Have mine preordered! I'm not bothered by not having HDMI, as my previous soundbar was optical and worked fine. The Ray also has an IR port and you can program your existing TV remote to control it. I've found that's more reliable than HDMI CEC in my case. I've turned CEC off on all my devices and found ways to get my TV remote to control everything with IR. CEC was really flaky on my devices. Sometime it would power things on but not off, and so on. All my HDMI ports are already used up anyway. AFAIK the only advantage I would get with HDMI is Dolby Atmos, which is really just virtual surround. On what is essentially a 2.0 soundbar, that's a bit of a stretch. I don't know if it's because I have hearing loss in one of my ears or what, but virtual surround technologies like Atmos never really convinced me, except with headphones. My trusty old Vizio bar that the Ray will replace did have DTS Virtual X, but all that did was widen the soundstage. It was essentially still in stereo but it just sounded like the left and right channels were on either side of the room instead of right in front of me, which is appreciated, but I never got any convincing virtual rear channels as claimed. The Ray seems to also be able to provide wider stereo separation beyond the position of the drivers, but with porting and engineering on the drivers themselves instead of extra digital processing which I like. I also intend to add 2 Ikea/Sonos Symfonisk bookshelf speakers as real rear surround channels. I will see how the bass response is on just the Ray itself, some soundbars without subs deliver plenty of bass and really don't need one, but there have been rumors for a while and now FCC filings showed up for a Sonos Sub Mini that should cost a lot less than their current mainstream Sub and would be a nice pairing with the Ray. I'm excited to be able to enter the Sonos ecosystem! I've been intrigued by it from the outside for a while, but could never justify the eye-watering price of their high end flagship equipment. Now, the Ray is not exactly cheap as small soundbars go, and it cuts a number of extra features, but from seeing a number of different reviews it seems most the budget and cost went into the sound engineering. Some reviewers had trouble hearing a difference between the Ray and the Gen 2 Beam! That's impressive!
Thank you for the review, you made my choice really easy, Optical only in 2023/2024…possibly why this thing is on huge discount. Hence why I came to RUclips in 2024 to see what this thing has, and no HDMI is a deal breaker, regardless of the huge discount I can get the ray for right now.
I'm a massive Sonos fan boy but I'm enormously disappointed they didn't bother to add HDMI. A lot of low end TVs don't have even have optical anymore. The Ray could have been the perfect entry level bar for the more budget conscious or even for use with higher end computer monitors. Sadly an otherwise well built speaker seems to have been deliberately hobbled - as was the Playbase - by not having HDMI. Absolutely crazy.
No HDMI support? My 200 dollar soundbar has HDMI ARC. Even if you can argue that HDMI isn’t “needed”, for this price it is expected and there are more benefits to HDMI than just audio quality. It really feels like these review sites are paid by Sonos because the amount of flaws their products have seem like they should be inexcusable but they always get glowing reviews.
I’ve been wanting to update our master bedroom audio for a while. Currently running a Sony 5.1 amp with some old theater in a box speakers (not very good ones). It’s an older Vizio LCD (no eARC and optical out is 2.0 only). I have set up several Sonos systems of all kinds for family (original Play Bar with connect amp & in ceiling speakers and the sub with about 8 Ones around the house at my parents and a Gen1 Beam, sub & OneSLs as rears at my sisters). I have always been impressed with all Sonos stuff although pricey. I’d love to do the Arc or Gen2 Beam for Atmos, but will have to figure out a way to split hdmi signals off a switcher to feed the soundbar but extensive research leads me to think I still may not get Atmos without eARC. Our living room setup is a 65” A9G Bravia OLED with Sony amp & DefTech ProCinema 1000s paired with a Supercube 2000 in a 7.1 config (appleTV 4K and Hue Sync active backlighting). For movie night, we use that setup. I’m now leaning towards this soundbar with the IKEA speakers for rears & will add the mini sub once it’s out. It’s about a 12’ x 16’ bedroom so I’m thinking this will be a good compromise as far as price & it will definitely be a quality improvement over the current 5.1 system in there. We also plan to move once the market gets under and can move this system to a guest room/office then go to the Arc & Ones with the large sub for the bedroom. I’ve been into audio my whole life, have had surround systems since the early 90s when I was in middle school, got into very expensive custom car audio (have a $12k+ system in my car that is magazine feature quality), have had stereo pairs in nearly every room of the house for 20 years (including patio, bathrooms & garage) all fed off a rack setup with zone selectors etc and was always weary of wireless setups but Sonos really proved how great they can sound when I set up my parents home several years ago. Nice to have a cheaper option for starting a Sonos system at home. Excited to get this.
