, for example, although you could also hang it on the wall or place it on a shelf, for example.
If you’ve got a big TV, the Ray next to it will look a bit out of place – whether it’s hanging on a wall or sitting on a cabinet underneath. You really need a TV smaller than a 55 inch TV or it will look a little lost. We tested it with a 47-inch TV and it looked great at that size.
On the bottom of the Sonos Ray, like the other Sonos soundbars, there are small rubber feet, and at the bottom center there is a small cutout for the IR sensor, which allows you to control the volume with your TV remote.
On the back you’ll find the usual ports, connectors and the pairing button. The Ray opts for optical only, though, so there’s no HDMI – more on that below – and you’ll find it alongside an Ethernet port and power outlet. The top of the Ray features the same capacitive controls as the Beam and Arc, with an LED light sitting in the front speaker grille to indicate the Ray’s status.
The Sonos Ray looks great overall in our opinion. While it’s the cheapest soundbar in the company’s lineup, it doesn’t look like it at all. You can compromise on some features, but you don’t compromise on build quality or design, so Sonos fans won’t be disappointed on that front.
Great features
- Apple AirPlay 2 support
- Support for 100+ music services
- Sonos Trueplay
- Speech Enhancement/Night Mode
The Sonos Ray offers most of the features you’ll find on the Beam and Arc, although as mentioned, some are missing. If you only offer an optical connection instead of HDMI ARC or eARC, you won’t get Dolby Atmos support on the Ray. The Sonos Arc, meanwhile, offers full Dolby Atmos support, while the Sonos Beam (2nd Gen) has virtual Dolby Atmos support.
There’s also no microphone here, so you don’t get access to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa support, and the Ray doesn’t offer native support for the Sonos Voice assistant either. However, you can still control the Ray through another Sonos speaker that has Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa or Sonos Voice (such as the Sonos One), or a third-party smart speaker like the Amazon Echo.
Those missing features aside, the Ray has everything you’d expect from a traditional Sonos speaker. The beauty of Sonos soundbars is that not only do they enhance the sound of your TV, but they also work great as standalone speakers when the TV isn’t on, giving you two in one.
The Ray also offers features like Sonos Trueplay, which allows it to tailor sound specifically to the room it’s in – well worth the three minutes it takes to complete – and it gets over 100 music streaming too services and Sonos Radio supported.
Other standard features include the ability to customize equalizer (EQ) settings to suit your preferences, play different or the same music through different Sonos speakers simultaneously, and set alarms.
There’s also support for Apple AirPlay 2 and some extra features like voice enhancement and a night mode feature. The Ray also has NFC on board for super quick setup, meaning it’s a matter of minutes to get it up and running with your TV and the Sonos app. It’s a plug and play soundbar, thanks in particular to the optical connection.
hardware and performance
- optical
- Four Class-D digital amplifiers
- Two woofers, two tweeters
- Split wave guides, bass reflex system
The Sonos Ray features a pair of mid-range drivers, a pair of tweeters, and split waveguides that project sound from wall to wall, with one jutting forward and the other to the side. Also under the hood are Class D digital amplifiers and a bass reflex system.
As mentioned above, all of the acoustic elements are placed on the front of the Sonos Ray, rather than wrapping around the sides. This results in a soundstage that isn’t as wide or impressive as its siblings, with the sound emitted by the Ray being much more direct. That’s not to say the Ray doesn’t still sound great for its size and price, though.
Like the Beam, it struggles a bit at lower volumes, but the three-speaker array still does a great job of enhancing the sound of a TV and performs brilliantly as a standalone speaker too.
We tested the Sonos Ray by looking at some standard broadcasts, such as: bold type and The stairsbut we also saw a few movies including no time to die and the beam really enhances the action scenes while doing a great job of delivering speech with clarity.
In terms of music, we’ve tested the Sonos Ray with lots of tracks and it does a great job overall. It easily fills a medium-sized room and handles high voices as well as deep basses. While we’d recommend stepping up to the Beam for a reasonable living room setup, the Sonos Ray packs enough punch for a secondary.
Add a pair of Sonos One or One SL Surrounds and the Sonos Sub to the Ray and you’ll be very pleasantly surprised at the experience this compact soundbar can deliver.
If you’re looking for a soundbar for your living room, we’d recommend the Sonos Beam over the Sonos Ray if your budget allows. However, the Sonos Ray is an excellent choice for those looking to boost their sound in other rooms. For the price, the overall package that the Sonos Ray delivers is brilliant.
Writing from Britta O’Boyle. Editing by Conor Allison.
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