Note: The above photo is of the Beam (Gen 2), and not of the upcoming leaked soundbar.
Sonos is apparently gearing up to announce its most affordable soundbar to date. According to The Verge‘s Chris Welch, who claims to have seen “genuine photos” of the upcoming entry-level soundbar, it will cost just $249, which is substantially cheaper than its current Arc ($899) and Beam 2 ($449) soundbars. And it will be released in early June.
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The Verge had one of its team members create 3D renders of what the upcoming soundbar is expected look like. (We’re not ones to steal their hard-earned images, so you can check out The Verge‘s renders here.)
To keep the price down, the new soundbar — which Welch writes has been codenamed “Fury” — will work quite a bit differently from Sonos’s current Arc and Beam. It will connect to your TV via a single optical cable and not HDMI, which means that this new soundbar will not support Dolby Atmos. It won’t have built-in microphones, so you won’t be able to integrate it with any voice assistant like Alexa or Google Assistant. And it likely won’t support TruePlay, Sonos’s room-optimizing technology.
The new soundbar will be slightly smaller than the current Beam and it pack fewer drivers. It will be able to grouped with Sonos speakers in a multi-room system. You’ll be able to designate two of Sonos’s One or One SL or Play:1 speakers as rear-channels, as well as a Sub, to create a more surround sound system.
Maybe the most interesting thing about The Verge‘s article is Welch claims that people will be able to use two of these entry-level soundbars as rear channel speakers in a larger Sonos surround sound system. Basically, you’d be able to replace your current surrounds, either two One or Play:1 speakers, with two of these new soundbars and get an even more immersive experience. Sonos has apparently made wall mounts for the soundbar for this specific purpose.