Sonos Ray in the test: Good sound bar for small rooms

With the Sonos Ray, the provider is bringing its cheapest soundbar to date onto the market. It has a compact design and is content with stereo sound and the most necessary connections. Is the Sonos Ray convincing for use in small living rooms and as a PC soundbar, or does it make too many compromises? We checked that in the test.

Design: Fits anywhere

The compact design of the Sonos Ray specifically means: dimensions of 55.9 (width) x 7.1 (height) x 9.5 (depth) centimeters and a weight of 1.95 kilograms. By comparison, the flagship Sonos Arc soundbar is over a meter wide and weighs 6.25 kilograms. This means that the Sonos Ray fits well under the PC monitor or in the TV cabinet. Since the sound only radiates forwards, i.e. not to the sides and upwards as with Dolby Atmos soundbars, there are no acoustic disadvantages from placing it in a closet.

Thanks to the sober, minimalist design, the Sonos Ray usually blends in well with the home. The solidly built plastic soundbar draws attention to the brand with a silver “Sonos” logo on the front, otherwise only the three buttons on the top are highlighted in color. The Sonos Ray is available in either black or white.

Conclusion: The compact soundbar with a minimalist design looks good in the TV cabinet or under the PC monitor.

Sonos Ray
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Setup & Control: App & optical input

The Sonos Ray requires the use of a smartphone app, which is available free of charge for Android phones and iPhones. You use this to set up the soundbar and select streaming content such as music and audio books via the appropriate apps. All common applications such as Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Apple Music and Audible are offered.

A Wi-Fi modem is built into the Sonos Ray, alternatively it can be connected to the router with a network cable. The soundbar connects itself to the correct network during setup. You can also connect the TV or PC with an optical cable and add it to the app. Thanks to the infrared receiver, it is also possible to configure the TV remote control for use with the soundbar. Otherwise, the playback can be controlled with the three buttons on the top.

It ultimately doesn’t work without an app, because you have to switch between streaming playback and the optical cable. Control via voice assistant is not possible directly via the soundbar. To do this, you must set up a compatible device such as the Sonos One, the Amazon Echo Dot, or your iPhone in the Sonos app.

You can only transfer the sound from the TV and PC to the soundbar with the optical cable, there is no HDMI connection. So you have to find out in advance whether your TV or computer has an optical output (“TOSLINK”). The common home cinema formats Stereo PCM, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS Digital Surround can also be played back. However, the soundbar only delivers a real all-round sound if you supplement it with additional Sonos loudspeakers and connect them to a surround home cinema system in the app. You can also integrate the Sonos Ray into a multi-room system with Sonos speakers in different rooms.

The device functioned largely without problems in the test. However, we had to integrate the soundbar into another network a few times, specifically in my apartment and in our photo studio. For this it is necessary to reset them to the factory settings. This required a few attempts, but ultimately it worked. For most users, the soundbar will probably stay in the same network for a long time.

Conclusion: The Sonos Ray offers many playback options, but an optical connection is required for TV and PC. Aside from the stubborn factory reset, setup and control worked well and easily. The app requirement could bother some, but it is part of the Sonos concept.

Sound: Cinematic stereo sound, but…

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Classic music sounds good with the Sonos Ray, but it’s not powerful enough for rock music.

Image: © TURN ON 2022

The Sonos Ray relies on a relatively balanced sound with a powerful bass for its size. However, the highs are rather restrained. In small living rooms, films and series are fun with it, I liked the soundbar best when used with PC games. It seems almost ideal for this, because it has just the right power.

When it comes to music, the Sonos Ray does well with genres like classical and jazz. However, she is hopelessly overwhelmed with metal and especially punk rock. The volume of the small soundbar is simply not enough for this, the sound is distorted and reverberant. If you want to listen to powerful music, you should go for larger speakers or a soundbar like the Grab Sonos Arc (here my test). Alternatively, we recommend adding more, more powerful Sonos speakers.

Conclusion: The Sonos Ray performs best for PC gaming and watching movies and TV shows in smaller spaces. She lacks the power for hard music like metal and punk.

Conclusion: Especially great for PC gaming

The Sonos Ray knows how to impress in its intended areas of application. It is best suited as a sound bar under the PC monitor for gaming. It can also be used for a better sound experience with films and series in smaller rooms. But with stronger styles of music like metal and punk, she quickly runs out of breath. It is practical to be able to stream content such as music and audio books to the soundbar via an app.

I liked that	I liked that less
+ Good sound	– Too little power for metal and punk
+ Convenient all-in-one solution	– Optical output required on TV/PC
+ Lots of streaming apps
+ Top as a PC soundbar

As a hi-fi person, I should also point out that fans of high sound quality tend to do better with wired speakers than with soundbars. Even my small Polk Signature S10e bookshelf speakers are in a different league than the Sonos Ray. The advantage of soundbars, however, is that they provide a convenient all-in-one solution. Amplifiers, decoders and Wi-Fi streaming – everything is right on board. Sonos has perfected this all-in-one concept.

The Sonos Ray is reasonably priced for the performance it offers. In the meantime, the JBL Bar 2.1 with subwoofer and the Sony HT-X8500 Dolby Atmos soundbar have arrived in the same price range and are worth a look. The advantages of the Sonos lie in the comprehensive range of streaming services and the fact that they can be expanded with additional Sonos speakers.