Ray - Compact Soundbar for TV and Music - Black

I bought this Sonos speaker and my whole system fully expecting to spend the afternoon arguing with cables, instructions, and possibly my own sanity. Spoiler: none of that happened. Setup was so easy, I thought I did it wrong. I plugged it in, tapped a few buttons, and suddenly my living room sounded like a VIP section I’m definitely not cool enough to be in. Even my WiFi behaved, which never happens. Sonos must use wizard magic or something. The sound? Incredible. Crisp highs, deep bass, and just loud enough that my neighbors now know my entire playlist, including the songs I pretend not to like and dont even get me started on how Top Gun: Maverick sounds!!. My favorite part is how it connects every room. I can walk from the kitchen to the bathroom like I’m doing my own stadium tour. My dog didn’t sign up for this concert, but he’s fully committed now. If you want a stereo system that sounds amazing and makes you feel smarter than you actually are, Sonos is it. 10/10 would recommend — even if you only buy it to flex on guests when they ask, “Wait… how’d you set this up so fast?”

I used this as a soundbar for my pc and it sounds great. A word of caution. If you are connecting it to your pc, you need a sound card with an optical output. I did not know this, so I had to buy and install a new sound card with an optical output for my pc. It was another $100, but once I installed it (which was easy), and plugged it in, it was great.

Moved in with Mother-in-Law to because of her early stages of Alzheimers. She is also hard of hearing. Of course she does not think she has a hearing problem and does not want hearing aids. Because of her Alzheimers she would probably lose them and not be able to operate them either. She was turning the volume on the TV ip to, 50. 80, and 100. You could hear the TV throughout the whole house and it was a major health concern our ears as well as hers. I searched many different posdibilities. Most TVs and sound bars don't have Maximum Volume Limit setting. Also, we needed something where she did not have a separate remote. The Sonos Ray soundbar solved our problem. You can control the Maximum Volume, use an equilizer to cut fown loud base, and the have a setting so you can hear "speech" better It uses an optical input and does not need the HDMI ARC, or EARC. Her TV did have a setting so we could direct all the sound though the sound bar. The remote was easy to setup. You do have to have WiFi. The free Sonos app let's you make adjustment on your phone. Because of our situation, I did not need a sound bar that brings a lot of attention to itself with leds etc. On the Sonos soundbar, you can cut off the staus lights on the sound bar. The only other light was a small light in the front of the sound bar on the top center that flashes when adjusting the volume. I put a one inch piece of black electrical tape over that light. She has not even realized that anything has changed. She still feels independent an control of her surrondings. I set the volume woul go up reasonably loud but would not harm anyone's ears. The only different is the volume numbers that use to appear on the TV screen fo not show up. But, she can watch tv, adjust the volume, and we can now live in the same house and spend time with her without avoiding the headaches and ear pain. If anybody is listening, if TV manufactures would put a setting for customers to set maximum volume, it would help a lot of people anc the cost would be almost nothing. Our problem is solved!

It's a good speaker. Just not very compatible. You can't really connect things through Bluetooth and the remotes from my TV. Don't really turn on and off the volume. Good

The SONOS speaker was a great addition to the TV in our kitchen. Was easy to set up and can control the volume with my Apple TV with no issues. The speaker does come with an optical cord for easy connection to your TV. Great value for the money!!

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.

Compact sound bar with rich, full sound.

My husband got this soundbar for me as a birthday gift to use with my projector, and the sound quality itself is amazing. It really elevates the audio and makes movies and shows much more immersive. That said, for the price, I really expected it to have Bluetooth. On our end, we should have double checked that it would connect easily to our projector before purchasing, but most devices these days offer Bluetooth connectivity, so we assumed it would. Because it only includes an optical cable and no Bluetooth option, it was not very user friendly. I found it difficult to figure out how to connect and play my own music, and I couldn’t easily play Spotify before returning it. Since there is not Bluetooth connectivity playing from your phone is not as easy as playing from your typical Bluetooth speaker in my opinion. Overall, the sound quality is excellent, but the lack of Bluetooth and limited connectivity options make it harder to use than it should be.