Update: It sounds like a Sonos, but the Beam can pull off a trick none of its siblings can. Read our full Sonos Beam review to find out more.
Sonos unleashed its latest speaker product, the Sonos Beam, at a special event in San Francisco today. Fashioned as a compact soundbar, Beam will support Amazon’s Alexa at launch, with the promise of Google Assistant and Apple AirPlay 2 support coming this July. The Beam is available for pre-order now and will be hitting store shelves July 17 at $400.
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The Sonos Beam is designed to be everything other smart speakers aren’t. Based on its list of features, along with Sonos’ propensity for designing stellar-sounding speakers, there’s a very good chance the Beam will dance circles around Apple’s HomePod and offer a premium sonic experience for Alexa fans disappointed with their Echo speakers’ sound quality.
Much of what makes the Sonos One such an appealing smart speaker can also be found in the Beam, but the Beam is designed around a grander home entertainment experience that pulls in your TV and video streaming devices for the ride. The speaker looks like a compact soundbar and is armed with an HDMI ARC connection to connect with a TV and other audio/video sources. What it does with that HDMI connection is a bit different, though. By pairing its Amazon Alexa capability with HDMI ARC (here’s an explainer), the Beam is able to control a TV’s volume with voice commands — that’s something Amazon’s own equipment can’t do. The Beam can also launch programming through a connected Amazon Fire TV device. For example, saying, “Alexa, play ‘Coco,'” would launch the Disney Pixar film on a Fire TV and pump the sound through the Beam.
Though Sonos didn’t mention it, it’s possible that the Beam could pull off similar tricks with Google Assistantcontrolling a Chromecast or Android TV. And with AirPlay 2 capability, Apple fans will be able to play music and podcasts from their devices or by using Siri. Apple TV 4K integration could also be a future possibility.
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As smart as Beam appears to be, it’s a Sonos speaker first, and that’s what differentiates it from all of its competition. Sonos says the Beam was “tuned by a team of world-class acoustic engineers collaborating with leading sound experts from the worlds of film, music and television.” Based on our experience, we’d expect the Beam to produce highly refined, detailed, and enthralling sound for both TV and music. The speaker is armed with four house-built elliptical woofers, three passive radiators, a single tweeter, and five Class-D digital amplifiers, one for each driver. Working together, these speakers should produce excellent fidelity, given Sonos’ prior offerings. Sonos promises crystal-clear dialogue and a wide soundstage that belies its tiny footprint.
The speaker is armed with four house-built elliptical woofers, three passive radiators, and a single tweeter.
Enhancing the voice control experience will be a five-microphone array and Sonos’ own noise-canceling technology, which should allow users to execute voice commands and have them heard even if the speaker is blasting out the soundtrack to the latest blockbuster.
The Beam, available in black-and-white fabric with matte finishes, is low-slung and measures just 25.6 x 3.94 x 2.70 inches, making it a suitable speaker for just about any environment without getting in the way of even stand-mounted TVs. Along with the HDMI ARC port on the back, users will get an Ethernet port and Wi-Fi connectivity. Sonos didn’t say so, but hints indicate the Beam may be able to handle high-resolution audio formats. It is unlikely the speaker supports HDMI 2.1 out of the box, but it is possible it could through a firmware update in the future, opening up the opportunity for eARC compatibility.
While the Sonos Beam is the first speaker from the company to blend a soundbar with smarts, it will still play with Sonos’ entire ecosystem. Users can add a couple of Sonos One or Sonos Play:1 speakers as surround channels and a Sonos SUB for enhanced bass, if desired.
Sonos Ace headphones now work with more Sonos soundbars
After a few months with just partial compatibility, the Sonos Ace headphones now work with all of the company's soundbars and can take advantage of the TV audio swap feature. That's the feature by which audio will be routed to the Sonos headphones instead of the soundbar itself, which is great for some private listening when you don't want to disturb someone else.
It's the sort of feature that Google has had with its earbuds and Google TV devices, and that Apple TV has enjoyed with the various AirPods models. The main difference here is that Sonos isn't an operating system in the same regard, so it has to handle the audio handoff a little further downstream. And so now the Ace can intercept audio via the Sonos Ray and Sonos Beam, in addition to the Sonos Arc, which worked at launch.
In the wide world of consumer tech, there's one thing that's perhaps harder than constantly pushing the envelope to come up with the latest, greatest, most mind-blowing products time and time again, and that's knowing when to leave well enough alone.
In the case of the second generation of Sonos' smallest and least-expensive speaker, the $179 Sonos Roam 2 that was released at the end of May, the company has (thankfully) managed to keep its hands to itself with a sequel that's gotten a slightly refreshed look (and some new colors), a new dedicated Bluetooth button, and little else. And that's a good thing.
We have recommended Sonos wireless speakers and components for years. We still think the company makes a fantastic product. But the absolute fiasco caused by the May 7 Sonos app redesign broke almost every aspect of the Sonos experience -- and we’re still waiting for fixes that were promised weeks ago.
If you’re a Sonos owner, we share your frustration. If your investment in the company’s ecosystem is significant, your best bet is to wait and ride out this storm. Eventually things will return to normal and, hopefully, the Sonos experience will be better than before.
