1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:05,680
350 bucks will get you in a walled garden that'll ruin your life i'm

2
00:00:03,919 --> 00:00:09,360
obviously incompetent oh that's not working i'm going to cry

3
00:00:07,919 --> 00:00:12,480
what do i have to do to make this work turn that up

4
00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:19,279
what do you mean that your eighth of an inch thick OLED tv has terrible speakers

5
00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:23,680
what if we could fix it today we have the sonos ray a sound bar that you can

6
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,800
stick in front of your tv to make it sound less

7
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:34,079
look at that that's kind of cool looks like it comes with a little box of

8
00:00:31,359 --> 00:00:38,800
accessories as well this is all looks like recyclable cardboard i don't see

9
00:00:36,160 --> 00:00:41,360
any plastic which is actually quite nice can't have straws but we can still get

10
00:00:40,399 --> 00:00:45,200
giant black tubes that we throw out in three

11
00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:50,239
weeks when they update the app and no longer support it

12
00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:53,360
sonos that's the problem with these app compatible speakers sometimes you know

13
00:00:52,079 --> 00:00:57,280
maybe the company goes under and then you can't use it for your tv anymore uh

14
00:00:55,440 --> 00:01:02,000
we'll figure out if this one can even work without the app i know that the

15
00:00:59,359 --> 00:01:07,200
iphone app has a lot of features that the Android app doesn't like home

16
00:01:04,479 --> 00:01:10,000
surround sound testing type of thing so if you get multiple speakers you can

17
00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:14,799
take your iphone around and it'll measure all of the space to get the best

18
00:01:12,799 --> 00:01:18,640
sound possible not available on Android it seems it comes with an optical cable

19
00:01:16,799 --> 00:01:23,040
and it comes with a power cable and that's it look at that

20
00:01:21,119 --> 00:01:26,640
oh i have it upside down oh no their logo can go either way so for

21
00:01:24,799 --> 00:01:30,960
connectivity we don't really have too much we've got a pairing button i guess

22
00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:34,240
we've got a power cable which goes in here

23
00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:38,079
and we've got toslink optical and Ethernet that's it that's all you get no

24
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:42,560
HDMI no arc none of that this is their entry level model which is sort of on

25
00:01:40,479 --> 00:01:45,360
the cheap end of their main center sound bars the level above this would probably

26
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,119
be your arc which i think is about a thousand bucks 1100 that sort of thing

27
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:53,439
this is much more designed as a cheap entry into their ecosystem of connected

28
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:56,960
speakers if it doesn't sound very good you can always modify it with satellites

29
00:01:55,200 --> 00:02:00,719
or a subwoofer that sort of thing it does have some reflex ports over here

30
00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:05,840
and some mid drivers and i think it's got a couple tweeters in the middle something like that four d-class amps

31
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:09,759
whatever that means so i guess we'll segue to our sponsor secret Labs secret

32
00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:14,640
lab chairs are engineered to keep you incredibly comfortable for long hours at

33
00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:18,239
work and play their new titan evo 2022 chair keeps you feeling comfortable for

34
00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:22,160
longer four-way lumbar support ultra comfortable lines of different seat

35
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:26,400
material and more all chairs come with up to a five-year extended warranty and

36
00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:30,640
a 49-day return policy head to the link in the description and check out secret

37
00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:37,360
lab today how does it look in front of the tv quite nice actually toslink is

38
00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:40,000
like an answer to an upgraded analog

39
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:43,760
audio it's all digital but it still carries audio and you can transfer like

40
00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:48,640
a lot of different channels over it it's not quite up to the level of the newer

41
00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:52,080
HDMI standards which is probably why it's going to be phased out soon you

42
00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:55,360
don't get any analog interference you don't have to worry about grounding any

43
00:02:53,519 --> 00:02:58,879
of that because again it's just it's optical it's a plastic cable with a

44
00:02:57,200 --> 00:03:02,720
little led at the end rather than a laser like in fiber optics i mean it's

45
00:03:00,879 --> 00:03:08,400
still fiber optics but you know whatever one of the problems with only having

46
00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:09,680
fiber optics compared to HDMI is

47
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:13,120
now we don't know if the tv is going to be in sync unlike that really nice sony

48
00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:17,519
speaker which didn't make you make an account to use a piece of audio

49
00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:21,599
equipment the sonos one does but thankfully it's already found it which

50
00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:24,800
is phenomenal so i now have to let my app record audio

51
00:03:24,959 --> 00:03:30,239
that's really basic this might actually not be terrible it's already connected

