
- #Sonos sound bar for tv upgrade#
- #Sonos sound bar for tv Bluetooth#
- #Sonos sound bar for tv tv#
- #Sonos sound bar for tv download#
#Sonos sound bar for tv Bluetooth#
If you’re looking for HDMI, Bluetooth or 3.5 mm (let alone RCA or some such) you’ll have to move on, it’s optical or Wi-Fi only here. Not everyone has been so lucky, but that’s the trouble with “smart” speakers they’re not always smart in the right ways. Setting up the Ray was very easy for me: It’s got an optical connection and my remote (I have a fairly recent Vizio TV) worked with its little training system to get the volume and mute buttons online in a minute or two. You can see it tries to spread its sound out, but ultimately the soundstage isn’t large.
#Sonos sound bar for tv upgrade#
But if you’re looking for a sound that is in any way big, you might as well open your wallet now and upgrade to the Beam. The Ray is certainly a cheap and practical way to make that happen, and if you are watching dialogue-heavy content in a smaller room, it’s going to be solid. If a buyer is considering a Sonos setup, and the Ray in particular, they’re not looking at Anker and Sony soundbars - they’re thinking about joining this exclusive smart speaker club and wondering what the best way is to go about it without spending a fortune. But the truth is it’s not really competing against standalone soundbars - it’s competing against other Sonos options. But Sonos knows that its customers are willing to pay considerably more for its slick integration and advanced features.Īt $279, the Ray is priced well above other essentially 2.0-channel systems except for the likes of Bose, another brand that generally gets a pass for inflated price tags. Get into the $150-$200 range and you can get a sub as well and some extra features like smart assistant, Airplay and so on. No one should have to suffer the sound that comes out of TVs these days, especially when you can get a soundbar for under a bill that will be wildly better. But while the Ray performs well, it doesn’t quite earn its premium and leaves one feeling that they should have just gone for something bigger. The Sonos also has a speech-enhancement feature if you have a problem catching dialogue.Sonos went a bit further downmarket recently with the Ray, a smaller and cheaper soundbar than the Beam, itself a smaller, cheaper soundbar than the Arc.

Watching The Fast and the Furious, you will feel the car’s engines rev, and when Tom Cruise punches a villain in Mission: Impossible, you won’t be able to ignore that loud thud. The Sonos Beam Gen 2 is small but has a way of engulfing your room with sound instead of blasting you away with noise, and it creates an expansive sound that comes alive during really intense scenes. While watching Lord of the Rings, we were drawn to how Gollum’s voice, for instance, seemed to bounce around the room, creating a more engaging experience even while swords clashed or characters scurried along a huge battlefield. It can connect to your other Sonos devices and has smart-speaker capabilities, but most important, it sounds wonderful.
#Sonos sound bar for tv download#
The setup process is simple enough: Download the Sonos app and connect the Beam Gen 2 this takes about two minutes.

If you’re already part of the Sonos ecosystem and you have a small space or small television, the Beam Gen 2 feels like an obvious fit.

It also features updated design elements like touch controls and small perforated holes along the front, instead the original Sonos Beam’s fabric cover. It still has the same compact size and similar internal drivers, but it now supports Dolby Atmos audio. If you didn’t know the Arc was bouncing sound off the ceiling and rear wall, you would easily believe that there were speakers there.”Īfter testing the latest Sonos Beam Gen 2 for a few weeks, we found it to be a subtle rework of what made the original so great.

Our colleague Chris Welch at the Verge says, when paired with a subwoofer, “the Arc delivered sound as immersive as the multiple-speaker Atmos system. That means you can add additional Sonos speakers or a subwoofer and group speakers in various rooms to play music seamlessly throughout your home.
#Sonos sound bar for tv tv#
“The Arc easily connects to any TV to improve the acoustics for all your shows and movies, in addition to providing all the bells and whistles of a stand-alone smart speaker for the times you just want to listen to music.” Plus, the Arc has “the benefit of being part of the Sonos ecosystem,” says Mark Feinberg, founder of Home Theater Advisors in New York City. “If you’re looking for something cost-effective and plug-and-play, the Sonos Arc is great for those who want a minimalist footprint with a convenient all-in-one audio solution,” says Justin Schwartz, owner of Sage AV in New York City. Seven of our experts recommend Sonos’s smart soundbars, and 3 specifically mentioned the Arc.
