Sonos unveils Apple Music voice control without Alexa or Assistant, budget ‘Ray’ AirPlay 2 soundbar

Sonos’ new soundbar has been officially unveiled after it was leaked in April. The Ray comes as its most affordable home theater speaker priced at $279 and is more compact than the Beam or full-sized Arc. Sonos has also announced its own “Voice Control” service that will arrive next month to let users control Apple Music directly from Sonos speakers with built-in mics.

The Verge leaked the Sonos Ray in late April and revealed the speaker’s features, specs, and launch date. Then followed up by leaking the marketing name last week. Now the most affordable Sonos soundbar is official.

Coming in $170 below the $449 Beam soundbar, Ray naturally makes some concessions but Sonos says it delivers “clearer, more powerful sound than ever before possible by a small standalone speaker.”

Sonos Ray features

Ray has four Class-D amps that are tuned for use with two tweeters or two midwoofers. To minimize distortion and to balance low-end frequencies, Sonos uses its “Bass Reflex System”.

You get features like AirPlay 2 and Apple Music support (all the other major streaming services too), and the Trueplay auto EQ feature to customize audio to your space.

There are touch controls at the top of the soundbar, and the Sonos app can be used. You can also find useful features like a Speech Enhancement mode to clarify speech, and Night Sound mode which reduces noise and improves the quality of quiet sounds.

There’s a Sonos Ray wall mount available and you can also pair the budget soundbar with the Sonos One for a surround setup.

The Sonos Ray comes in black and white and measures 2. 79-inches (71 mm) high, 22-inches (559 mm) wide, and 3. 74-inches (95 mm) deep. This is about 3 inches wider than the Beam.

Sonos Ray: What you’re giving up

As for what you’re missing out on compared to the $449 Sonos Beam gen 2.

Sonos Ray has:

• No HDMI or HDMI eARC (optical audio only)
• No built-in mic for voice control (can use Sonos app on iPhone etc. )
• No Dolby Atmos support
• Not a good fit for large rooms

But if those missing features aren’t an issue, the Sonos Ray is an affordable way to bring the connected speakers into your home theater setup.

Sonos Ray is available to order now with the first deliveries starting on June 7.

Sonos Voice Control and more

Another new product is Sonos Voice Control which will launch on June 1. This is how it looks :

.

an entirely new voice experience that delivers fast, accurate hands-free control of your music and your Sonos system with no compromise to your privacy. Giancarlo Esposito, an actor and award-winning actor is the voice for Sonos Voice Control. You might be familiar with him from hits like Breaking Bad.

This feature works with the keyphrase “Hey Sonos”, and it uses on-device query processing. Apple Music will be compatible at launch, which is an Apple user’s convenience upgrade. Only Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri worked with Sonos speakers before. Keep in mind the new Sonos Ray doesn’t feature mics built-in for the new Sonos Voice Control.

At launch, Sonos Voice Control works with Sonos Radio, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, and Pandora. You will be unable to use Sonos Voice Control for other services such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, and Pandora. Other functions such as volume, skip, volume and grouping can be used by Sonos Voice Control.

Sonos has also launched three new colors of the ultra-portable Roam speaker. The new additions are Olive (green), Wave (blue), and Sunset (red-orange). Check out our full review for more details on the speaker itself.

• Review: Sonos Roam packs an impressive punch with portable design, AirPlay, Qi charging, more

And finally, the company is partnering with performing artist Lorde on a hand-curated station on Sonos Radio called SOLARSYSTM.