When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
Sonos makes several excellent soundbars that pack a punch when watching movies and TV shows or playing video games. The best Sonos soundbars also support wireless music playback, and the brand makes models suited for every budget.
I've tested all of the company's soundbars and can confidently recommend the Sonos Arc Ultra as the best. This high-end model offers excellent Dolby Atmos performance while integrating impressive Sound Motion technology. Sound Motion enables bigger bass without the need for a separate subwoofer. Meanwhile, buyers who want something more affordable and compact should check out the Sonos Ray, a smaller, more budget-friendly bar better suited for apartments and bedrooms.
Below, you can find all my picks for the best Sonos soundbars, as well as recommendations for an add-on speaker and subwoofer that you can buy to create an even more immersive experience.
Our top picks for the best Sonos soundbars
Best overall: Sonos Arc Ultra - See at Amazon
Best on a budget: Sonos Ray - See at Amazon
Best midrange model: Sonos Beam (Gen 2) - See at Amazon
Best subwoofer add-on: Sonos Sub 4 - See at Amazon
Best rear speaker add-on: Sonos Era 300 - See at Amazon
Best overall
The Sonos Arc Ultra carries over everything we loved about the original Arc soundbar while offering bigger bass, improved Dolby Atmos immersion, and cleaner dialogue. It's pricey, but few stand-alone soundbars can match its performance.
- Noticeable bass increase over the previous Arc
- Exceptional dialogue clarity
- Detailed spatial effects with Dolby Atmos
- Slightly sleeker design
- More expensive than original Arc soundbar
- Sonos app still experiencing occasional bugs and glitches
- Optical connection requires additional adapter
- No DTS:X support
The Arc Ultra is the best Sonos soundbar available and an absolute beast of an audio system. It debuted at the end of 2024 and is the perfect fit for anyone who wants a powerful all-in-one Dolby Atmos soundbar with deep bass.
The single soundbar unit can produce up to 9.1.4 channels of Dolby Atmos surround sound. It also has dedicated up-firing audio drivers to bounce sound off your ceiling. This means that audio effects can sound like they're coming from all around the room, including above your head. In my tests, the Arc Ultra delivered an incredibly immersive experience, whether watching movies or listening to music. The sound is so expansive that I had a hard time believing it all came from just one device under my TV.
One of the Arc Ultra's secret ingredients is its new Sound Motion driver. This component packs multiple woofers into a compact space, offering deeper bass than the original Arc model without making the soundbar any larger. The Sound Motion driver can't quite match the performance of a dedicated subwoofer, but it gives movies and shows more low-end presence and depth with a full, rich quality that few stand-alone soundbars can beat.
The Arc Ultra also has exceptional dialogue clarity. The device offers an optional speech enhancement mode, but I rarely had to rely on it because the bar's internal drivers are already so well-tuned for delivering clear speech. If you do find yourself needing an extra boost, the speech enhancement emphasizes dialogue even more without muddying explosions or altering other sound effects. It's impressive.
On the downside, the Arc Ultra is Sonos' most expensive soundbar, and it's disappointing that it doesn't support DTS:X, another 3D audio format that rivals Dolby Atmos. It also lacks HDMI video passthrough, so you can't use the bar to route extra devices to your TV, like a gaming console or streaming player. But these shortcomings are small compared to all the Arc Ultra gets right. If you want a single, powerful speaker in your living room that's capable of handling all your home theater needs, the Arc Ultra is the best Sonos soundbar there is.
Read our Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar review.
Check out our guide to all of the best soundbars.
Best on a budget
The Sonos Ray packs a thrilling punch of premium sound in a conveniently small package but begs some compromises when it comes to connection options.
- Clear, full, and detailed sound quality
- Small and stylish design
- Connects and syncs with other Sonos speakers
- No HDMI ARC
- No Bluetooth or Dolby Atmos
- No included remote
The Sonos Ray is the brand's most affordable and compact soundbar. Thanks to its minimal footprint, it's the best Sonos soundbar for bedrooms and apartments. For comparison, it's less than half the width of the Arc Ultra and a few inches shorter and less deep than the Beam (Gen 2). Despite its stature, it far outdoes the capabilities of most speakers embedded in TV sets, especially lower-end models.
In terms of audio quality, you can expect a smooth experience that brings any movie to life. You won't get the window-rattling lows or all of the flourishes offered on Sonos' pricier soundbars, but the Ray is impressive for its size, with a surprisingly detailed sound signature.
