Sonos Beam plummets to new price, but won’t be around for long

Sonos has taken the wraps off its all-new Sonos Beam. If you’re looking for the latest-and-greatest soundbar from the audio company, there’s a lot to like about this new model. You can read all about the 2021 Sonos Beam and its new tricks here. But if you’re hoping the arrival of a new model means some discounts to its predecessor, stay right where you are.

Yes, the launch of a new Sonos Beam has resulted in some retailers dropping the price of the current model. If you’re not too fussed about the changes coming to the new model, including the addition of eARC to provide more bandwidth to boost audio quality in your home cinema set-up, then John Lewis has dropped the price of the first-generation Sonos Beam down to £379.

That’s a £20 saving on the £399 RRP of the current Sonos Beam. However, it’s a pretty impressive £70 discount compared to the price of the new 2021 Sonos Beam model, which now starts at £449. Given that the latest generation soundbar will soon replace the current Sonos Beam models on store shelves across the UK, you’ll have to cough-up for the new pricier model once the remaining stock of the first-generation Sonos Beam has run out.

John Lewis has already sold-out of the Black colour option for the first-generation Sonos Beam, suggesting that Sonos has been running down stock levels for some time ahead of the launch of its new model. Retailer Hughes has price-matched John Lewis, dropping the Sonos Beam, in white, down to £379.

However, the advantage of buying from John Lewis is the high street store adds an extra one-year warranty to all electronics bought from its brick-and-mortar or online stores. So, while you’ll only get one-year warranty when buying from Sonos itself, you’ll be covered against breakages for two years with John Lewis.

Sonos Beam is a compact soundbar that brings 3.0Ch sound to your next movie night, live sports fixture, or concert film. If you already have some Sonos-branded wireless speakers in the house, these can be paired with the Beam for a surround sound set-up. And if you’re not watching the telly, the Sonos Beam can still stream lossless audio from Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, TiDAL, TuneIn, and dozens more services. It also has built-in support for Apple AirPlay 2, so you can, ahem, beam music to your soundbar with a new taps from an iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch or iPad.

Sonos Beam also comes with Google Assistant and Alexa built-in, so it can sit alongside other smart speakers in your house and help you set timers and reminders, find out the latest headlines and weather, and order a takeaway with the correct voice command.