52
00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:33,200
so just place the sound and then it's fine turn on your tv plug in the optical

53
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:38,640
cable i already did that what's wrong with you no signal detected another good way to check toslink don't do this with

54
00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:41,920
fiber because you'll die but you can see if it's got a little red light which it

55
00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:45,599
does let's make sure we plugged it in right i'm going to cry i'm seeing

56
00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:49,599
optical activity coming off of the back of the toslink cable you know the red

57
00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:53,840
light's on but the sonos isn't detecting the tv or the tv's not sending audio

58
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:57,920
properly to the sonos welcome to my other living room well we got it hooked

59
00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:02,400
up to optical on this tv and it just worked immediately so i think there's an

60
00:04:00,159 --> 00:04:06,080
issue with that other tv rather than the sonus itself lg you do do it's nicer tv

61
00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:11,760
anyway hey no i want one no

62
00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:15,480
okay i have one too this is a nice volume

63
00:04:15,519 --> 00:04:20,959
it sounds like it's coming from right there though it's not very wide which it

64
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:25,040
obviously isn't but i don't hate this

65
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:28,520
i hate this song it's always great

66
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:34,720
oh there's the too much bass

67
00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:42,639
it doesn't keep up okay i take back everything i said it's

68
00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:47,199
good no what it's not good at low volumes the highs

69
00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:51,280
and mids are like quite reasonable you know the start

70
00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:54,080
of that song was actually really nice it was crisp you could hear the clicky

71
00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,400
clackities but as soon as the bass dropped it just

72
00:04:57,199 --> 00:05:04,479
explodes really really thumpy the whole room's shaking and it's

73
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:09,199
missing that nice crisp i don't know 200 to 300 all the 60s and the 80s of the

74
00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:15,280
kick drums are just very boomy and then as we increase the volume up to like 100

75
00:05:11,919 --> 00:05:18,400
the highs and everything start to crisp

76
00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:20,960
up and clip and it just kind of turns to

77
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:24,320
bad unfortunately i think for a center channel this is quite a reasonable

78
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:27,520
product most of your speech is going to be coming from a center channel which is

79
00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:33,600
probably where this fits into their ecosystem you know it's a nice cheap

80
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:35,520
300 dollar addition to

81
00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:40,000
cheap well i mean you know hifi stuff can get really really stupid to me it

82
00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:44,240
sounds almost like the speakers are being overwhelmed with the bass and

83
00:05:41,919 --> 00:05:47,360
they're freaking out go back to our drop we can hear when the bass starts and

84
00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:50,000
then i'll turn off loudness and we can start playing with it

85
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:56,319
doesn't change it too much there's a little bit of a character adjustment

86
00:05:53,680 --> 00:06:00,800
let's turn the bass down though bass at negative 10 sounds bad

87
00:06:01,759 --> 00:06:08,319
no i was hoping for more controls with

88
00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:12,000
equalizer the treble adjustment seems to move like the

89
00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:16,560
10 000 hertz kind of areas whereas the bass also doesn't seem to hit the right

90
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:20,479
areas for me loudness doesn't adjust things quite enough so they're quite

91
00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:25,360
versatile if you have an iphone unfortunately i don't get the privilege

92
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:28,720
of using chromecast so i switched to jono's phone let's have a listen to one

93
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:32,840
of my reference tracks uh the wheel by saw come on

94
00:06:36,960 --> 00:06:40,319
johno i need your face ow

95
00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:46,079
oh turn that up

96
00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:52,240
really nice crisp car

97
00:06:49,840 --> 00:06:55,599
as a center channel four movies and tv i think this would be quite phenomenal the

98
00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:58,639
highs are nice and crisp the mids are nice and balanced but as soon as you

99
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:03,199
have anything in there with bass everything just explodes and goes

100
00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:07,919
uh very disappointing honestly maybe a pair of satellites so now you're

101
00:07:05,599 --> 00:07:13,840
into it for two thousand bucks subwoofer another 300 bucks

102
00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:16,880
is it worth it for a 350 center channel

103
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:19,360
that you can only listen to speech or

104
00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:23,520
hi hats on one thing that we might find is that all the frequencies sound really

105
00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:26,800
nice when they're played individually which is this is doing explain one

106
00:07:25,039 --> 00:07:31,120
frequency at a time when you get into a music or speech or a movie situation

107
00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:34,319
you get multiple going on at the same time and it might fail at that

108
00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:43,039
to get it to disconnect from apple jono land we had to power cycle it which is

109
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:46,639
irritating especially when all of these are interconnect connected and you could

110
00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:50,639
potentially have seven in your room plus four in the ceiling i'm gonna set the

111
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:54,560
volume down at around half because we're gonna die if we have it any higher

112
00:07:52,720 --> 00:08:00,240
i am hearing some gentle murmurs at around you know this hurts really started right

113
00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,240
there around 30.