Streaming music on the Ray over WiFi is great, too, offering better quality than a Bluetooth connection would provide. That said, it is a bummer that Sonos doesn't also include Bluetooth support as an alternative for those instances when WiFi might not be an option.
The Ray is also a bit lacking in wired connectivity. It doesn't include an HDMI port and can only connect to a TV (or PC) via an optical cable. This does mean it has wide compatibility among older televisions, but it also means that it doesn't support lossless audio formats, Dolby Atmos, or automatic pairing with your TV remote.
On the plus side, you can connect a Sonos subwoofer or rear Sonos speaker wirelessly to the Ray to boost its basic surround sound configuration. Like all Sonos soundbars, it also supports grouping with other Sonos speakers to create a multi-room audio setup, and it can pair with the Sonos Ace headphones to switch between soundbar and private listening with your TV.
Check out our guide to all of the best budget soundbars.
Best midrange model
With the Sonos Beam, your living room becomes the center of a blissful smart home. It delivers big, balanced sound, and is a serious improvement over the built-in speakers in most TVs.
- Big sound from a compact speaker
- Dolby Atmos support
- Decent surround sound simulation
- No up-firing drivers
- Pricey compared to similar competitors
- No Bluetooth support
The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is a middle ground between the brand's flagship Arc Ultra and entry-level Ray. It's powerful enough to fill a medium-sized space with sound but isn't that much bigger than the Ray, so it still works well in a bedroom or smaller living room. (That's where I predominantly use it.)
Beyond size, the midrange Beam really differentiates itself from the cheaper Sonos Ray by adding an HDMI eARC connection and support for Dolby Atmos. This means it automatically works with many modern TV remotes, and it has a wider sound stage. For under $500, the Beam punches well above its weight class. It's a proper home theater in a box, perfect for most living rooms or other places that could use an audio upgrade.
But while the Beam supports decoding multi-channel audio formats with boisterous and vibrant performance, it doesn't feature any up-firing drivers. Instead, it relies on virtual processing to simulate a sense of overhead audio, which isn't as effective. As a result, you won't get the same kind of atmospheric overhead sound effects as you would on the more expensive Arc Ultra.
Still, movies sound impactful, and the Beam fills my space well, even when set to under 50% volume. "Dune" is a great showcase for the Beam, with booming effects and a drum-heavy soundtrack that pounds along.
Music also sounds rich and full. It's impressive enough to serve as the DJ for home gatherings. Streaming music via WiFi through the Sonos app works well and encompasses a vast amount of services, but the soundbar also supports AirPlay for a more immediate listening experience. That said, like the Ray, the Beam is missing Bluetooth support.
Best subwoofer add-on
The Sub 4 is Sonos' latest flagship subwoofer. It can pair wirelessly with Sonos speakers to enable bigger, deeper bass performance.
- Intense bass performance
- Vertical or horizontal orientation
- Works with most Sonos speakers
- Not compatible with speakers from other brands
- Premium price (costs more than a Ray and Beam soundbar combined)
If you crave more bass, the best add-on you can buy for your Sonos soundbar is a subwoofer, specifically the Sonos Sub 4. It can wirelessly connect to the Ray, Beam, or Arc Ultra, so you can hide it in the back of a room or even on its side under a couch.
The subwoofer's force-canceling drivers produce deep, commanding bass for intense dramatic effect during movies. But the woofer never becomes unwieldy in reverberations or rattling.
If you're an especially big bass head, you can even pair the Sonos Sub 4 with a second Sub 4 or Sub 3 unit. You can learn more about duel subwoofer compatibility on the Sonos website.
Given its premium performance, the Sub 4 works best with an Arc Ultra, though you can still use it with the smaller Beam or Ray. But for those more compact bars, the less expensive Sonos Sub Mini is a great alternative. It's not ported so it doesn't have the same audio characteristics as the Sub 4 — it's a little tighter and more punchy — but it can still add extra dimension to your home theater setup.
Best rear speaker add-on
This premium wireless speaker features up-firing and side-firing drivers to spread Dolby Atmos music around your room. It also has built-in support for Amazon Alexa and can serve as a rear speaker when paired with a Sonos soundbar.
