See what you can do with Alexa on your Soundbar
I recently purchased an 82" Samsung Q8 TV and researched the heck out of soundbars to use with it. For reference I have Martin Logan speakers with Parasound and Adcom electronics because I used to be heavily into audio, but I really wanted to simplify my life and clean up the clutter in the family room. Enter the soundbar search! I still had a little bit of the audio snob in me because at first I decided that I really needed Dolby Atmos, so I was close to pulling the trigger on a 1.5k Samsung or Sony system. But then enter a whole bunch of technical gobbledegook about needing eARC and current HDMI ARC outputs not being upgradeable and lack of streaming Atmos content and yadda yadda yadda - ok forget Atmos.
So I decided to heck with Atmos, just give me a basic soundbar. Then I was about to pull the trigger on a $100 Yamaha when I realized it didn't have HDMI ARC. That was the one thing I wasn't going to compromise on - I wanted the soundbar to act like the tv's built-in speaker, and HDMI ARC allows the tv remote to control the volume of the soundbar vs optical requiring you to use the soundbar's remote. I wanted to simplify my life and getting rid of remotes was part of that!
I had just gotten my first Sonos speaker for Christmas, a Play:1. So I started looking at Sonos soundbars. Sadly neither the Playbar nor the Playbase has ARC. But surprisingly their cheapest, smallest speaker - the Beam - does have ARC! Finally I pulled the trigger and got the Beam and another Play:1 so I could have a pair for surround.
Ok finally the actual review - everything works flawlessly. Really, that's all you need to know right there. Setup was a breeze, my tv works fine with the Cox cable box connected via HDMI and the Beam connected via HDMI ARC. Alexa works fine for playing music and radio. Spotify and Pandora stream perfectly. The sound is good but obviously doesn't compare to my previous setup, but it's less than 1/10th the price so I can't complain. After the Sonos auto-tuning I did adjust bass down one notch and treble up one notch. The system sounded a bit closed-in at first, like it was buried under a few towels, but after a day or two either I've gotten used to it or the speakers have broken-in and now sound much lighter. The Sonos app confirms that they are receiving the Dolby Digital signal, so yay.
For people that are true movie lovers that like to play at Dolby reference levels (i.e. really loud), this speaker will probably not do it for you in the bass department. For normal people, I think it's perfectly fine. The bass is not really deep, but is certainly adequate and definitely much better than the tv's built-in speakers. If Sonos offered a $200 sub, I'd be all over it. But I'll pass on their $700 sub. The little Beam does look puny sitting under my 82" tv, so if the larger Playbar had ARC I probably would've bought that instead both for looks and a wider soundstage. Yes, another small nit is that the soundstage of the Beam is not huge at lower volumes, so if that's important then maybe keep looking. For my purposes, it's just fine. The soundstage does seem to get larger at higher volumes which is nice when you're ready to sit and watch a loud movie, but it's not going to make you think you have a left-center-right setup.
Note that since the Beam and Play:1 surrounds are all linked together into a single room/system, you can't stream to them individually. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but if you wanted to maybe pick up a surround speaker and take it outside and play it by itself without playing the rest of the speakers, you'd probably have to undo the surround configuration. Also fyi, the Sonos TruePlay speaker auto-tune software is not available for Android (iOS only). It's not a huge requirement but worth knowing.
Bottom line - it has HDMI ARC, it sounds great, everything works as advertised. Highly recommended unless you're the type that needs a subwoofer and plays movies really loud.
Ask to play music, hear the news, control your smart home, and more with this smart speaker.
Alexa Built-in Learn more
Alexa Built-in
This smart speaker has been certified by Amazon for its built-in Alexa functionality, providing a voice-forward experience to play music, read news, control other smart home devices, and more.
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Best Sound Bar I have ever owned.
This sound bar is compact, sleek, easy to install, and, above all sounds great! I needed something smaller and HDMI connected for my TV and this fit the bill. The SONOS Playbar is bigger but is only optical and would not have Alexa or ability to use only my TV remote to control audio.It synced almost immediately with my TV (a 7 year-old Samsung with HDMI-ARC). I already had Sonos Play:1 speakers and a Play:3 and I wanted something to give my Family room a full and rich sound for both music and television. This does the trick.My Family Room is not huge (20 ft. x 12 ft.) but this thing is more than loud enough with volume set at less than half. When you add in the 3 other Sonos speakers, it is like having a symphony in your home (especially after a little TruePlay tuning which is included in the Sonos app for iPhones. If you have a Play:3 speaker in the setup, you may not even need a subwoofer. I'm still debating whether to add one. That is why I give this a 4 on versatility. If you want a wireless sub, you have to buy Sonos. No other sub can be connected without being wired or used with a Connect:Amp. Even if you could, there would be the problem of syncing audio and video. Since the Beam does NOT come with its own remote and on-screen menu, I don't know how you would do that. Also, it only has 1 HDMI connection which can be converted to Optical with a provided converter cable. But, you can't have both HDMI and Optical at same time. Not a big deal if your house is all SONOS.I used to have a Sony Soundbar (HTCT-790) and wireless subwoofer that worked pretty well with my Samsung TV but it allowed syncing via a remote and on-screen menu. It was very difficult, however, to get it to play well with my Sonos speakers connected to TV via a SONOS Connect device. Hence, I opted for ALL Sonos for ease of connection and great, synchronized sound. A few more bucks but worth it. Besides, I'll sell the very good Sony sound bar and SONOS Connect on E-Bay and make most of my Sonos Beam money back. So, then, I will be thoroughly satisfied.
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