Soundar bdi5/4/2023 ![]() ![]() Should you buy it?īose's Smart Soundbar 900 does everything you'd expect from a flagship soundbar. Enabling the Bose's mode did help lift dialog by making sibilants and other articles of speech sound clearer. It isn't as configurable as dialog mode on Zvox's AV357, for example - it's simply a matter of being on or off. The Arc dissected the simple folk arrangement and made it sound like the singer's voice was disembodied from the guitar, while the Bose rightly put both in the same space.įinally I tested Bose's Dialog mode. The Bose sounded better with Grouper's haunting The Way Her Hair Falls. Music performance was basically a wash between the two speakers. ![]() The scene through the Sonos speaker gave me goosebumps as well but didn't sound quite as expressive. It was a weighty, disorienting crescendo of sound that accompanied the camera's "impossible" tracking shot through the window as it descended into the ruins. Despite the Bose sub being half the size of the Sonos sub, it was still able to conjure up plenty of bottom end for the reveal of the vista through the window. The city became a large bubble of sound - the ricochet of bullets was sharper, the fizzing of the flares more urgent as they arced overhead. Next I connected the subwoofers and watched the burnt-out city scene from 1917 (1.07:54), where I found the Bose better able to weave a cohesive soundstage. ![]() That's an effect I've only heard dedicated rear speakers achieve. Both soundbars lacked the ability to place the little girl's voice as she says "Where are you"? directly above my listening position. The Bose wasn't as showy as the Sonos but his voice was natural and easier to decipher. Tom Hardy's voice sounded a bit phlegmatic, which made phrases like "the black matter of my brain" sound even more ridiculous. It wasn't all good for the Sonos, however. With a Dolby Atmos mix of Mad Max Fury Road, the Sonos Arc that was the most impressive with the opening sequence - it made the disembodied voices swirl around the front of my listening room. They both project a sense of height and can sound as wide as the room, but neither was able to fool me into looking over my shoulder. I quickly found during my comparisons that you can't really ask either bar to create surround sound. Before Adaptiq the Bose sounded thin and boxy, but afterward it gained a weightier bottom end - a little too much even, and I had to back off the bass by about half. I calibrated the Arc using the iOS-exclusive Trueplay feature and used Bose's Adaptiq calibration. I compared it directly to the Sonos Arc both with and without the optional subwoofers. The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 looked lovely sitting on my TV stand, and it also played music and movies well. Lastly, the Bose comes with a palm-sized remote control with a volume rocker and a source selector, and it's a nice-to-have if you can't find your TV remote (or phone). My only complaint is that when I calibrated the device, the resulting "Adaptiq" calibration wasn't turned on by default. It's worth the effort going through the setup routine because it enables a much better performance. Setup of the unit itself was relatively straightforward, although it does involve wearing a gaming-style microphone on your head, and in five of your favorite seating positions. For instance, adding new services involves tapping the small profile pic that appears when you tap on the soundbar itself - you can't get there by hitting "settings" as you'd expect. The Bose app is relatively friendly but it's not as easy to use as Sonos. In terms of sound quality it's also similar to the Arc - they both perform well with a wide range of material.īose also sports its own music app but, compared to the dozens of streaming apps on Sonos, the number of streaming services is limited to Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn, Deezer, iHeartRadio and SiriusXM. The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is a Dolby Atmos soundbar which offers compatibility with a bunch of streaming music services, a choice of voice assistants (Īlexa and Google Assistant) and a beautiful design. But does the Bose have enough going for it to enable it to stand on its own? Its direct competitor is the Sonos Arc, which costs about the same and has similar capabilities. Bose started making multiroom speakers with its SoundTouch range in 2013 and the latest addition to the Bose Smart Home line is the Bose Smart Soundbar 900. The rivalry between the two is fierce, and both produce products in the multiroom market where Sonos made its name. Manufacturers, two big names compete for premium customers who want the latest smart features: Sonos and
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |