Sonos Sub Mini: One Minute Review
The Sonos Sub Mini is Sonos' long-awaited smaller and more affordable subwoofer, designed to pair with its soundbars, for deeper bass and a better home theater experience.
The Sonos Sub Mini offers a crucial alternative to the existing Sonos Sub, which is a big, beefy beast that's only suitable for large rooms and large setups...and if you don't have any neighbors nearby.
The Sub Mini is smaller and obviously less powerful, but we found that when we tested it even with the large Sonos Arc it adds significant bass foundation which really elevates the experience. Its sound is composed, precise and rich, although we recommend using the Sonos app to increase the Sub level to +4 or +5, as that's a bit reserved right out of the box.
Paired with the smaller second-generation Sonos Beam, it again dramatically improves bass depth and sustain; however, it also doubles the cost. If you want the most expansive system possible in the smallest space, this is a good buy; otherwise, alternative options (such as the Samsung HW-Q930B) offer better value for money.
It makes the most dramatic improvement in listening experience when paired with the cheaper Sonos Ray, but it's too expensive to really justify a budget soundbar, unless you have very specific setup needs.
- Sonos Sub Mini at Best Buy for $429.99 (opens in a new tab)
Sonos Sub Mini review: Price and release date
- $429 / £429 / A$699
- Posted on October 6, 2022
The Sonos Sub Mini's price is pleasingly, and more importantly, less than the $699/£649/$1,099 full-size Sonos Sub. It's not cheap, and we'd say perhaps a little too expensive, in the context of the price of the two soundbars Sonos recommends pairing it with.
Sonos says it's the perfect partner to the 2nd Gen Sonos Ray and Sonos Beam, but is officially gently easing people away from using it with the Sonos Arc, although (as we'll come to) it works just fine with that model. también.
But the Sonos Ray costs $279 / £279 / AU$399. I can't imagine people spending an extra $430 to add bass extension to a cheap and cheery soundbar that doesn't even include Dolby Atmos or HDMI support.
As mentioned above, I can see the case better with the Sonos Beam 2nd Gen, which costs $449 / £449 / AU$599. It still costs almost twice as much to add the Sub Mini, but if you can't get a larger soundbar than this, then this is probably the best option.
To be a more tempting match with these soundbars, it probably had to cost upwards of $300/£300, but it's not.
Sonos Sub Mini review: Features and design
- Frequency range up to 25Hz
- Six-inch drivers with forced cancellation
- Clean cylindrical design
There aren't many features on the Sonos Sub Mini - it's just a subwoofer, after all! As you'd expect, it works wirelessly over Wi-Fi and uses a fast, low-latency 5GHz connection to ensure you're as in sync with your soundbar as possible, but there's also an Ethernet port for wired connectivity. .
It works with the Ray, Beam, and Arc soundbars, but can also be used with a pair of Sonos One speakers to beef up a stereo system, or even a pair of Sonos Five speakers, although Sonos says it's less recommended as they have low strong now. It will also work with bookshelf speakers connected to a Sonos Amp, but will not work with the Sonos Port, Sonos Move, or Sonos Roam.
The main thing you need to know about the Sub Mini is its controller settings. It has two six-inch woofers, which offer a frequency response of up to 25 Hz, according to figures from Sonos.
The two speakers face each other in the center of the case, and the bass they produce is transmitted through oval ports on either side of the Sub Mini. This setting is called a "force cancel" setting and is often used in more advanced speaker systems where you want a good amount of power in a small space.
The science is this: Any speaker driver that uses vibration to push air in one direction (i.e. the sound you want) will also produce "missing" vibration in the opposite direction, since every action has an equal and opposite reaction. . Left unchecked, these stray vibrations can cause unwanted sounds or cause a speaker's body to vibrate, which we don't want.
Very large speakers often absorb these residual vibrations through brute force: they will be made of a very thick and heavy material that can withstand the jolts. But a small speaker like the Sonos Sub Mini can't, because it's simply not big (or heavy) enough, and good bass requires particularly aggressive movement from a speaker.
