New Products

Sonos today announced it is now shipping the 8-inch ceiling speaker it previewed in January.

Priced at $999/pair, the speaker is the latest model in the company’s small but growing Sonos Architectural by Sonance line of speakers, which also includes a 6-inch ceiling model and a rectangular in-wall model.

Designed to mount flush in a ceiling, the speaker was designed and tuned in collaboration with Sonance, the company that played a key role in launching the custom-installation industry 40 years ago with a then-new category of speakers designed for in-wall mounting. Sonos itself is an audio pioneer, having introduced and popularized the wireless speaker more than 20 years ago.

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), 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 speaker’s 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.