Sonos Beam: CEO says new soundbar will 'get better over time'

The newly released Sonos product is a soundbar – that long, narrow speaker that sits under your TV pumping out bullet ricochet sound effects and atmospheric rumblings thanks to cunningly placed tweeters and woofers that create a soundstage wider than the speaker itself. The Sonos Beam, as it's called, is more compact than most soundbars, including the company's previous TV helpers – the Playbar and Playbase – so that bigger soundstage is especially important here. At the product's launch, I sat down with CEO Patrick Spence. Spence is the former chief operating officer who moved to the big job in January 2017. He is charismatic and welcoming, with the utterly unflappable, chilled vibe of someone who has music in the background all day long.