Force Undo is an alternative option, and that's what Sonos uses on the Sub Mini. Here you have two identical speakers facing exactly opposite directions, playing exactly the same sound in sync. Remember I said that the problem is that a speaker that fires forwards produces reactive vibrations backwards? Well, if you also have a rear speaker that produces a forward feed vibration, then you have actually balanced the feedback vibration. It's like two people pushing a door from opposite sides at the same time: nothing happens. The unwanted vibrations cancel each other out and you are left with only the useful air movement you really want.
And that's very effective in our experience, that means the Sub Mini lets minimal vibration pass out of the subwoofer. Huge bass won't shake walls or go through (unless you really turn up the volume) - the subwoofer itself sounds virtually still even when in use.
The cylindrical design helps here too (circular units absorb vibrations better than square designs), and gives the Sonos Sub Mini a sleek overall design. It's a bit prone to fingerprints, but you won't move it as often as I did in all my testing, so you probably won't mind.
It's available in black or white to match your other Sonos gear, and a nice touch is that the oval cutout on the sides has the same proportions as the Sonos Beam viewed from above or the Sonos Ray viewed from the front.
However, it's missing one important feature which is a shame: you can only connect one Sonos Sub Mini to a system. The original Sonos Sub supports two subwoofers in one system, so you could have a 5.2.2 setup hooked up to a TV for bass lovers.
Low frequencies travel the shortest distance of all sound waves, so having the option of two Mini Subs that distribute bass evenly in a larger room where a large subwoofer isn't welcome would have been a good option; in fact, the new, cheaper Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar subwoofer system is entirely designed around this. Hopefully Sonos will change this with an update in the future.
- Feature & Design Rating: 4/5
Sonos Sub Mini review: Sound quality
- Rich, sustained and fuzzy bass
- Adds more depth to all Sonos soundbars
- Needs a little extra kick out of the box
If what you want from the Sonos Sub Mini is a richer, deeper home theater sound foundation than your Sonos soundbars, but without being in your face or extreme, the Sub Mini is a good choice.
It doesn't sound great - in fact, out of the box I'd say it's a bit too understated and polished - but it offers a level of bass extension that none of the Sonos soundbars can match, so there's no question about it. offers a real improvement for everyone.
And the Sonos Sub Mini also integrates its frequency range seamlessly with all three soundbars, despite each having different low-end capabilities; in either case, you won't be able to hear the Sub Mini click in and out of the box. to work. The helm and the submarine will simply blend into one big soundstage.
Either way, what it adds is deeper bass all the way down to 25Hz, so you get those punchy low-end that's simply missing without a subwoofer. It also means it adds resonance to the bass that the three soundbars simply lack; in any case, they reduce bass to nothing very quickly, but the subwoofer can rumble lower frequencies into your ears and throat, adding more realism to scenes ranging from explosions to crashing waves to acoustic instruments being played.
And by doing so, it also unleashes the soundbar's bass. Ideally, the low frequencies should have no direction and serve as the foundation for the rest of the sound. The Sonos Ray and Beam in particular make the bass feel like it's powered by the little boom unit; the Arc is slightly better, but still feels limited. The Sub Mini feels like it covers the entire area.
In Top Gun: Maverick, when Tom Cruise flies his Mach 10 plane over Ed Harris near the beginning, first there's a roar of engines as he takes off, then there's a shock wave that crosses the screen. With the soundbars alone, there's just a light, punchy boom; With the Sub Mini, the takeoff roar has real weight and power, and it feels like a beast of a motor has fired. And then the shock wave has more noise, but more importantly, it lasts a second longer at the lower frequencies; it's more like how it would affect the real world, not just images on a screen.
In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, when Snoke's ship picks up escape shuttles, the Sub Mini means the lasers hit and explode with depth and menace, rather than just ripping the ships apart. And in Avengers: Endgame, when Thanos hits Cap's shield it creates a deep ringing sound that lasts longer and provides a much greater sense of impact.
But to bring everything to a level where I was happier with the added bass effect, I used the Sonos app to dial the Sub's output up to +5. Right out of the box it made a difference, but it's much more subtle.
If you've bothered to add a subwoofer to your setup, you're probably expecting a pretty noticeable effect. For me, +5 added that, but without...