- Excellent atmospheric sound
- Lots of power and volume headroom
- Two Era 300 speakers can be a little bulky to put behind a couch
- Pricey for a wireless speaker
The Sonos Era 300 is built to work as a stand-alone wireless speaker or as an add-on speaker for select Sonos soundbars. Two Era 300 units can be paired together and used as rear speakers in conjunction with an Arc Ultra or Beam to enable a true surround sound experience. (The Ray is not compatible with the Era 300.)
The Era 300 has built-in drivers firing in all directions, including upward. This allows it to provide genuine Dolby Atmos support with audio effects that bounce off your ceiling. If you have a Beam (Gen 2) or Arc Ultra, the Era 300 will work with them to provide an even more convincing sense of overheard audio and a wider Dolby Atmos sound stage.
However, adding a pair of Era 300 speakers to your Sonos soundbar setup does require a fair amount of physical space, and they're a bit pricey.
If that's a problem for your room and budget, a pair of smaller, cheaper Era 100 speakers can also do a solid job as wireless rear speakers. The Era 100 also works with the Sonos Ray. That said, the Era 100 does not have up-firing Dolby Atmos drivers.
How we test Sonos soundbars
I've been testing Sonos soundbars since the release of the brand's first model, the Playbar, in 2013, so I have extensive experience with the company's products. To categorize the best Sonos soundbars, I tested all of the brand's current offerings to determine what kind of user each is suited for.
My evaluation involved pairing each soundbar to the same TV to get a sense of how each bar performed on its own and compared to each other. I focused on aspects like audio quality, physical size, connectivity, software features, and ease of use to help inform my decisions about what kinds of circumstances they work best for.
In my hands-on time, I also used the best Sonos soundbars in various rooms around my house to get a sense of how they worked in different spaces. I based a lot of my assessments on how the soundbars performed while watching movies with high-quality surround sound mixes. But I also watched sitcoms and older films to hear how they sounded with lower-quality tracks. For music, I streamed songs from my phone and used the Apple Music app on my Apple TV streaming box.
With the exception of the Sonos Ray, which only supports a digital optical connection, I stuck with an HDMI eARC connection to get the best-quality audio on each soundbar.
Sonos soundbars FAQs
Can you wall-mount a Sonos soundbar?
All of the best Sonos soundbars included in this guide can be mounted to a wall or placed on a tabletop surface. Sonos makes mounts for each of its speakers, but third-party mounts usually cost less.
Can you pair a subwoofer to a Sonos soundbar?
All of Sonos's current soundbar models support the brand's Sub 4 or Sub Mini. The Arc Ultra even supports dual subs, as long as you pair a Sub 4 and/or Sub 3. It's also important to note that Sonos soundbars are not compatible with subwoofers made by other brands.
For soundbar recommendations that include a subwoofer, visit our guide to the best soundbars with subwoofers.
Can you pair rear speaker units to a Sonos soundbar?
You can pair two Sonos Era 100 speakers with a Sonos Arc Ultra, Sonos Beam (Gen 2), or Sonos Ray to use them as wireless rear speakers. The Beam and Arc Ultra soundbars also support using Sonos Era 300 speakers as rear surrounds.
Can Sonos soundbars play Dolby Atmos surround sound?
Both the Sonos Arc Ultra and Sonos Beam (Gen 2) support Dolby Atmos. However, only the Ultra has up-firing audio drivers to produce overhead Atmos sound effects. In contrast, the Beam uses its processing power to simulate overhead sounds, which isn't as convincing.
To learn more about the format, check out our Dolby Atmos guide. For more soundbar recommendations with Atmos support, visit our roundup of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars.
Is Sonos better than Bose?
Sonos and Bose sell similar soundbars, but certain models are slightly better than others. On the high end, we think the Sonos Arc Ultra has an edge over the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar thanks to Sonos' newly improved bass support.
However, the midrange Bose Smart Soundbar offers better Dolby Atmos performance than the rival Sonos Beam since the former has up-firing audio drivers.
The entry-level Sonos Ray and Bose TV Speaker are very evenly matched, with minor pros and cons. We like that the Sonos Ray supports WiFi, but some users may prefer the Bose TV Speaker's HDMI connection, which the Ray lacks.
Both brands support wireless multi-room audio systems, but their speakers can only pair with other models made by the same company. For that reason, we recommend sticking with one brand rather than mixing and matching if you purchase multiple audio devices for your home.
