When you are looking at connections, Sonos has opted to consider away the HDMI port from the Sonos Ray and instead just featuring an Optical port. Obviously, this can be an annoyance for some but fact of the matter is, most TVs come with an optical port that may connect to the soundbar, and it’s just as seamless as using HDMI for the most part.
THE Lowest price: $399 FROM THE SONOS WEBSITE.
The Sonos Ray is literally ideal for an inferior living space or perhaps a bedroom. I opted to test it within my bedroom linked to a 43″ Samsung Frame and the difference was immense. I had been in a position to hear voices that has a lot more clarity, the bass in the speakers was evident and obviously, I had been then in a position to seamlessly connected my Ray my Sonos system and play audio through the soundbar over both Apple Airplay and through the Sonos Wi-Fi system.
When you are looking at sound, I’d put this somewhere between the Sonos One and the Beam V2. You’re going to get a much more rounded sound compared to the Sonos One, however you’re missing newer features such as Dolby Atmos and an amp along with a midwoofer within the Beam V2. Honestly though, for most people, you’ll struggle to differentiate between the Beam V2 and also the Ray in most instances, especially in a $200 price difference.
Another feature that you’re missing out on is a microphone meaning you’re not able to make use of Google Home, Amazon Alexa or Sonos’ upcoming voice assistant. That could be an issue if you’re seeking to begin using these features in the room that this soundbar is in, however the omission isn’t an enormous surprise given the discounted.
The biggest and finest thing about getting into the Sonos ecosystem is when easy things are to create and use and then keep adding to. It is simple to add two Sonos Ones to the Sonos Ray to produce surrounds, add a sub for more base or just add other speakers in other rooms to have music seamlessly blaring through the whole house.
The setup of the system is just ridiculously easy too. You just just need to grab the Sonos app, and also the Ray will instantly show up, before you can control things such as TV volume in addition to play music from the likes of TuneIn Radio, Spotify and Apple Music. If you’re purely attempting to take control of your TV, most TV remotes will control the soundbar directly too.
A couple of additional features I want to call out are Night Sound that will reduce loud effects and boost the quieter ones and Speech Enhancement which could amplify voices. I know these seem like features that you will never use, but when they're so readily available within the app, you will find yourself more likely to rely on them than with other soundbars.
All-in-all, it’d be hard not to recommend the Sonos Ray for $399 when the $599 price tag of the Sonos Beam is too steep, or if you simply don’t have the room for that larger soundbar. I haven’t heard about anybody regretting engaging in the Sonos ecosystem and I don’t see this changing with the Sonos Ray.
