The Sonos Ray brings into question why soundbars have to be so large and unwieldy

Soundbars are a sleek, impressive (optional) addition to your entertainment setup — sometimes at the expense of making a dent in your budget and decor. They can rescue you from tinny, underwhelming TV speakers and give you a way to play your favorite music.

On the other hand, some soundbars don’t necessarily deliver quality sound, cost a pretty penny, and can kill the vibe of a perfectly curated mid-century-modern credenza — a big, black bar in the middle of a colorful setup or muted natural wood tones can sometimes throw a decor scheme off kilter. What it comes down to for a product like this is good quality sound and the buyer’s needs.

Enter stage left: The Sonos Ray soundbar. Sonos is an established audio technology brand with a focus on sound quality and technologically innovative features. Much of its equipment ranges in price from $200 to $900, increasing if you purchase tech bundles based on your audio needs. A primary draw to the brand is its expertly engineered smart speakers’ sound quality and ability to build upon one another for a tailored audio experience. You can connect multiple products in their app and listen to the same audio throughout your home.

The Sonos Ray is pretty small for a soundbar.
Credit: Han Schneider / Mashable

The Sonos Ray Soundbar ($279) occupies a unique space in Sonos’s line of products and the broader soundbar market. Because of its lower-end price, it’s a no-frills soundbar that doesn’t even come with a remote or Bluetooth connectivity (really? in 2024?). This gave me pause at first, but upon testing and reflecting, I realized that not everything needs Bluetooth connectivity, nor does your tech need to possess every single feature possible if you only have one distinct purpose. And the Sonos Ray does deliver on the bottom line requirement of any speaker: true, quality sound.

I tested the Sonos Ray Soundbar and was pleasantly surprised that such a simple product could deliver on its few, albeit simple, promises. When many soundbars on the market are an eyesore, I thought it was excellent that the Sonos Ray soundbar can come in a crisp white that blends in well if you don’t want that classic soundbar shape and color plunked into your home’s aesthetic.

What is the Sonos Ray Soundbar good for?

The Sonos Ray soundbar is sleek, petite, crisp (in make and sound), and an all-around small but mighty soundbar to add to your entertainment system. However, you can’t necessarily expect much more from this lower-cost soundbar from Sonos. It can make the audio of Nintendo’s Tears of the Kingdom crystal clear such that you can make out the lush swishing of the animated grass and the crunch of gravel under Link’s feet. It made Jeff Probst’s narration of Survivor challenges burst from the TV with crisp, emphatic clarity, amplifying every splash, splat, and squelch of the contestants flailing in the ocean, sand, and mud.

That said, the options and possibilities for your Sonos Ray soundbar on its own are not limitless. It comes with a power cord and optical input cord, and that’s it. I searched the box for a second for a remote, but Sonos wanted to simplify this particular soundbar (almost) to a fault. To my disappointment, I could not connect the soundbar to my projector during my initial test run. Without making any other purchases (say converter cables or additional products from Sonos), the only way to get the Sonos Ray up and running for an entertainment system is via your TV’s optical cable, also known as a SPDIF cable.

This was new for me when it comes to a fancy gadget from a brand that foundationally prides itself on smart speakers that don’t visually boast their specs but secretly pack so many different features and promise state-of-the-art synchronicity between pieces of your system.

The Sonos Ray has minimal physical controls and doesn’t come with a remote.
Credit: Han Schneider / Mashable

Is the Sonos Ray Soundbar budget-friendly?

The simplicity of the Sonos Ray soundbar is not necessarily a “downside” to the product as it’s clear the brand developed the product with the intent to offer a (relatively) budget-friendly purchase option within its portfolio of devices and within the broader sea of soundbar options. The Sonos Ray soundbar comes in at $279, much lower than the average soundbar price on the market among brands like Sony, Bose, and Sonos’s larger, more versatile Arc soundbar ($899). However, some research will reveal that many higher-cost soundbars from competing brands go on sale near the Sonos Ray price point.

