![]() ![]() You can certainly get cheaper soundbars with more features but very few are as compact and sound as good as the Ray. Plus, it has the advantage of Sonos’s excellent multiroom audio platform, which is compatible with a massive range of streaming services and is kept constantly updated with a very long support life. The Ray stillproduces impactful TV and movie sound and is even better with music, without needing a separate subwoofer. It sounds miles better than most all-in-one soundbar systems at under £300 and still has the simple, minimalist and easy to live-with experience the brand is known for.Ī few corners have been cut compared with the more expensive Beam and Arc soundbars, such as removing smart speaker functions, reducing the number of speakers and virtual surround effects, and ditching the HDMI port in favour of the old optical connection.īut I don’t think most will miss them. The Ray is a compact, high-quality sound upgrade for your TV from Sonos. Priceįor comparison, soundbars start at under £100, with more capable models costing from about £200, such as the Creative Stage 360 or the £270 Bose TV speaker. It offers trade-in and product recycling, and publishes annual responsibility and sustainability reports. The soundbar does not contain recycled material but Sonos has committed to the use of recycled plastics and designs with disassembly in mind for repair, refurbishment and recycling from 2023. The company commits to a minimum of five years of software support for feature updates after it stops selling a product but has a track record of much longer, including bug and security fixes for its legacy products. The Ray is generally repairable and limited replacement parts are available on its site. The Ray also supports Sonos’s Trueplay automatic tuning system using an iPhone or iPad, if you have one. It can be grouped with other Sonos or Ikea speakers for synchronised multiroom audio or linked with surround speakers and a separate sub for a home cinema set up. It streams music over wifi controlled by the Sonos app, supporting practically every major service, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and BBC Sounds, plus Apple’s AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. Most music genres sound brilliant but rock tracks such as AC/DC’s Back in Black blasting out at the start of Iron Man were particularly good. It is even better with music, producing room-filling sound with good stereo separation from such a narrow bar, clear vocals, crisp highs and plenty of bass for all but the deepest of notes. ![]() The two midwoofers and two tweeters hidden behind the grille produce really excellent music sound quality. SpecificationsĬonnectivity: wifi b/g/n, Optical, Ethernet, IR, AirPlay 2, Spotify ConnectĪudio formats: stereo PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS Surround The sound is more direct than more expensive models, however, creating less of a virtual surround effect than the Beam. But it also has a dedicated dialogue enhancer and a night mode, which suppresses dynamic range to keep things intelligible at lower volumes. The speaker can get very loud indeed, with 40% volume more than enough for a reasonable-sized British living room. Only a system with a separate large subwoofer would be capable of more. There is more bass than I expected from a compact all-in-one system, handling all but the very largest explosions with aplomb. ![]() On-screen action has suitable punch and energy, remaining precise and controlled at all times. The Ray sounds throughly impressive for its size and price, beating much larger, more expensive rivals.ĭialogue is super clear, even when the action is thick and fast. Simply start watching TV to automatically switch to the audio from your show or movie. Used with Sky Q and on-demand content through an Apple TV box, everything stayed in perfect sync, which is not always the case with soundbars. However, a standard infrared TV remote or those of set-top boxes such as Sky Q or an Apple TV will be able to increase and decrease sound no problem.The Sonos app will check for you as part of the setup routine. TVs with motion or voice-control remotes, such as many in the LG range, may not be able to adjust the Ray’s volume – so you will need to use the phone app or press the buttons on the soundbar. Using the optical cable means your television cannot control the soundbar through HDMI-CEC, a connection that allows most TVs to control soundbars and other devices via one remote. The one notable potential problem with soundbars that lack an HDMI port is how to control volume. Setting up the Ray is straightforward: plug it into power, slot the optical cable in the back and into your TV, then follow the instructions in the Sonos app on an Android or iPhone to connect to wifi, check the connections and set up volume control using your remote. ![]()
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