Review: Bose Smart Soundbar

If you’re acquainted with Bose’s Smart Soundbar 600, the company’s “new” Smart Soundbar will look very familiar. It’s the same compact Dolby Atmos bar as before with some new firmware, part of Bose's soundbar streamlining that drops the number scheme as well as the brand’s mid-tier model, the Smart Soundbar 700.

There likely isn’t enough reason for most Soundbar 600 owners to upgrade, but this is Bose we’re talking about, and the new firmware features impress on the latest model. AI Dialogue Mode is particularly useful, applying advanced processing to lift dialog above the fray in nearly any situation. Also new is an updated headphones sync feature that lets you use Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds (7/10, WIRED Recommends) as surround satellites in concert with the bar for striking personalized immersion.

Otherwise, the Smart Soundbar keeps everything I enjoyed about the 600, including solid features, expressive musicality, and surprisingly expansive sound from a pint-size frame. If you want a smaller bar, this is among the best on the market.

Well Stocked Mini Bar

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

It’s hard to get a feel for just how compact the Smart Soundbar is, even in pictures. At 2.2 inches tall and just over 27 inches across, it fits as easily in your hand as on your TV console, leaning more toward a slim Wi-Fi speaker than a traditional soundbar.

At the backside cubby, you’ll find both optical and HDMI eARC ports for TV connection, a proprietary output for a Bose Bass module (aka subwoofer), and an input for an optional IR repeater. Bose includes both optical and HDMI cables in the box, but you’ll need to connect over HDMI to get Dolby Atmos, and it adds the convenience of letting you use your TV remote to control power and volume. Wireless connection options include Wi-Fi for AirPlay, Chromecast, and Spotify Connect, with Bluetooth as a backup.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

A stubby, rubberized remote provides physical controls to complement the Bose Connect app. There are also a few touch keys on top of the bar for volume and muting the built-in microphones that let you chat with Alexa, part of the “smarts” in the Smart Soundbar.

Within the bar’s sandwiched frame are just five speakers running the show, including a dedicated center speaker, side-firing drivers at each end, and dual up-firing drivers to provide the height element for Dolby Atmos spatialized sound. Those top speakers account for the biggest differentiator between this bar and Sonos’ rival Beam, which can only virtualize 3D effects. Bose’s TrueSpace feature takes things further, utilizing all five speakers even for stereo mixes, while managing to keep things from sounding too echoey or hollow.

Unlike Bose’s flagship Smart Ultra Soundbar, the Smart Soundbar does not provide calibration to tune it for your room, but you’ll still want to start things off with the Bose Connect app. It makes setup and network connection foolproof, and provides convenient control over EQ and volume, music streaming, swapping between inputs, and more.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

It's also necessary for engaging the new AI Dialogue Mode and grouping the bar with Bose speakers or headphones. If you’ve got a pair of Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, you can group them to play whatever comes through the bar, or assign them as surround speakers with the new Personal Surround feature (more on that below).

One note on AI Dialogue Mode: The app keeps asking you to enable it under the “Set Up More Features” window, even if you’ve already done so. Bose reps say the brand is still tightening the UX, but you can toggle the feature on and off in the Audio section from the app’s main screen or under Audio in the Settings section. I left it on for most situations, but it’s nice to have options.

Musical Maestro

One thing I loved about the original Smart Soundbar 600 is just how musical it sounds, and that remains a key asset of the new Smart Soundbar. While it won’t be the primary function for most buyers, the bar works great as a music streamer, providing full and balanced sound with surprisingly solid upper bass. It’s particularly lovely for acoustic instruments like piano, providing clear and vibrant resonance across registers.

That musicality extends to everything you play, from sports and action flicks to sitcoms and dramas. This may not be most dynamic or cinematic bar at this price, struggling to deliver serious bass without a subwoofer. Still, it carves out some solid punch, and you may be surprised at just how much clarity, textural detail, and immersion you get from such a small frame–especially with well-mixed Dolby Atmos TV films and TV shows.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

The new AI Dialogue Mode feature only ups the ante. Audio brands are getting increasingly good at analyzing and reinforcing centralized effects, and Bose’s latest attempt is the best I’ve heard yet at raising dialog while balancing other elements. Toggling the mode on and off shows just how hard it’s working, letting the center channel sing while surround elements bounce off the walls and around the room.

The Smart Soundbar’s surround and height effects can’t match the immersion of larger Dolby Atmos soundbars like Klipsch’s Core 200 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) or the pricier Sonos Arc (9/10, WIRED Recommends), but it may just be the pluckiest mini Atmos bar out there. Its balance of acoustics, digital processing, and true up-firing speakers helps it outmatch the similarly priced Sonos Beam for sheer expansiveness.

Occasionally the bar can get a bit overwhelmed in the mids or shrill in the upper register, but it’s rarely muddy or sharp. If you need to take things up a notch, you can always build on with additional components (for a price), including Bose’s wireless surround speakers, subwoofers, and of course, the Ultra Open Earbuds.

AR Bar

After over a decade in the A/V space, it’s not often I discover a wholly new audio experience, but Bose’s new Open Earbuds–based Personal Surround feature delivers. This isn’t the first time I’ve linked a soundbar with headphones—Sonos’ Ace headphones (8/10, WIRED Recommends) have a cool TV Swap feature that lets you send audio from the bar to the headphones and back again, and Bose has long offered a similar feature with headphones like the Ultra QuietComfort (9/10, WIRED Recommends).

Personal Surround is different, though, in part because of the Open Earbuds. As the name implies, they keep your ear canals open to blend the piped-in audio with your environment, letting the bar and buds work in tandem. Simply Grouping the Open Earbuds lets you hear everything, but toggling on Personal Surround means you’ll get most of your sound from the bar itself, while the earbuds focus on surround and height effects. (You may also need to fine-tune the surround mix by tapping the main volume bar for Open Earbuds Adjustments.)

The result is a sort of augmented reality (AR) experience that seems to drop you right in the middle of potent Dolby Atmos scenes. It works brilliantly with video games, where effects like explosions or magic spells seem to erupt all around you. Film content like the “Amaze” demo from my Atmos demo disc or the shrinking scenes in Ant-Man are similarly spellbinding, seeming to cast effects like strafing spaceships overhead or popping gunshots right beside you to the point where you may start looking around you to see if you’re still alone.

The experience is less potent with dialog-heavy scenes or stereo mixes where most of the sound is centered up front. Traditional surround sound mixes work better, but some don’t quite pop, especially since the bar doesn’t support DTS surround formats. In these subtler moments, I started to feel the strain of wearing clip-on buds that, regardless of their open design, still block some of the soundbar’s audio. As such, I’m not sure wearing the earbuds for extended TV sessions is appealing–not to mention the fact that partners or family members can’t join in.

To at least some degree, that makes the Personal Surround effect more novelty than staple, so it may not make sense for most folks to add a pair of $300 earbuds with the feature in mind. Of course, if you already own the Open Earbuds or you’re thinking of getting a pair to stay aware during workouts or other activities, it makes the Bose ecosystem all the more enticing.

With or without add-ons, this is one of the best soundbars in its class, especially for those with smaller apartments or compact TV rooms. The new AI Dialogue Mode is the biggest get, and I wish Bose would add it for owners of the slightly senior Soundbar 600. For anyone else seeking a versatile and capable compact audio setup, the Smart Soundbar is a smart move.