Sonos has presented its novelties and brings us a new speaker for our living room that will make us enjoy movies and series with the best sound but at a more affordable price. He has also introduced us to his voice assistant and new colors for the Sonos Roam.
Sonos Ray, the new soundbar for everyone
Sonos has added a new speaker to its catalog of great soundbars. The Sonos Beam and Sonos Arc are now joined by the new Sonos Ray, a more compact sound bar that promises a superior sound quality to fully enjoy our multimedia content in the living room or bedroom, in addition to being able to use it as a speaker to listen to music thanks to the integration with Apple Music and Spotify, and compatibility with AirPlay 2.
Its compact sound should not fool us according to Sonos, since it will use its surroundings to project sound throughout the room, in addition to the Base Reflex system to control bass. It also maintains the features we value most from more expensive models, like voice enhancement so you can hear dialogue clearly even in the most action movies, and night function mode that reduces the intensity of the loudest sounds at night to avoid disturbing other members of the house or the neighbors.
Of course it has Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, to be able to play music from the main streaming services directly, or send the content that we play on our iPhone or iPad via AirPlay. The sound bar controls are tactile and are located at the top, and we can also control it through the Sonos application from our iPhone or iPad.
What do we lose compared to superior models? This Sonos Ray only has optical connection, so we lose compatibility with high quality audio signals such as Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby Atmos. In return we will have compatibility with older television models that do not have eARC outputs, necessary for those high quality sounds. We also lose the microphone, so this sound bar cannot be controlled directly by voice, although we can do it through our smartphone. Despite not having an HDMI connection, we can use our usual remote control to control the volume thanks to an infrared receiver on its front.
The new Sonos Ray will be available from June 7 and will be priced at €299, well below the €499 of the Sonos Beam or the €999 of the spectacular Sonos Arc, the jewel in the crown.
New colors for Sonos Roam and new voice assistant
Starting in June we will have a new voice assistant at home. Through the words "Hey Sonos" we can control our Sonos speakers, provided they have the S2 chip, and with the advantage that all the processing of our commands will be carried out in the speaker, there will be no connection to servers and no sound clips will be sent for analysis. This assistant will be compatible with Apple Music and Amazon Music, but we don't know anything about Spotify at the moment. At the moment it will only be available in English, the French version has already been confirmed for before the end of the year but we don't know anything about Spanish.
Finally, the new colors for the Sonos Roam portable speakers were presented. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, voice assistant and compatibility with the main streaming music services, including Apple Music and Spotify, they can now also be purchased (from now on) at three new colors: Olive, Sunset and Wave.