So the Sonos Ray is Sonos’s most affordable soundbar. And overall, this soundbar sounds good, it looks good, you can build it out, and it has a lot of features… but it is a little confusing. Nonetheless, if you're looking for small and affordable soundbar for your bedroom or very small living room, lets see what the Sonos Ray is all about.
So first off, the sonos ray is a fully self contained system, as in it doesn’t come with an external subwoofer cause it produces its own bass. Now obviously, having an external sub woofer is always better cause this way you’re going to have a lot more bass and you’re going to get a more movie theater like experience. However, everyone might not have the room for an external subwoofer… or maybe you live in an apartment with thin walls and you don’t want to be that neighbor. So in this video we’re going to be testing the Sonos Ray without an external subwoofer.
However, with the Sonos Ray, you can always build it out by adding one of Sonos’s external subwoofer, and or you can also add rear satellite speakers. However, given the Sonos’s Ray connectivity set up, I would recommend that if you’re planning on building out your soundbar, you at least should tho with the Sonos Beam 2. But regardless, in this video we’re going to be testing the Sonos Ray by itself and we’re going to be comparing it to the built in speakers found on the Sony Bravia 3.
Cause I feel if you’re looking at an entry level soundbar like the Sonos Ray, then you’ll might have an entry level tv like the Sony Bravia 3. Nonetheless if you want to pick any of these products up they’ll be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button. And you can also pick up some merch.
So first theres the design of this soundbar. The Sonos Ray is actually pretty small, it has a length of 22 inches, a hight of 2 and 3 quarter inches and a depth of 3 and half inches. And I personally really like the wedge design of this soundbar. But more importantly, the ray has a mostly plastic body which does a really good job of not causing any reflections… and you can deactivate the indicator light on this soundbar through its app. And just like with Sonos’s other soundbars, the Ray does have a touch sensitive control panel up top which you can also deactivate from the app if you want to. So the Sonos Ray does a great job of simply disappearing when you’re going to watch a movie. And the Sonos Ray is also a great soundbar to consider if you’re planning on wall mounting it cause its very light weighing in at just 4.2 pounds. The only draw back is, its wall mounting kit is sold separately… which I feel is ridiculous cause most other soundbars come included with a wall mounting kit.
But then there are the ports on this soundbar which is my main issue. Now the ray plugs in via a AC port, which means that there is no external power brick to worry about, which is great. But the ray only connects to your tv via an optical port, which means a few things. First off, the optical connection between the ray and your tv is going to work fine, your audio is going to sound good. But you’re not going to be able to take advantage of higher quality audio formats like dolby atmos or DTS X cause those require an HDMI connection. So I feel that if you cant take advantage of higher quality audio formats with the Sonos Ray, then you shouldn’t build it out by adding an external subwoofer or rear satellite speakers. This is why I recommend that you at least spring for the Sonos Beam Gen 2.
But also, since the Sonos Ray only connects to your tv via an optical port… then you do have to go through an additional set up process so that your TV remote can adjust the Ray’s volume. And if you have multiple remotes for your different streaming boxes… then this can mean a less sleek experience. Where as with an HDMI connection, you don’t have to go through this additional set up process. But whats even more weird is that Sonos actually went ahead an added an ethernet port to this soundbar… personally I would have preferred if sonos added an HDMI port instead of an ethernet port.
But whats also very surprising is that this very entry level soundbar still has wifi… which means if you’re connected to the same wifi network as this soundbar you can always stream music to it with Airplay, or you can get all of your airplay speakers and sounders and get them to play in sync. But in dumb sonos fashion, the ray does not have bluetooth… which is feel is stubborn cause sometimes you need a bluetooth connection cause maybe you’re in an area of the house with weak wifi.
But the good thing about the Sonos ray is that it does work with sonos’s app and from here you can do a few things go through the audio calibration process, you can also adjust the sound of this soundbar and you can also control the volume of this soundbar straight from the app. Now like ive mentioned in the past, I think Sonos’s app for their soundbars are very busy and cluttered… I want to be able to quickly and easily adjust the bass and the dialog on my soundbar cause all of this content just has different mixing. But the important thing is, the Ray has an app, period, cause a lot of other entry level soundbar’s like these don’t connect to an app. So your sound customization options are a lot more limited.
But with all of that out of the way, lets talk about sound. Regarding speaker set up, the Sonos Ray is pretty impressive for its size and price. The ray has a single frontward firing tweeter, dual frontward firing woofers and dual bass chambers with exhaust ports that shoot out the front. But now we’re going to go ahead an jump into the soundtest. Now we’re going to be using the Sonos Ray while at 70% volume… the bass is set to 8, the treble is set to 3, loudness is turned on and speech enhancement is turned on as well. And we’re going to be comparing the Sonos Ray to the built in speakers found on the Sony Bravia 3 but those are going to be playing at max volume.
Sound Test
So like you may have just heard, the Sony Bravia 3 actually performs pretty well. It has dual downward firing X balanced speakers which get decently loud, and thanks to the additional surface area, they produce a decent amount of bass. But with other entry level TV’s this built in speakers might not get as loud or their bass can become a rattling mess, but regardless, you’re almost always going to be much better off upgrading to a soundbar.
Inperson 12
Now in this sound test, the Bravia 3 did a very good job of getting loud, distortion was not a problem and dialog was very present. But with the Sonos Ray, it managed to sound a lot more open and balanced, and the bass on this soundbar was a lot deeper. However, with the Sonos ray, you are going to hear the bass, but don’t expect it to rattle the walls in your house or to rattle the floor all that much. And when it comes to the max volume of this soundbar… the Sonos Ray is going to get plenty loud to fill your bed room or small living room. But just like with the Sonos Beam Gen 2… the ray is a little quieter than its direct competitors.
So with all of that being said, the Sonos Ray is a competent soundbar to consider if you’re looking for something small and affordable for your bed room or very small living room. It gets decently loud for a bed room or small living room, it sounds very balanced and it gives you decent amount of bass all while being very small. It also gives you big features that you wouldn’t find on other soundbars in this price range like Airplay 2 support, and you can also control it with Sonos’s app. Now I’m not the biggest fan of Sonos’s App, but this app is going to allow you to more easily tune this soundbar for the content that you’re going to be watching. But personally, I find it very strange that Sonos opted to go with an optical port and added an ethernet port on this soundbar instead of using an HDMI port. And since this soundbar does not have an HDMI port, meaning that its not going to be able to take advantage of higher quality audio formats, for that reason I do not recommend that you build out this sound bar by adding an external subwoofer or rear satellite speakers.