Sonos Ray – Black – Compact Soundbar

As expected
I have a Sonos system so I’m wed to it. Sonos has its bugs and quirks but the sound is great it’s a good price and easy to setup. Love that it does NOT have voice assistant. I don’t want or need someone ever dropping on my house. It’s beautiful and fades into the background. We only ever connect via WiFi and it’s usually quick. No idea about Bluetooth

What a disappointment
All I wanted was a good quality soundbar for the 32″ TV in my study. Hardware setup was straightforward, but I soon realized that I had made a questionable choice since the Ray doesn’t have an HDMI port. I would not be able to use my Apple TV RF remote to control the volume. [EDIT: I have since been able to get IR volume control working]. Then the setup problems began. After fighting my way through the initial setup (more details below), and getting it to produce sound (ie via Apple TV) through the optical cable, the Sonos app says that it cannot detect any sound on the optical port. And that’s where it goes off the rails. It will not complete the setup. I have to hit “Skip” to get through the rest of the sound setup steps (eg Disable TV Speakers) and then essentially abort the setup process. When I then tried to use the Sonos app to configure the sound for my room (TrueSomethingOrOther – which I now can’t get back to), it just got stuck – wouldn’t go forward or back. The only way out was to exit the app and wipe its saved state on the iPhone (swipe up). Lather, rinse, repeat. After deleting and reinstalling the app and logging back in, it no longer knew anything about my Ray soundbar. If I log into the Sonos website, it knows all about my Ray. Apparently, much of the trouble I am experiencing has to do with the soundbar not working well with my Unifi network. And yes, I tried the Sonos chatbot (total fail) and calling the 800 number (80 minute wait time!!!). Since posting the initial version of this review, I have become aware of the software issues related to Sonos recent software release. That seems to be the root of all my problems. The hardware is well made and sounds good.

Good compact sound bar
For its size it delivers a nice sound. The real bonus is the convenient setup via the Sonos phone app and the ability to tailor its sound to your room (if you have iPhone). Although it can pair to a Sonos subwoofer, given its low price vs. the cost of even the Sonos Mini Sub, I wouldn’t bother: the sound is adequate on its own for smaller rooms; if you really need a subwoofer, then this isn’t the right soundbar. The only drawback is the Toslink optical input: you’ll probably need an HDMI-Toslink adapter/converter to hook up to modern equipment.

Great soundbar for my computer
I ordered the sound bar along with a USB to optical converter to connect to my computer. Then I decided to cancel the order based on feedback from users not being able to control the volume from the computer through the optical link; however, I canceled the order too late so it arrived. I decided to try it out anyways to see how much of a nuisance it would be to control the volume from the soundbar buttons or from the Sonos app, but I was pleasantly surprised that I could control the volume from my computer. The sound quality is amazing and I have full volume control abilities from windows 10 even through the optical link. I’m glad I was not able to cancel the order and tried it out as I’m keeping it now!

This is nice and small which was important because of where it was going. I was concerned about the set up considering the hassles I have experienced with my SONOS sytem this year but the RAY set up REAL easy. It connected to the SONOS system easily and even better it connected to my ROKU TV remote easily. And of course it sounds great.

Sonos sind top.

Totalmente lo opuesto a lo que creía que sería esta pequeña barra. Sinceramente solo la compré porque estaba muy barata, me rehusaba a comprar una barra de sonido porque se tiene que invertir mucho dinero y creía que no era tan diferente el sonido al de las bocinas de la televisión. ¡Que equivocado estaba!.Los bajos son espectaculares a pesar de que no tienen woofers dedicados, le da una especialidad a los sonidos y se disfrutan muchísimo más las películas, las voces se escuchan súper claras y el volumen es súper decente para una sala pequeña a mediana. La conectividad de la aplicación de Sonos es estupenda, fácil de usar y con excelentes opciones para adaptar el sonido a un diálogo o cuando cae la noche no molestar a los vecinos. Y lo mejor es que puedes ir creciendo tu pequeña barra a un teatro en casa, al comprar más equipo de sonos es súper fácil agregarlo y poder llegar a un 5.1. Ya voy por mi Sub Mini y te go en mente agregarle unas Era 100 para mejorar el sonido. Totalmente fan de sonos.