@@make.one.studio probably like that because they test a bunch of stuff, why bother having it clean up if you’re constantly plugging and unplugging stuff
How does it compare to the Bose TV Speaker for the exact same price? I also looked at the Yamaha but they have upward faced speakers and I want to place under a TV riser. What are some of the other standouts in the "sub $300 market?"
That's the price of the current Sub which is an optional add on. For what it's worth there should be a much cheaper Sonos subwoofer called the Sub Mini coming out in as soon as a month or 2. It was rumored for a while but just showed up in an FCC filing meaning it's not far off now.
From the mess, you can tell without looking at the channel this def ain’t a Verge video review lol. Also, you guys are not being hard enough on this thing for not having HDMI. That is inexcusable
I just hooked up the Ray to my PC using a $15 analog to digital converter from Amazon. Using the Ray on my PC is a killer use case and sounds fantastic.
Don't listen to Sonos, this is purely an ecosystem play. It is not for your TV. The Ray is the optical input for any user that bought a pair of play 1s or Ikea Symfonisk bookshelves and then realizing it only plays from streaming media or from Airplay2 from a Mac, looked at how to game with the speakers on a PC. The Sonos connect or port was the prior solution, but finally there's something that's not incredibly overpriced which can take a PC 's optical out and put it into a 3 speaker system for your room. In short the Ray is for helping Sonos net pair with an optical source, probably your non-Apple PC. For that it's great. All of Sonos's sound bars with HDMI are for TVs, and basically need a pair of extra Sonos/Ikea speakers to sound good
You’re better off with a $200 Visio soundbar / subwoofer setup. I’m done with high end speakers. You can’t disobey the laws of physics. You need a sub to get thumping bass. I have a Sonos and I have a $50 Walmart bought Onn speaker that sounds better because it’s got bigger diaphragms. You can’t cheat the laws of physics.
@@sifisophil2979 This is where LG sucks. I used to have a Sony XBR950B which sported a 3.5" socket for a subwoofer. I connected it to a preamp subwoofer for daily use and the home theatre system was only used when I watched movies or played games. Now I live in another country and use LG C1 without a theater system and I'm basically satisfied with the midrange and treble of the TV speakers because the lease condo is much smaller than where I used to live. I just need enhanced bass, only to find that I have to buy a whole set of soundbar while the Sony OLED counterpart still offers that dedicated subwoofer jack.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Have mine preordered! I'm not bothered by not having HDMI, as my previous soundbar was optical and worked fine. The Ray also has an IR port and you can program your existing TV remote to control it. I've found that's more reliable than HDMI CEC in my case. I've turned CEC off on all my devices and found ways to get my TV remote to control everything with IR. CEC was really flaky on my devices. Sometime it would power things on but not off, and so on. All my HDMI ports are already used up anyway. AFAIK the only advantage I would get with HDMI is Dolby Atmos, which is really just virtual surround. On what is essentially a 2.0 soundbar, that's a bit of a stretch. I don't know if it's because I have hearing loss in one of my ears or what, but virtual surround technologies like Atmos never really convinced me, except with headphones. My trusty old Vizio bar that the Ray will replace did have DTS Virtual X, but all that did was widen the soundstage. It was essentially still in stereo but it just sounded like the left and right channels were on either side of the room instead of right in front of me, which is appreciated, but I never got any convincing virtual rear channels as claimed. The Ray seems to also be able to provide wider stereo separation beyond the position of the drivers, but with porting and engineering on the drivers themselves instead of extra digital processing which I like. I also intend to add 2 Ikea/Sonos Symfonisk bookshelf speakers as real rear surround channels. I will see how the bass response is on just the Ray itself, some soundbars without subs deliver plenty of bass and really don't need one, but there have been rumors for a while and now FCC filings showed up for a Sonos Sub Mini that should cost a lot less than their current mainstream Sub and would be a nice pairing with the Ray. I'm excited to be able to enter the Sonos ecosystem! I've been intrigued by it from the outside for a while, but could never justify the eye-watering price of their high end flagship equipment. Now, the Ray is not exactly cheap as small soundbars go, and it cuts a number of extra features, but from seeing a number of different reviews it seems most the budget and cost went into the sound engineering. Some reviewers had trouble hearing a difference between the Ray and the Gen 2 Beam! That's impressive!
