Testing the New Sonos Ray AirPlay 2-Enabled Soundbar

Not buying anything Sonos again until they get rid of the "check for upgrade" banner on the old app. I've clicked it, my device doesn't qualify, please make it go away. I don't need yet another report that says none of my devices will work with the new version.

I’m sure they will read this and rethink their whole sales strategy

I stopped using my Sono's speakers with AppleTV via Airplay because it wasn't reliable. The connection would work fine some days but then disconnect on others. When you have a family that uses the TV and this continues to happen, best to get rid of it and go back to wired. I don't want to troubleshoot the TV for them every week.

The airplay feature is not meant to connect Sonos speakers to your Apple TV. Only HomePods are specifically set up for a permanent airplay connection. You should be using one of their sound bars and plugging in via hdmi or optical. Airplay on Sonos is great for beaming a podcast or music from your phone when you don’t want to go through the Sonos app. The last sentence of the article was likely referring to this use case; not a permanent audio output solution.

I was looking at this product for use with my Apple TV. If Airplay isn’t reliable, is there another way to physically connect to the Apple TV, or even a TV?

Depends on what you mean by "this product". You're responding to someone talking about an unspecified collection of Sonos speakers. The article is about Sonos' lowest-end soundbar - a product specifically designed for connecting to a TV, over digital optical cable ("Toslink"). They have two other soundbars, the Beam, and Arc, both of which normally connect to the TV using HDMI eARC (those two will also do digital optical using a special digital-optical-to-HDMI converter cable suppled with the Beam and Arc). To be clear, all of these are designed to connect to a television, not to the Apple TV in particular (Apple dropped the digital optical connection that earlier versions of the Apple TV had). The current Apple TV has no provision for separate audio output other than AirPlay. All modern Sonos speakers can do AirPlay, but only their soundbars are designed to connect to a TV (using HDMI ARC/eARC or digital optical) - running them over AirPlay from an Apple TV is bound to have some hiccups. From the way the comment was phrased, I expect the commenter you replied to is using, say, a stereo pair of Sonos Ones over AirPlay to the Apple TV.

I have an Arc (with the associated surround speakers and Sub), and they sound wonderful, and the set is 100% reliable in the connection to the TV - the Apple TV plugs into the TV, the Arc plugs into the TV (via the TV's HDMI eARC port), and it Just Works™️. Turn on the TV, sound is automatically routed from the TV's tuner, or the Apple TV, or the PS5, to the Arc (and from the Arc to the surrounds and Sub). When I hit the volume buttons on the Apple TV's remote, it sends volume commands to the Apple TV over bluetooth, the Apple TV transmits them to the TV over HDMI CEC, and the TV forwards these to the Arc - it's all completely seamless from the user's perspective - TV sound always comes out of the Arc, and the Apple TV's remote controls the volume.

With the Ray, the digital optical standard has no provision for sending volume control information, so the TV sends the audio to the Ray "full strength", and you'd program the Apple TV's remote (which can send IR commands for volume) to send volume up/down commands directly to the Ray. The only limitation of this is that you need more-or-less direct line of sight from the remote to the Ray. (I've found with the Apple TV remote transmitting over bluetooth, I'll often walk into the kitchen for a moment, remote in hand, and raise the volume a bit along the way to be able to follow what's being said - obviously more useful if you're watching something news-like, where you're mostly listening - for a movie, I'll just pause.)

Not buying anything Sonos again until they get rid of the "check for upgrade" banner on the old app. I've clicked it, my device doesn't qualify, please make it go away. I don't need yet another report that says none of my devices will work with the new version.

I really like our roam, we have had it since the release. We have a smaller space and it fills the sound better than other sound bars. It replaced a 2.1 bar and the bass is comparable even without a sub. We use an Apple TV 4K exclusively and have had zero issues, same with air play.

I'm sure this is a silly question but does it offer better sound than the original HomePod?

No eARC is a non-starter