New Products

Wireless-speaker pioneer Sonos continues to expand beyond its roots with a new high-performance in-ceiling speaker designed and tuned in collaboration with Sonance, another pioneering company that helped launch the custom-installation industry 40 years ago with a new category of speakers designed for in-wall mounting.

Slated to sell for $999/pair when it ships in the spring, the Sonos 8” In-Ceiling Speaker is a two-way model designed to spread full-range sound over a large listening area from behind an inconspicuous white grille that attaches magnetically to the speaker frame. Wide, uniform dispersion is achieved by placing a 1.2-inch cloth-dome tweeter in a horn-like waveguide, which in turn is mounted in the center of an 8-inch custom woofer.

In addition to its large diameter, the woofer boasts a high-excursion motor assembly and is designed to produce a smooth midrange while delivering deep bass down to 32 Hz (±3 dB). The speaker is rated to handle 225 watts and has a nominal impedance of 8 ohms.

When used with the 2 x 125-watt Sonos Amp ($699, shown), the speakers become part of the app-based Sonos ecosystem and are able to take advantage of Trueplay, the company’s proprietary auto room tuning system, which analyzes how sound reflects off walls and other surfaces and applies equalization (EQ) to optimize the sound. The Amp can power up to three pairs of Sonos Architectural speakers wired in parallel.

The new 8-inch model is the latest addition to the Sonos Architectural by Sonance line, which currently offers a 6-inch in-ceiling speaker and rectangular two-way in-wall. Its speaker frame is just over 11 inches in diameter with a mounting depth of 5.3 inches and requires a 10.1-inch cutout for installation. For more information, visit sonos.com.