Thank you for the review, you made my choice really easy, Optical only in 2023/2024…possibly why this thing is on huge discount. Hence why I came to RUclips in 2024 to see what this thing has, and no HDMI is a deal breaker, regardless of the huge discount I can get the ray for right now.
I'm a massive Sonos fan boy but I'm enormously disappointed they didn't bother to add HDMI. A lot of low end TVs don't have even have optical anymore.
The Ray could have been the perfect entry level bar for the more budget conscious or even for use with higher end computer monitors.
Sadly an otherwise well built speaker seems to have been deliberately hobbled - as was the Playbase - by not having HDMI. Absolutely crazy.
I love the ray, in comparison with the JBL 3.1 for example, the Sonos Ray blew it away (even without subwoofer)
No HDMI support? My 200 dollar soundbar has HDMI ARC. Even if you can argue that HDMI isn’t “needed”, for this price it is expected and there are more benefits to HDMI than just audio quality. It really feels like these review sites are paid by Sonos because the amount of flaws their products have seem like they should be inexcusable but they always get glowing reviews.
Which one do you use? I'd love to check it out
This soundbar wouldn’t need 37 Mbit data speed on eARC lol. Optical is more than good enough
@@XKS_ you're ignoring the auto on, volume sync features of ARC that are more than worthwhile in their own right for the convenience they afford
@@Clove_Parma it has an IR sensor. Your tv remote can still change the volume.
Which soundbar is better this one or Bose solo 5 soundbar? Thanks, I’m looking at both.
How should the in built tv audio setting be setup for soundbars
Will this work with apple tv thanks
I bought Samsung Soundbar 9.1 CH with rear speakers and I am never going back.
Okay lil bro
I’ve been wanting to update our master bedroom audio for a while. Currently running a Sony 5.1 amp with some old theater in a box speakers (not very good ones). It’s an older Vizio LCD (no eARC and optical out is 2.0 only). I have set up several Sonos systems of all kinds for family (original Play Bar with connect amp & in ceiling speakers and the sub with about 8 Ones around the house at my parents and a Gen1 Beam, sub & OneSLs as rears at my sisters). I have always been impressed with all Sonos stuff although pricey. I’d love to do the Arc or Gen2 Beam for Atmos, but will have to figure out a way to split hdmi signals off a switcher to feed the soundbar but extensive research leads me to think I still may not get Atmos without eARC. Our living room setup is a 65” A9G Bravia OLED with Sony amp & DefTech ProCinema 1000s paired with a Supercube 2000 in a 7.1 config (appleTV 4K and Hue Sync active backlighting). For movie night, we use that setup. I’m now leaning towards this soundbar with the IKEA speakers for rears & will add the mini sub once it’s out. It’s about a 12’ x 16’ bedroom so I’m thinking this will be a good compromise as far as price & it will definitely be a quality improvement over the current 5.1 system in there. We also plan to move once the market gets under and can move this system to a guest room/office then go to the Arc & Ones with the large sub for the bedroom. I’ve been into audio my whole life, have had surround systems since the early 90s when I was in middle school, got into very expensive custom car audio (have a $12k+ system in my car that is magazine feature quality), have had stereo pairs in nearly every room of the house for 20 years (including patio, bathrooms & garage) all fed off a rack setup with zone selectors etc and was always weary of wireless setups but Sonos really proved how great they can sound when I set up my parents home several years ago. Nice to have a cheaper option for starting a Sonos system at home. Excited to get this.
Am I able to connect it with my sonos play 5 ?
No Subwoofer out?
no but you can connect it wirelessly thru the app
2:22 You need some serious wire management LOL
I am genuinely surprised at some professional reviewers have messy cables/setups.
@@make.one.studio probably like that because they test a bunch of stuff, why bother having it clean up if you’re constantly plugging and unplugging stuff
How does it compare to the Bose TV Speaker for the exact same price? I also looked at the Yamaha but they have upward faced speakers and I want to place under a TV riser. What are some of the other standouts in the "sub $300 market?"
The background music is annoying why play an audio clip to show off the sound of this device with other sound along side it.
I think the problem with pairing with the sub is the cost, its basically 3 times the price of the soundbar so doesnt really make sense
L🤭L $800 now equals Budget. Apple would approve with this Sentiment! 🤑
They are $279! Wake up bro.
Yeah, 749 was for the Sonos Sub.
That's the price of the current Sub which is an optional add on. For what it's worth there should be a much cheaper Sonos subwoofer called the Sub Mini coming out in as soon as a month or 2. It was rumored for a while but just showed up in an FCC filing meaning it's not far off now.
budget soundbar. yeah!
