Gadgetory

sona's has unveiled its first affordable soundbar the beam at an event in San Francisco and based on the features alone it could be the company's best AV product yet the biggest draw card is the integrated voice assistant which features Amazon Alexa and the promise of Google assistant later Cerner says it has improved the microphone array from the company's earlier one speaker like that product the beam can operate exactly like an echo and let you operate your music or movies with voice alone a speaker is airplay - compatible which means you can group it with a home pod for multi room music and you can even ask Siri using your phone to play music on the beam the product is about half the size of the play bar at 25 inches wide but offers similar technologies including three audio channels with the center and beamforming for bouncing sound off your walls as there's no subwoofer the speaker offers a series of passive radiators in order to boost bass response the solos also includes an HDMI port which is a first for the company but if you have a TV with an optical port there will be an optical to HDMI adapter in the box the speak all support Dolby Digital decoding but sadly not Atmos as there's no up firing speakers if you want to expand the system you can also add a pair of sonís ones for example as rears and the subwoofer if you want more bass I had to listen to the Sonos beam and found it offers the same super wide sound to the play bass and play bar dialogue in particular sounded super crisp however as you'd expect from the small size of the unit it wasn't a lot of bass the sunnahs pin will be available worldwide on July 17 the $399 $399 Australian with support for more standards than before in addition to multiple voice assistance the Silas Beam could be the smart sound bar to beat for the money