Soundbars have a few advantages over more traditional home theatre speaker setups. They tend to take up less space, are easier to set up, and are often cheaper. There’s a soundbar out there for everyone, whether you want one that works with Dolby Atmos or one that you can connect your old MP3 player to. But not all soundbars are made the same, and some are better to listen to than others. If you watch a lot of TV or listen to a lot of music at home, you’ll want something that sounds good and works with your other devices, whether you want to connect it to your smart TV or stream directly from your phone. The best soundbars for TV make it easy to understand what people are saying on your favourite shows.
Do you ever find yourself straining to listen to the dialogue in TV shows and movies? So have we. But the fault may not be your ears or the actors on the screen. The problem may be your television set. You have probably noticed that as smart TVs get thinner, sleeker, and brighter, there is a significant difference between the shimmering picture quality of a new flat screen and its muffled sound performance.
Whether you are glancing for a soundbar that supports Dolby Atmos or want something to plug your old MP3 player into, there is a model for you. Consumption of content on OTT platforms and console games has become much more mainstream than in years past. Although the TV is usually the center of this experience, the average quality built-in speakers and lack of control have made additional speakers and soundbars a standard upgrade. Below we have mentioned the best Soundbars.
Here is the list of Best Soundbars
Sony HT-A7000
The HT-A7000 is a future-proof, technology-rich and one of the best soundbars. It is not intended for home theater enthusiasts who want to carefully evaluate and put together every single component of their ideal surround sound system. It is intended for the type of person who has already purchased a Sony A90J OLED and has enough income to add Sony’s superior soundbar to their cart.
When configured on its own, the HT-A7000 is a 7.1.2 soundbar. It consists of five front speakers plus two tweeters (7), an integrated subwoofer (1) and a pair of upward-facing Atmos speakers (2). For comparison, the Sonos Arc is a 5.0.2 speaker (and becomes 5.1.2 if you add a subwoofer to the equation).
Sonos Beam Gen 2
However, the main innovation of the Beam (Gen 2) is Dolby Atmos support. Although the soundbar does not contain the upfiring drivers necessary for “true” Atmos, it uses psychoacoustic techniques to give the impression of the height of movie soundtracks. In theory, this should make it seem as if the sound of movies is coming at you from every angle; however, we are not entirely convinced.
Although the Beam (Gen 2) has a wide soundstage and powerful audio performance for its size, we did not experience the kind of top-down sound you get from its big brother, the Sonos Arc (which has those all-important upfiring drivers). To learn more about this more capable and expensive soundbar, read our review of the Sonos Arc. Overall, this is one of the best soundbars.
Samsung HW-Q990B
The main soundbar unit includes15 drivers for the left, center, right, left, and right high and left and right surround channels, while the two rear speakers add four more surround drivers and two up-firing drivers. Finally, the wireless subwoofer provides the “.1” channel for low-frequency effects. The HW-Q990B’s four up-firing drivers (again, two in the main soundbar unit and two more in the rear speakers) bounce audio off the ceiling for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X height effects.
The HW-Q990B soundbar unit measures 48.5 x 2.7 x 5.4 inches (W x H x D) and weighs 17 pounds (13 kg), about the same size as the previous model, and although it is wider for a soundbar, its 2.7-inch height allows it to be placed in front of and obstruct the bottom of most TVs It does not interfere with the bottom of most televisions when placed in front of them. You can also mount the Samsung HW-Q990B under your TV with the included mounting hardware.
Vizio Elevate
Easily one of the best soundbars on the market, the Elevate features a sleek industrial design with an all-black finish and aluminum frame. Although compact when compared to a traditional home theater, keep in mind that the Elevate and its subwoofer are quite large when compared to a typical soundbar. The system supports a total of 5.1.4 channels. This means there are five ear-level channels, a subwoofer, and four channels that fire upward for height effects.
To set up the system, simply connect the power cable, the soundbar to the TV, and the satellite speaker cables to the subwoofer. The subwoofer connects wirelessly to the soundbar. The satellite cable is inconvenient compared to a fully wireless design because it is required, but the included speaker cables are long enough to fit into small to medium-sized rooms.