114
00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:07,360
oh did you hear it get all quiet there it went and then went away so it's got a

115
00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:12,240
massive boost right around 30 and now we're coming back up around 60.

116
00:08:10,639 --> 00:08:18,000
it's not really that directional actually

117
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:18,000
it's got a nice wide sound field

118
00:08:21,199 --> 00:08:27,360
wow you can hear it vibrating right

119
00:08:25,199 --> 00:08:30,960
like the unit itself is going when it's

120
00:08:28,639 --> 00:08:34,479
i guess sympathetic resonance so it's probably

121
00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:40,760
maybe not built like it should be

122
00:08:36,399 --> 00:08:40,760
is this irritating for everybody yeah

123
00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:47,839
nice and even through the 1000s

124
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:49,680
slight dip around 3k

125
00:08:47,839 --> 00:08:52,800
this is sort of that missing mids that i was hearing but now we're getting into

126
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:55,760
that nice high band and this is all sounding very nice and even it's

127
00:08:54,640 --> 00:09:00,240
probably going to get painful in a second big dip around six see this is

128
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:05,120
where sort of human speech is and then another big dip around eight

129
00:09:03,519 --> 00:09:09,120
nine let me know when you can stop hearing this

130
00:09:06,959 --> 00:09:12,480
10 11. these are all nice and crisp and clean

131
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:18,959
13 14 15. me too oh no they're about six

132
00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:22,800
anybody else you still here at about over six

133
00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:26,320
good boys yeah you're younger aren't you that was actually pretty enlightening

134
00:09:24,399 --> 00:09:30,640
there's a really nice sound stage from the early 1000's all the way up to

135
00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:35,680
you know when we can stop hearing things at around 16 to 17. and i

136
00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:40,320
is dolby cinema it's where the most advanced cinematic

137
00:09:37,839 --> 00:09:43,760
technology you've ever experienced begins

138
00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:47,680
the speech there is just so nice it's so pure uh the problem is there's lots of

139
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:52,080
bass hits and stuff in this demo and they just ruin

140
00:09:49,519 --> 00:09:55,040
everything i hope we can disable that i i think you know if you're watching tvs

141
00:09:53,760 --> 00:10:00,399
or shows or movies this is going to be lovely maybe not action movies you want

142
00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:02,399
to watch a master chef or a drama or

143
00:10:00,399 --> 00:10:06,640
you know Linus tech tips we have another channel that you might not be aware of

144
00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:10,640
probably perfect honestly sympathetic resonance coming throughout the whole

145
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:16,800
unit shaking it vibrating it you can hear the internal clicking of it and big

146
00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:18,560
dips like i'm talking 10 maybe 5 db like

147
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:23,760
unnecessarily large it does have really good low end output

148
00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:28,160
but it's all over the place which is probably why crabrave sounded so bad and

149
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:31,760
all the music sounded so bad when the bass came in everything else without

150
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:36,320
bass was absolutely crisp and beautiful and it sounded really even even in that

151
00:10:33,519 --> 00:10:40,240
sign suite for me i don't think the ray is going to be living in my living room

152
00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:45,760
i think if you had a small apartment or a smaller tv or just wanted a little bit

153
00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:47,440
more background noise or music in your

154
00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:52,000
place then this would be a good buy only if you're an iphone user and only if you

155
00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:54,399
can't find something for 350 bucks that's

156
00:10:52,959 --> 00:10:58,720
maybe more your style this isn't particularly versatile for a single

157
00:10:56,560 --> 00:11:01,839
channel like this i would probably just go for stereo speakers you're going to

158
00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:06,000
have a better experience you're going to be able to fit more stuff in here but as

159
00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:09,839
an entry point into a multi-channel home audio system i think this is

160
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:14,560
fine for somebody out there i guess thanks for

161
00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:18,320
watching if you want to look at other really stupid audio products that jonno

162
00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:23,760
makes me review sorry that genre makes me not review check out the sony lpx

163
00:11:20,959 --> 00:11:28,519
glass tubie thing it was also expensive and bad it was very a product