It’s clear that Sonos has an energy-based naming theme going on here. It now has three lines of soundbars: Beam, Arc, and now Ray. If you recall, the Sonos Beam is the $449 soundbar while the Arc weighs in at $899. These are soundbars that you’ll want to clean out your savings for, but not with the Sonos Ray.
The Sonos Ray soundbar will be the budget-friendly member of the family
There are companies that don’t bother with the budget market, and that’s how Sonos has been for the longest time. However, it looks like the company wants to change that and cater to the sub-$300 market. With the previous leak, The Verge was able to whip up some renders of the device based on a description of the speaker, and its internals are definitely modest compared to the other members of the family. It’s a bit shorter than the other speakers, and you’re not getting as many drivers. The Sonos Ray soundbar has two smaller drivers in the middle and two larger ones on the side, and that’s it. Also, there are some boutique features that were omitted from the Sonos Ray in order to keep the cost down. For starters, there are no microphones on this device, so that rules out any smart speaker functionality like summoning a voice assistant. Also, there’s no Dolby Atmos support or an HDMI port (only the optical port).
Price and availability
For starters, The Sonos Ray soundbar is expected to launch at a price of just $249. That’s about a 72% price decrease from Arc. As for the availability, we expect it to launch in the states over the next couple of weeks. If you’re excited to get this soundbar, then you should keep an eye out on Sonos for an announcement.
