Sonos has made a name for itself as a pioneer in multi-room wireless home audio. Subsequently, they have focused on other home audio products like soundbars. Typically a premium audio brand, the company has just announced its most affordable soundbar in India, the Sonos Ray. The product will be available for purchase here only by September 2022.
Sonos Ray is a compact soundbar with a surprisingly punchy sound output for its size. The bar is less than two feet in length and fairly portable weighing under 2 kg. Despite its portability, it is not to be mistaken for a wireless Bluetooth speaker as it needs to be powered to function; it doesn’t have a built-in battery. But yes, once powered, you can always use it as a party speaker in a mid-sized room.
The bar packs four Class-D amplifiers, two tweeters and two midrange drivers. The Bass Reflex System comprising a proprietary low-velocity port design takes care of the low end frequencies while minimising distortion. It has capacitive touch controls to handle playback functions and volume. Further control of the device can be achieved through the Sonos app that offers you bass and treble adjustments, Speech Enhancement to boost vocal frequencies for better dialogue clarity and Night Sound for a more soothing output, among other things.
The company claims that the Sonos Ray has custom-designed waveguides that project sound from wall to wall to map your room and adapt the sound for that particular space. Once it is set up, you can control this bar with the TV remote, the Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2 and certain music streaming apps. It can even connect to 2.4 GHz WiFi networks. The audio input is limited to just optical in but the company officials confirmed that an optical to HDMI adapter would be bundled to connect this product to an HDMI ARC port of a TV.
While the Sonos Ray is a complete product in itself, it is quite versatile and can also be a part of a larger multi-speaker system. For instance, the Ray can be used as front channels and paired with surround speakers from the company to have a surround sound system. Similarly, you can add a subwoofer to the setup to boost the bass or sync it with any other product from the company for multi-room listening.
The Sonos Ray will be priced at Rs 37,999 and available for purchase in India from September 2022. Buyers will have a choice between black and white colour shades. We will reserve our opinion about its sound quality and ease of use for another day after we have a review unit in hand.
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