Sonos Ray Soundbar Review

The Sonos Ray has a simple design. It's a small bar that's mostly plastic, and there's a plastic grille on the front. The bar's edges are rounded, which gives it a sleek look.

You can add a separate subwoofer from the manufacturer if you want to upgrade your setup.

The manufacturer sells a wide array of additional speakers to add on as rear satellites.

The Sonos Ray is smaller than the manufacturer's other offerings like the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), and its compact design easily fits between the legs of a 55" TV. Since it isn't very tall, it doesn't block your screen.

You can mount this bar to your wall, though the brackets aren't included, so you'll have to buy them from Sonos separately. The wall-mount hole is on the back of the bar, and you can see it here.

This bar has a good build quality. Its plastic build is solid overall, and the grille in the front helps to protect the drivers inside. That said, the material feels a bit cheaper compared to more premium offerings from Sonos, like the Sonos Beam (Gen 2).

• Manuals
• Power cable (6.2 ft / 1.9m)
• Optical cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)

The Sonos Ray has a fair stereo frequency response. Like most premium bars on the market, this soundbar comes with a room correction device that's designed to adjust its output based on your room's unique acoustics. It's called Trueplay, and it's available on compatible iOS devices. With it on, the bar's sound profile is pretty balanced, especially in the mids, where most voices and lead instruments reproduce. As with most standalone bars, the lack of bass is noticeable, especially with bass-heavy genres like hip-hop and EDM. Still, if you mostly listen to dialogue-centric TV shows without a lot of bass mixed in, you'll find the vocals pleasant and detailed.

The bar offers bass and treble adjustments to help you customize its sound more to your liking. However, if you prefer a more neutral sound, its default settings fall within the desired range, so you don't have to worry about playing around with its sound settings.

The bar's stereo soundstage is just okay, which is disappointing given the impressive performance of the manufacturer's top-of-the-line products. The soundstage is perceived to be a touch wider than the bar itself—but the bar isn't very wide to begin with, so it doesn't feel like sound stretches out towards the walls of your living room. That said, the focus is good, so sound effects, like instruments in an orchestra, seem to come from accurate, pinpoint locations in the soundstage.

The bar gets loud enough to fill an average-sized living room with sound. However, like most small bars, it doesn't get much louder than that, so it's unsuitable for listening in large, open spaces. There's also a bit of compression when you push it to max volume, especially in the bass range, so you notice pumping artifacts that distort the sound a bit.

The Sonos Ray has a good stereo total harmonic distortion performance. Distortion falls within good limits at normal listening volumes, so audio reproduction is clean and pure. While there's a slight increase in distortion at max volume in the mid-range, it's hard to hear with real-life content, especially if you're a more casual listener.

This soundbar is a 2.0 setup, so it doesn't have a discrete center channel. Instead, it simulates a phantom center using its left and right stereo drivers. Unfortunately, this sounds more diffused than a discrete center, and voices aren't as accurately placed in the soundstage. Still, the frequency response is quite balanced in the mids, where most voices reproduce, so dialogue is clear and accurate.

The Sonos Ray can playback 5.1 surround sound content like Dolby Digital and DTS, which are commonly found on streaming services and Blu-ray discs. However, the bar has to downmix this content into stereo to play it. The resulting sound isn't very immersive, and audio seems to be coming from speakers in front of you. Sound effects don't seem to come from all around you, either. However, you can always add rear speakers if you want a more clear and real representation of surround content.

You can always check out the Samsung HW-S60B/S61B if you want a small standalone bar with Atmos support.

Despite its more affordable pricing, this setup offers the same sound enhancement features as the more premium Sonos Beam (Gen 2). For example, iOS users can access the Trueplay room correction feature, which optimizes audio reproduction based on your space's unique acoustics. If you have an Android or want a different sound, there are bass and treble adjustments on hand for manual customization, too. There's a dialogue enhancement mode called Speech Enhancement and a Night Sound feature that balances the volume level between the loudest and quietest sounds when you watch at night. As with other Sonos soundbars, however, you won't find a full graphic EQ for a greater ability to customize its sound across the range.

The Sonos Ray has a limited selection of physical inputs. You can connect it to your TV using the Optical cable, but there's no HDMI support. You'll also find an Ethernet cable and a button to link any subwoofers and satellites you choose to add in the future.

This soundbar supports Dolby Digital content, the most common surround sound format used on streaming platforms and Blu-rays. Thanks to a recent update to the Sonos S2 app, there's also DTS support. However, the bar has to downmix this content into stereo to play it.

This soundbar has a great latency performance. Its low latency means that you don't notice a delay between the audio you hear and the video you see, and there aren't any lip-synching issues. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, though.

The Sonos Ray has the same wireless playback offerings as other Sonos bars. You can wirelessly stream content to the bar over Wi-Fi and Apple AirPlay 2, and there's also support for Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect.

There's no display on the bar, but a small light above the Sonos logo lights up when connected to Wi-Fi. You can also turn it off in the app if you don't want to have the light in your field of view.

The Sonos Ray has some touch-sensitive controls. They let you play/pause your music and adjust the volume. However, you must use the Sonos S2 app to access the bar's additional features.

This soundbar doesn't come with a remote; you're meant to control it through the Sonos S2 app on your phone. If you own Sonos products, you're likely already familiar with the app's capabilities, as it lets you control a whole network of Sonos speakers simultaneously.

This soundbar doesn't have built-in voice assistant capabilities. However, you can pair the bar to a third-party Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device to control it with your voice. You can set it up in the Sonos S2 app.