This is Sonos’ next flagship soundbar

As Sonos continues chipping distant astatine fixing bugs and improving nan capacity of its poorly received mobile app redesign, nan institution besides remains focused connected respective caller hardware products. Among them is an ultrapremium soundbar that will service arsenic a successor to nan current Sonos Arc — and apt astatine a higher price. Codenamed Lasso, nan instrumentality is presently successful constricted beta testing, and today, I tin stock nan first images of it. 

The exterior of nan Lasso soundbar bears a beardown resemblance to nan Arc, which Sonos introduced complete 4 years ago. But inside, nan components and speaker drivers person been wholly overhauled and redesigned, and that’s expected to consequence successful a costs upwards of $1,200. Sonos intends to vessel Lasso later this year, though nan timeframe could change.

Whenever it does arrive, Lasso (hardware exemplary S45) will beryllium nan first Sonos merchandise to merge exertion from Mayht, a Netherlands-based startup that the institution acquired successful 2022 for $100 cardinal successful cash. At nan time, Sonos credited Mayht for having “invented a new, revolutionary attack to audio transducers.” CEO Patrick Spence said nan woody would springiness Sonos “more unthinkable people, technology, and intelligence spot that will further separate nan Sonos experience, heighten our competitory advantage, and accelerate our early roadmap.”

But it’s taken rather immoderate clip to get Mayht’s ideas into a shipping product. Sonos has released respective mini speakers complete nan past mates years — nan Era 100, Move 2, and Roam 2 among them — that could’ve benefitted from Mayht’s innovative transducers, which are said to “enable smaller and lighter shape factors without compromising connected quality.” But it’s nan soundbar that will connection nan first sensation of what nan acquisition has yielded. Sources show maine that it’s been a situation to make Mayht’s transducer strategy much costs efficient, arsenic it partially makes usage of “expensive” neodymium magnets.

Bloomberg antecedently reported nan Lasso codename, its rumored price, and nan inclusion of Mayht’s technology. The product’s last user branding isn’t yet known, but for now, Sonos is playfully including nan Ted Lasso typeface connected beta units.

The Arc is already a very awesome Dolby Atmos soundbar, and you tin expect moreover greater immersion from Lasso and its revamped internals. Additionally, according to sources, nan upcoming soundbar should present substantially amended bass capacity than its predecessor. With nan Arc, you really request to adhd a Sub aliases Sub Mini to get nan astir retired of it. Sonos could possibly get distant pinch that pinch a $899 product, but if it’s going to complaint good complete $1,000 for Lasso, nan instrumentality needs to present top-tier location theatre audio without immoderate added help.

The images besides uncover a dedicated Bluetooth button, suggesting that Lasso could support Bluetooth audio playback. That characteristic has been absent from each erstwhile Sonos soundbars. And akin to nan company’s different caller products, there’ll beryllium a beingness move for disabling nan built-in microphones.

Just for illustration nan Arc, Lasso is designed to activity pinch the precocious released Sonos Ace headphones for backstage listening pinch spatial audio. The institution has pledged to widen Ace compatibility to its much affordable Beam and Ray soundbars by precocious summertime aliases early fall.

As for nan much contiguous future, Sonos continues to release updates to its mobile app astatine a predominant gait arsenic it tries to reside customer frustrations and assistance nan antagonistic sentiment that has embroiled nan company’s organization since May.

It’s clear to maine that Sonos is listening and moving quickly, but a batch of harm has already been done: nan Android version of nan Sonos app presently has a sadistic 1.2-star mean reappraisal rating. The standing connected Apple’s App Store isn’t astir arsenic bad since older reviews are still balancing retired the spate of complaints that came pinch nan redesign.