Sonos Beam review

The Beam feels like Sonos' new cornerstone product: a pure manifestation of what the company wants to achieve. It's a versatile speaker that aims to be the only one you need, but at the same time, can be scaled infinitely. It's a perfect standalone product, but it gets better with each speaker you add. 

Suddenly your house is full of speakers. Where did all these speakers come from? 

Sauntering into the Sonos ecosystem is a risky but worthwhile endeavor: there's a good chance you'll end up wanting more. But if you're willing to take that risk, the Beam is where you'll want to start. 

So what is the Sonos Beam?

Sonos will tell you the Beam is some sort of holy trinity: a sound bar for your TV, a multi-room speaker, and a smart speaker. Calling the Beam three-in-one is probably exaggerating, but hey, it's not entirely inaccurate. I'd go personally go with the somewhat clunky "Alexa-powered Wi-Fi speaker-sound bar hybrid". 

The distinction between speaker and sound bar is one that's actually important to make. Speakers tend to be tuned for music, while sound bars are tuned for TV. The Beam finds a happy medium where it sounds great whether you're cranking tunes, watching a movie, or playing video games. It consistently pumps out a rich, clear sound.

If there's anything to fault the Sonos Beam on, it's bass response. You'll still get a clear, punchy low-end, but it can't achieve the same deep rumble that a dedicate subwoofer, or say, the Apple HomePod will produce. And of course, the pricier Sonos Playbar and Playbase have a fuller sound, but the Beam holds its own, especially when you consider it’s a good $400 cheaper. (You can augment your Sonos Beam with Sonos' wireless subwoofer, but it will set you back an extra $999.)

Despite the Beam's sleek and surprisingly small form-factor - it's only about 65cm wide and 7cm tall - it has excellent stereo-separation and presence. The sound stage is wide to the point where I legit wound up venturing into the corner of my room to see I had somehow ended up with an extra speaker.

Trueplay tuning can improve this further; If you've got an iOS device can use it to calibrate the Beam to match your room's acoustics. If you don’t, it's worth borrowing a friend's. While the Beam obviously isn't going to replace a dedicated 5.1 setup, it can genuinely sound like more than just a single sound bar. Black magic.

There's also a few useful TV related features: speech enhancement for clearer dialogue, and a night mode that reigns in louder sounds without reducing a show or movie's overall volume.

The Beam is the first Sonos speaker to ship with a HDMI port. It also happens to be ARC-enabled (Audio Return Channel), which makes it super simple to pair the Beam with your TV and remote. This process makes your Beam and TV act as a single seamless unit. Turning on your TV turns on the Beam, and your TV remote is used to adjust the Beam's volume.

If your TV doesn't support HDMI ARC, there's an optical adapter in the box. This does however mean you'll miss out on some functionality - you won't be able to ask Alexa to turn on your TV - and you'll almost certainly need to go through some extra setup to get your TV remote to control the Beam's volume. This will almost certainly require delving through the settings on both your TV and the Sonos app.

All sorts of smart

Depending on exactly how you define "smart", you could easily argue that Sonos was building smart speakers long before the whole Alexa and Google Home thing took off. Connected speaker is probably a better term.

All Sonos speakers - the Beam included - connect to your home Wi-Fi through an easy-to-use companion app. You then typically control them through said app on your smartphone or on your PC. Multiple speakers can be grouped to play the same song, or alternatively, each speaker can play a different track at the same time. You're able to pull tunes from your device's music library, or from any supported streaming service (all of the big ones are there, as are the ones you've never heard of).

While Sonos speakers have typically relied on the controller app, Sonos has gradually been opening up new ways to send music with them. Voice control and Apple AirPlay 2 are the two big new additions to hit the Sonos world, with the latter launching alongside the Beam.

Much like an Amazon Echo, the Beam has Alexa onboard. It's like an Echo you genuinely want to listen to music on. All your standard Alexa features are there - controlling smart home appliances, getting news briefings, checking traffic, et al - but the big drawcard is asking Alexa to play songs. Unfortunately, Alexa is currently only compatible with two music services: Spotify and Amazon Music. You can't just ask Alexa to play music from your library on your computer or anything.

AirPlay 2 is an Apple music protocol that lets you beam tunes to your Beam directly from your iOS device or your Mac, bypassing the Sonos controller app entirely. It's like a fancier, proprietary version of Bluetooth that also supports Siri and won't be interrupted by a phone call.

AirPlay 2 also means you can also group a Sonos speaker with other AirPlay 2 speakers, even if they're not made by Sonos. I had my Beam paired with my HomePod in some unholy cats-and-dogs-living-together type situation, and they worked together seamlessly. Better yet, if you've got older Sonos speakers that don't support AirPlay 2, you can use the Sonos app to group them with your Beam, and then AirPlay music to all of them.

Of course, AirPlay 2 has some limitations of its own, the first being that it's incredibly Apple-centric (which isn't at all surprising), and as such, Android owners miss out on all of this functionality. You can also run into some quirks if you try and get the Sonos and Apple ecosystems to play together. AirPlaying to Sonos speakers can disturb your existing multi-room groups, and while Sonos apps get limited information from your Apple device (and get limited control over), you won't see entire playlists.

The limitations associated with Alexa and AirPlay 2 aren't necessarily Sonos' fault, but it means the features don't feel as polished as the rest of the Sonos ecosystem. But even so, the small concessions you make to use smart functionality don't outweigh the fact it's there. And hey, it's miraculous enough that Sonos somehow got AirPlay 2 and Alexa on the same device. Google Assistant is also said to be on the way.

Who is the Sonos Beam for?

The Beam is one of the more sensible entry points into the Sonos ecosystem, and the versatility on offer means it's worth every dollar. It's a perfect buy for anyone looking to upgrade their home audio. If you don't already have any decent speakers sitting around at home, the Beam gives you a great TV sound bar and great living room speaker in one fell swoop. And hey, Alexa and AirPlay 2 are a nice bonus.

I don't want a Sonos Beam, what else can I buy?

A Sonos One stereo-pair

If you want or need a sound bar, you might want to consider picking up a Sonos One stereo-pair. It will set you back the same amount as a Sonos Beam (a One is $299 each), and you still get features like Alexa and AirPlay 2. If you have an Apple TV, you can kind of use them as TV speakers too (although only for content played through the Apple TV). And of course, buying a pair means you can also split up your Sonos Ones into different rooms if you want music across your entire house.

Apple HomePod

If you're in the Apple ecosystem and are after an excellent sounding smart speaker, the HomePod is definitely worth considering. While the HomePod is arguably the best smart speaker around in terms of sound quality, it's far less open than any of Sonos speakers thanks to a healthy dose of ecosystem lock-in and a bit more limited in terms of smart functionality. It's also worth considering that the only way to use a HomePod as a TV speaker is via an Apple TV, and again, only for content played directly through the Apple TV.

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