Sonos is extending its home cinema range with the launch of Sonos Ray, a compact soundbar with a big sound, as well as introducing three new colourways to the Sonos Roam portable Bluetooth speaker and updating its voice control.
Sonos Ray
Sonos Ray features new acoustic innovations that deliver balanced sound, crisp dialogue and solid bass to raise the bar for Sonos home entertainment. The soundbar includes custom-designed waveguides to project sound from wall to wall, as well as advanced processing to accurately position elements throughout the room to make the listener feel like they’re at the centre of the story.
A new bass reflex system with a proprietary design delivers thrilling lows with precisely weighted bass, while custom acoustics harmonise mid and high-range frequencies. Like all Sonos speakers, Ray was tuned with the input of the Sonos Soundboard, a collection of leaders across music, film and more. Users also have the ability to fine tune the sound further with Trueplay to create the ideal listening experience for their room.
Sonos’ Speech Enhancement feature ensures greater clarity to hear every word, while Night sound reduces the intensity of loud effects so not to disturb anyone asleep.
Ray’s compact design allows users to place it on a media stand or hide it in a credenza. It also features Sonos’ most sustainable design packaging to date, with a gift box and protective cushions that are 100% recycled paper.
Ray is designed to bring Sonos’ high-performance sound, simplicity and versatility to a more accessible price point, bringing high-end home entertainment to more consumers.
The new soundbar is compatible with streaming services to listen to any music. Set up and control is simple through the Sonos app. The Sonos Ray soundbar can also be controlled with a TV remote, the Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2, and more.
To have surround sound in a home cinema set up, users can easily add a pair of Sonos Ones. The Sonos Ray can also be connected to any Sonos speaker for multiroom audio functionality.
Sonos Ray will be available in the UK from 7 June priced at £279.
Sonos Roam colourway additions
Alongside the launch of Ray, Sonos has also made three new colourways available for its ultraportable Bluetooth smart speaker, Sonos Roam. Now available in Olive, Wave and Sunset, the new colours are influenced by natural serenity, evening skies and outdoor living, complementing interior and exterior styles.
“As we reignite our sense of curiosity and chase new experiences, we’re being more considerate about how the things we wear and carry represent our personal style,” commented Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, SVP for hardware and operations at Sonos. “Inspired by the places you’ll go, Roam’s newest colours are the perfect accent piece to express individuality through more ways than just sound.”
The three new colourways for Roam are available now, priced at £179.
Voice control
Striving to always deliver a user-friendly experience, Sonos has introduced a new voice experience feature created purely for listening on Sonos. Designed with privacy at its core, Sonos Voice Control is the simplest way to control music, offering complete command of a Sonos system using just voice.
Joseph Dureau, vice president, Voice Experience, Sonos explained: “Sonos is committed to delivering new experiences that effortlessly connect listeners to the content they love. One of the most natural ways to connect to your music is with your voice, but when we speak to our customers, we hear that privacy concerns mean many are choosing not to use voice control. Created purely for listening on Sonos and designed with privacy at its core, Sonos Voice Control delivers the Sonos app experience using only your voice.”
Sonos Voice Control works on every voice-capable Sonos speaker, processing requests entirely on the device. No audio or transcript is sent to the cloud, stored, listened to, or read by anyone. Local processing also delivers faster response times and effortless follow-ups. Users only need to say “hey Sonos” once and they can follow up without the need for additional wake-words.
Like the Sonos app, the new voice control features allow users to control music and speakers in any room, easily move music around the home, save and like favourite songs to personal music libraries, and more.
Natural conversation is made possible through Sonos Voice Control as it will respond to natural commands such as, “turn it up!”. After a careful search, Sonos chose award-winning actor, Giancarlo Esposito, best known for roles in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Mandalorian, to deliver a familiar voice for Sonos Voice Control users. With careful recording, advanced processing and mastering, the voice is natural, unobtrusive, yet confident and engaging. Sonos’ first voice will be joined by others over time as Sonos continues to expand the experience to new people and places.
Available on new voice capable products and as a free update for existing customers, Sonos Voice Control is compatible with Sonos Radio, Apple Music, Deezer, and Pandora at launch. More services and markets will become available.
Sonos Voice Control will be available in the US from 1 June and in France later this year, with additional markets including the UK to follow.