Review: Sonos Ray

I have a shitty TV in my bedroom. It’s old, cheap, and likely the last of its kind. While the picture quality is bad, the sound quality is even worse. However, as my editor says, most TV experiences are made better by a soundbar, so I plugged in the new Sonos Ray. It did not disappoint, to say the least.

The Ray was incredibly easy to set up, paired seamlessly with my regular remote, and the sound quality is great—I could finally play Harry Styles from a speaker other than my phone. No matter what I played, be it dialog-heavy dramas or intergalactic action movies, the crisp sound filled the room perfectly.

I’ve never owned a Sonos, so I didn’t know about the “hypnotic effects” that my colleague Lauren said it has on your audio life: You buy one, then you fill your house with the things. Still, I’ve been in proximity to them enough to know that they typically sound good, look nice, and are well-reputed. 

It wasn’t until I actually used my new soundbar that I knew what earned Sonos such gravitas in the sonic world. Simply put: The Sonos Ray was the easiest piece of electronics I’ve ever set up. There weren’t many cords to wrangle, and the app only took a few minutes to get the Ray up and running. I plugged the Ray into an outlet and connected it to my TV with the included optical cable, opened the Sonos app and followed the simple prompts—the most involved prompt was to initiate Trueplay Tuning (I’ll get to that in a moment). After maybe five minutes, everything was over and I had Grey’s Anatomy playing through the tiny soundbar.

Photograph: Sonos

Trueplay tuning may sound like a technological white whale—it essentially uses sound the way literal whales do to map the sound of your room—but we’ve seen this tech in Sonos speakers like the Roam and Beam since 2015. It employs the speaker on your iPhone and the surfaces in your room to analyze the acoustics by bouncing sound waves around to optimize your listening experience. You can enable this during your initial setup in the app, or you can go to your system settings and start the tuning process later. This feature may not matter much for bigger rooms, but in apartments, bedrooms, and other smaller spaces it can really make a difference. The only limitation is that it currently requires iOS.

Trueplay isn’t a gimmick. When I watched dramas like Surface, the dialog was clear as the speaker seamlessly adjusted between the show’s score and when characters spoke. Action movies are a different beast with their many blasts and explosions, and the Ray handled them expertly, filling my small bedroom with lightsaber swooshes and the many pew-pews of Star Wars. 

When it came to queuing up a playlist, I could keep it quiet enough to listen while I worked at my desk, or loud enough to hear from the kitchen while doing the dishes if I needed. All the while, the sound remained balanced and crisp.

Outside of Trueplay and its impact on the overall sound quality, the Sonos app also makes it easy to adjust and customize your other settings. You can adjust the volume, treble, bass, and even set a volume limit to keep your kids from blasting Blue Clues, or your neighbors from complaining about your endless loop of “All Too Well (10 Minute Taylor’s Version).” Speaking of music, your favorite streaming platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc.) are all integrated into the Sonos app—you just need to connect your accounts, and voilà!

Photograph: Sonos

It’s no secret that New York apartments are small, so you probably won’t be surprised to know that I don’t have a lot of space in my bedroom for extra accessories. My TV rests on my dresser, and it doesn’t have much leg height to house a soundbar underneath. The Ray is less than three inches tall, which is just small enough to fit without blocking the actual picture. And at just under two feet long, it doesn’t take up too much real estate on my dresser. 

If you don’t have any surface area to play with, you can buy a wall mount for the Ray, too. Regardless, it looks sleek no matter where I put the Ray, keeping my dresser from looking junky. (My ADHD doom-piles do that enough already.) Another nice plus is that the Ray pairs with your existing remote. I only have to keep my Chromecast remote on my nightstand, but I still get all the benefits of another gadget. This ensures my devices are centralized and simple to use.

The Sonos Ray is about $130 more than our favorite affordable soundbar, but it has a more petite profile and more advanced technology. Plus, it’s the most affordable tier of soundbar at Sonos, giving you a less expensive entrance into the Sonos-verse. The only quirk? It uses optical instead of HDMI for connection to my TV. Is this a problem at all for anyone? Not as far as I'm aware.

Given its low profile, the Ray is perfect for bedrooms, guest rooms, kitchens, and other smaller rooms where you may want a TV that you can actually hear. However, at this cost, it can also do the job in your living room if you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of soundbars and Sonos but don’t have a ton of money. 

The sound carries well, and with the ability to build out your system, you could grow the Ray into a more robust sound system eventually. Or, if you want to go the surround sound route from the start, you can opt for the surround set with Ray bundle.