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Jeff Dunn - May 11, 2022 8:05 pm UTC

Confirming earlier rumors, Sonos on Wednesday announced a new soundbar aimed at more budget-conscious buyers, as well as a new voice-control feature for its existing speakers.

Paying less means you'll sacrifice some features, though. Unlike the Beam and Arc, the Sonos Ray doesn't support Dolby Atmos virtual surround sound. It also lacks an HDMI port, instead opting for a lower-bandwidth optical audio port and an Ethernet jack as its only connectivity options, with no additional HDMI adapters in the box. The omission of an HDMI ARC port could make the cable situation a bit messier for those with more involved home theater setups, though Sonos says the Ray can still work in parallel with your TV remote through its IR receiver.

Also missing are any sort of microphones, which means there is no native support for voice assistants such as Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant. Privacy-conscious buyers may see this as a plus, if anything, though the lack of mics also means there's no support for Sonos' "Automatic Trueplay" feature, which allows certain Sonos speakers to tune their sound to best suit their placement in a given room (provided you have an iOS device). The Ray still supports Trueplay, but you'll have to go through the tuning process manually. Like most Sonos speakers, there's also no support for Bluetooth audio here.

In general, the Ray is a simpler piece of hardware than the Beam or Arc. This is a 3.0-channel soundbar, with all its speakers pointing out of a front-facing perforated hard-plastic grille. Internally, there are four amplifiers, two tweeters, and two mid-woofers; the Beam, meanwhile, packs five amplifiers, a tweeter, four mid-woofers, and three passive radiators for bass response. Sonos is now positioning the latter as its "high-definition" compact soundbar by comparison.

Elsewhere, there's still a trio of touch-based playback controls on top of a typically minimalist design, which will be available in black or white. It'll also be mountable, albeit through a proprietary mount.

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