From the mess, you can tell without looking at the channel this def ain’t a Verge video review lol. Also, you guys are not being hard enough on this thing for not having HDMI. That is inexcusable
Did you forget to take your medications today?
I just hooked up the Ray to my PC using a $15 analog to digital converter from Amazon. Using the Ray on my PC is a killer use case and sounds fantastic.
@@Jacobra60 Yo i was wondering this exact question. So it works no problems at all using a convertor?
is it just a optic to audio jack convertor?
Don't listen to Sonos, this is purely an ecosystem play. It is not for your TV. The Ray is the optical input for any user that bought a pair of play 1s or Ikea Symfonisk bookshelves and then realizing it only plays from streaming media or from Airplay2 from a Mac, looked at how to game with the speakers on a PC. The Sonos connect or port was the prior solution, but finally there's something that's not incredibly overpriced which can take a PC 's optical out and put it into a 3 speaker system for your room.
In short the Ray is for helping Sonos net pair with an optical source, probably your non-Apple PC. For that it's great.
All of Sonos's sound bars with HDMI are for TVs, and basically need a pair of extra Sonos/Ikea speakers to sound good
This guy’s living room is so messy lol. You’d think for a review they’ll clean up the set up for a product review
Real life test!
He's just a regular guy. He's not trying to be pretentious. He still has a hangover from last night's party and it's killing him.
He is a real human not a robot and you watched this for the speaker review not his home decor , give the man some grace damn smh
Take a look at your own home first
*No HDMI*
It's a no from me, dawg. 🤷♀️
Fr who uses optical in 2022. Wouldn’t be surprised if some TVs aren’t including optical anymore.
you can get a sonos optical adapter to hdmi
@@christiannazareno6559 No, but from HDMI to optical 😁
@@owRekssjfjxjxuurrpqpqss I'm using optical on the TV in the bedroom, this is perfect. For anywhere else in the house I'm using an Arc and Playbar
It probably doesn't stand a chance against something like Vifa Helsinki...
HDMI left out to cut the Cost? What! 🤷🏻♂️
A real honest reviewer would easily criticise this.
This is obviously sponsored review. No doubt.
What a weird complaint
I watched this video after uploading my own Ray review, just to see what others think. Either you're using a different device, or this video is BS...
Everyone has a right to their opinion
What is up with that “flinstones” entertainment center. My dude….seriously
No HDMI or Bluetooth in 2022. Sounds like Sonos.
Slow down! You speak too quickly. Had to rewind several times during playback. 😢
You’re better off with a $200 Visio soundbar / subwoofer setup. I’m done with high end speakers. You can’t disobey the laws of physics. You need a sub to get thumping bass. I have a Sonos and I have a $50 Walmart bought Onn speaker that sounds better because it’s got bigger diaphragms. You can’t cheat the laws of physics.
No subwoofer, no purchase. That’s it.
U can add it
@@sifisophil2979 This is where LG sucks. I used to have a Sony XBR950B which sported a 3.5" socket for a subwoofer. I connected it to a preamp subwoofer for daily use and the home theatre system was only used when I watched movies or played games. Now I live in another country and use LG C1 without a theater system and I'm basically satisfied with the midrange and treble of the TV speakers because the lease condo is much smaller than where I used to live. I just need enhanced bass, only to find that I have to buy a whole set of soundbar while the Sony OLED counterpart still offers that dedicated subwoofer jack.
How the hell is sonos a budget speaker?!?
This is their budget speaker, compared to their other more expensive models of Soundbars they offer.
r/tvtoohigh r/tvabovefireplace
Not interested after my old Sonos gear stopped working because they didn't want to support it any more.
Which one did you have ?
Unless you have a speaker from 2005 you can still use it on the S1 app. Your statement is false
Hmm which one do you have? Mind sharing?
@@finnkemper2179 The original ones but I did add to the collection. I was quite annoyed when the controllers were no longer supported.
It is unreasonable to expect speakers released in 2013 to receive updates forever.
Also - they didn’t stop working. You can use the S1 app.
Budget 🤦♂️ clicked dont show channel ever again 💯
For $300 that this thing costs I went for a Hi-Fi Micro system for my TV and I’m so glad I did instead of this garbage. Sound bars are so lame 😒
Sonos is piece of junk
Why waste your cash buying this cheap piece of nothing. You would be better off using your TV's speakers.