Sonos Ray - White - Compact Soundbar

I bought a Vizio soundbar for a TV, and it was highly disappointing. Replaced it with this Sonos Ray and it’s night and day difference. It took maybe three minutes to set up including connecting to the Sonos app, it looks nice and compact, and most importantly it sounds fantastic. Worked no problem with the AppleTV remote. Very happy with this!

Put this in my bedroom to go with my Samsung TV. I love it!!! I can tell the improvement in the surround sound (versus just my TV) and no longer need additional speakers to listen to music in my room either! This was easy to set up, came with all of the cables needed and the Sonos app is easy to use and navigate.

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!

I did not want the theater sound with booming bass, and this soundbar delivers on that. Nice sound enhancement from my TV without being overwhelming. It does make voice dialogue clearer, which is also what I wanted. A few points: it only works with an optical cable, your remote must be IR, and you lose the digital volume indicator on your TV. It took me about seven tries to get the remote to work, but ultimately it connected. Now all is good.

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.

First time user. Easy set up. Great sound.

Works perfectly. I am pleased with the sound quality. No remote is provided. You must program your tv remote to control volume or use the app on your phone.