JBL Bar Studio
At about 60 cm long and just under 6 cm high, it fits under most appropriately sized TVs without looking too small, and is built to JBL’s usual high standards of quality and aesthetic modernity. On the top are basic controls for power, volume, and source selection, and on the back are sockets for HDMI (ARC) and optical cable; Bluetooth is also included, which may eliminate the need for a separate audio system in your living room.
What’s not to like? If you just want to enhance your TV’s audio without being loud, there aren’t many competitors in this price range. However, the Bar Studio does have a problem at high volumes. The high frequencies are not overly coarse, but the louder you turn it up, the harder it gets, especially at intense volumes. Overall, this is one of the best soundbars on the market.
Devialet Dione
As is to be expected with Devialet products, the Dione comes with big numbers. For example, 950 watts of power. A total of 17 speakers (nine full-range aluminum cones and eight low-frequency aluminum woofers), arranged to replicate a spatial arrangement of 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Also on the surface of the soundbar are some capacitive touch controls. Here you can manage performance in broad strokes (volume up/down, play/pause, things like that). But there is no built-in voice control and, remarkably, no remote control either. Of course, if you have made an HDMI connection to the TV, the screen remote will handle the volume of the soundbar, but this is still a puzzling omission.
Sonos Arc
This standalone soundbar can easily be transformed into a Sonos Arc with Sub + One SL Speakers by adding a wireless subwoofer and surround satellites for an even more immersive experience. It is a versatile bar, although it lacks a bit of bass and suffers from compression artifacts at maximum volume, compromising audio clarity.
Overall, the best soundbars sounds a bit brighter, even after using the room correction feature. On the plus side, this is a very well-made bar with a sleek design and built-in Google Assistant and Alexa. Its surround performance is not as impressive as those in discrete location configurations, but you can always upgrade with compatible Sonos rear speakers if you wish.
Yamaha YAS-209BL
The remote control also has a button for Yamaha’s aforementioned Clear Voice function (which I regularly leave on for greater clarity) and a 3D Surround button that activates the DTS Virtual:X function. Virtual:X allows for a wider soundstage in both the vertical and horizontal axes. Such things makes it one of the best soundbars on the market.
Setup of the YAS-209 is extremely simple, provided you have an HDMI cable, as the 209 does not come with it. The preferred connection is HDMI ARC, which allows you to easily control the volume and power with the TV remote control (although you may need to enable CEC in the TV settings). A connecting cable is required, as my first attempt with an older cable failed to transmit audio.
Samsung HW-Q950A
In terms of connectivity options, the Samsung HW-Q950A soundbar has one HDMI port for eARC and two HDMI pass-through ports that support 4K HDR. The soundbar also has an optical port, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The speaker also boasts support for DTS-X and Dolby Atmos. The soundbar has drivers that fire upward and sideways to simulate a more immersive surround sound effect.
As for smart features, the speaker supports Amazon Alexa but, unlike the Sony HT-Z9F, does not support Chromecast. The only downside of the display design is on the top of the soundbar and not the front. Although on a daily basis the display shows the source and volume level, it is difficult to change some of the shade controls. Overall, this is one of the best soundbars.
Bose Smart Soundbar 900
Bose has always favored clean lines and “hard” materials such as aluminum and glass. The Smart Soundbar 900 does not deviate much from this. The top of this device is completely made of glass, for example. There are only two oval recesses from which the speakers radiate upward.
One of the last things to do during setup: adjust the soundbar to suit your living room. This is done through ADAPTiQ, a feature that Bose has been offering for some time. There are more soundbars with room calibration, because it is a very useful function that can solve acoustic problems in a room so that the sound is more balanced.
Final Words
Most new soundbars have this type of wireless functionality. Typically, this feature allows you to stream music from your smartphone or home network directly to the soundbar. Soundbars can also be compatible with voice assistants, which means you can use one or more voice assistants to control the soundbar if you already own a smart speaker or another way to give voice commands.
