After months of speculation, Sonos has announced the Sub Mini, a smaller, more affordable wireless subwoofer that works with the company’s collection of wireless speakers and soundbars. It will be available from October 6, both in black and white versions, for $429.
The newest addition to the Sonos lineup is aimed at those with small to medium sized rooms who want better low-end sound. It’ll be particularly suitable for people who own the company’s smaller soundbars, like the Sonos Beam and Sonos Ray, for whom the existing $749 Sonos Sub was a poor match on both price and power. In true Sonos fashion, you’ll be able to pair the Sub Mini with almost any combination of Sonos products, with the exception of the company’s portable speakers, the Move and the Roam.
At a foot tall, the Sub Mini is only slightly shorter than the 15-inch Sonos Sub. Still, with a fully cylindrical shape and nine-inch diameter, it can likely fit in a lot of places the Sub can’t. Its matte finish (either black or white) is also a better match for the rest of the Sonos family of speakers than the high-gloss Sub.
Although smaller than the Sub, the Sub Mini uses the same driver configuration, with two six-inch woofers facing each other via a small channel running through the center of the speaker. Sonos claims that this arrangement creates a force cancellation effect, which minimizes vibrations in the cabinet. The result is a quiet and stable enclosure that you can even use as a base for other objects.
Sonos also says that the Sub Mini’s horizontal driver configuration allows it to produce the “full-toned low frequencies expected from a much larger subwoofer.” But despite that claim, the company also wants to temper those expectations a bit, especially when it comes to comparisons to the more powerful Sonos Sub. While it’s possible to pair the Sub Mini with the Arc, the company’s flagship Dolby Atmos soundbar, Sonos notes that this combo should only be done in smaller rooms and at low to moderate volume levels. In all other scenarios, Sonos still recommends the larger Sub.
Like the rest of Sonos’ non-portable speakers, the Sub Mini has an Ethernet port for those who prefer wired connections, but there are no other inputs or outputs on the speaker, and there are no touch controls or microphones. There’s also no support for Apple AirPlay 2, which Sonos has been including in all of its wireless speakers since 2019. This means the Sub Mini can’t be used as part of a multi-room or multi-speaker system using Apple’s HomeKit, and it won’t be able to stream directly to the Sub Mini from an Apple device. Another limitation: Unlike the Sonos Sub, which can be used alone or with a second Sub in a home theater setup, you can only use one Sub Mini with the company’s soundbars.
We expect the Sub Mini to be the perfect companion to Sonos’ smaller soundbars, as well as their wireless speakers, for those who want a fuller, more powerful low-end response. A big advantage that Sonos has in this area is that it already knows the capabilities of your speakers, so the Sonos software can create an optimal crossover frequency option, regardless of which speakers are used with the Sub Mini. The company’s TruePlay tuning will be able to further optimize sound for your specific room, and the Sonos app will continue to offer EQ adjustments with rooms configured with Sub Mini.
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