Typically, a sale that ranks competitively would make me override a review and just recommend the better product.

However, I don’t particularly think that’s necessary in this case. Size doesn’t equal power or sound quality with this model, and it brings into question why soundbars have to be so large and unwieldy in the first place. The Sonos Ray comes in a classic black or a sleek white that I think blends into its surroundings delicately.

The folks who would benefit from opting for an on-sale soundbar that rivals Sonos Ray’s price would be anyone who really wants a wider portfolio of features.

What features does the Sonos Ray Soundbar come with? 

The Sonos Ray is no-frills when it comes to features, but you do still have to sign up for and use the Sonos app to set it up and use it. This can be a true dealbreaker for folks who don’t want to get their phone involved or prefer not to have an account attached to their device for digital privacy reasons.

As far as apps go, though, the Sonos app is very user-friendly and takes care of as much as possible for you. Once you plug in the speaker and sign up for the app, the app will find the product for you and connect it to your WiFi if you’re already logged in. All you have to do is turn on your TV and get to watching and listening. I also liked that the Sonos Ray is compatible with IF remotes (infrared). I simply pointed my TV remote at the speaker to configure it and was ready to go in a matter of seconds.

Sonos really puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to sound quality. There’s no doubt about it — these products sound great for music, movies, TV, weekend-long Survivor binges, and more. There are also incredible internal settings for your speaker that you can control via the intuitive app. However, the Sonos Ray doesn’t have a microphone or any smart home compatibility built into the product. Although, if that’s a must, you can finesse it into a broader smart home system with smart plugs.

These features include “speech enhancement” for those who want a crisper dialogue while enhancing the overall sound. During more action-packed, bass-heavy programming, the dialogue sometimes needs a little help rising above the rest of the excellent audio projection. 

There’s also “night sound,” which dampens the deeper bass elements of the speaker — if you want enhanced audio while a baby, pup, partner, or roommate is asleep nearby. Sonos prides itself on device intelligence (i.e., intelligent features like device synchronicity, Alexa, Google, and Apple Home compatibility, and a lot more). It also offers Sonos’s impressive “Trueplay Tuning,” which measures how sound bounces off surfaces in your home and adjusts its audio performance accordingly for the smoothest, most dimensional audio experience possible.

Does the Sonos Ray Soundbar sound good?

Speaking of bouncing off surfaces, another feature I liked about the Sonos Ray soundbar is that the hardware speakers face forward, angling the audio directly out and at the viewer. This means that the Sonos Ray soundbar is the perfect candidate for fitting into a petite cubby inside a TV stand, a built-in shelf for a soundbar, or anywhere that would otherwise annoyingly envelope multi-directional sound and create a little cove of cacophony instead of a luxury audio experience.

Is the Sonos Ray Soundbar worth it?

The Sonos Ray’s strengths lie in the same spaces that some may point to weaknesses — because this product is about fitting the buyer’s needs. It’s a straightforward install of one cord between itself and the TV, and a very easy-to-use app may be great for folks who don’t care about all of that smart home hoopla (ahem, my parents). It is smaller and shorter than many soundbars on the market for those with little space on their TV stand or entertainment setup. The Sonos Ray soundbar could also neatly fit under a monitor in a gaming setup for gamers looking for a seamless luxury sound experience that fits into their space.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this speaker also follows through on music sound quality. The audio quality for music speaks for itself when you get one of your favorite heard-it-a-million-times songs going. The treble and bass quality are striking, even at a shallow volume level. The catch on the music aspect of the Sonos Ray is in line with its previously stated weaknesses: there’s no Bluetooth connectivity. That doesn’t matter here because you can play any music streaming app via your phone by simply selecting the speaker in the apps. One of the most striking things about the music quality on the Sonos Ray soundbar is how clear and crisp each guitar strum and cymbal hit is when listening to Palehound’s “Eye on the Bat.”