Flat-screen TVs are getting thinner and better looking all the time, but this design change means that the sound quality suffers because manufacturers can’t fit good speakers into panels that are only a few millimeters thick. A good soundbar fills this gap by giving your beautiful 4K or OLED display the sound it needs and make movie nights and music listening truly immersive.
The good news is that the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) soundbar is now on sale on Amazon for $369, down from its list price of $499. This is the lowest price ever which makes it a great Christmas gift for yourself or anyone whose TV audio sounds flat and lifeless. This small soundbar works just as well under wall-mounted TVs or on entertainment centers and brings Dolby Atmos spatial audio and multi-room music streaming to living rooms.
Dolby Atmos
The Beam Gen 2 processes Dolby Atmos audio tracks to make height channels that make sound seem to come from above and around you and adds a vertical dimension to the usual left-right stereo field. This technology for spatial audio makes it sound like helicopters are flying over you, rain is falling from the ceiling, and background noises put you in the scene instead of just in front of it. Psychoacoustic processing and carefully angled drivers that bounce sound off your ceiling make it sound like you have dedicated height speakers without actually installing them.
The Beam’s center channel focuses on voice frequencies to make sure you hear every word without turning up the volume, which is one of the most common complaints about TV audio. With this dedicated dialogue processing, you won’t miss important plot points when people are whispering or need subtitles to understand speech with an accent. When you watch news or dramas with a lot of dialogue, the Speech Enhancement feature in the Sonos app boosts voice frequencies even more. It gives you customizable clarity that works with different types of content.
Trueplay tuning technology uses your iPhone’s microphone to figure out how sound bounces off the walls and other surfaces in your room and then automatically changes the Beam’s output to make up for any problems with the sound. Rooms with hard floors and bare walls that make harsh reflections get tuned differently than rooms with carpet and soft furniture that absorbs sound. This calibration process only takes about two minutes, but it makes the sound much better than using generic soundbar settings that assume the same room acoustics.
To set it up, all you need are two cables: one HDMI eARC cable that goes from your TV to the device and one power cord that goes to an outlet. The soundbar automatically finds your TV and works with your current remote, so you don’t have to switch between controllers or set up universal remotes. With Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Sonos Voice Control, you can change the volume, skip songs, or switch inputs without using a remote. With Apple AirPlay 2 support, you can stream music wirelessly from iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
The Beam Gen 2 is now competitive with mid-range soundbars that don’t have Dolby Atmos or multi-room capabilities because the price dropped from $499 to $369. Anyone who wants to improve their TV’s sound quality beyond the mediocre built-in speakers will get a lot of value from it.
