Sound Bar reviews

A genuinely tiny bar plus a real wireless subwoofer, with Atmos by virtualization only. The sub is the surprise; the small footprint is the reason.

The rear speakers detach, charge in the dock, and walk to the back of the room when you want real surround. It's the cleanest answer for renters who can't run wire, with rears that could stand to be louder.

A capable bar with a wireless side-firing sub, DTS Virtual:X, Alexa, and Wi-Fi streaming for $349. No Atmos and no Dolby Vision passthrough, but everything else is well-judged.

Auto-rotating drivers tilt up for Atmos and forward for music in a 5.1.2 array, with an 8-inch wireless sub that reaches 30 Hz. The original Elevate's party piece, on sale.

Sub, rears, HDMI cable — it all ships in one box. Genuine Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, hi-res audio over TIDAL, and a marketing 9.1.5 that's honestly a 7.1.4. Mostly excellent, occasionally tubby.

Twin built-in subs, phantom 7.1.4 imaging, and Sennheiser tuning that delivers a genuine surround illusion from one box. HDMI 2.0a is the thing keeping it off the next-gen-console list.

A premium 7.1.2 bar with HDMI 2.1, two built-in woofers, and crisp dialogue. Out of the box it's elegant and a little anemic on bass; the optional sub and rears are not optional if you want the whole story.

A beautifully built 5.1.2 bar that makes voices sit forward and proud, but its bass tops out somewhere short of cinema. Plan on the matching Bose sub, or look at something denser.

Real rear speakers, a dedicated sub, HDMI 2.1 passthrough for the PS5, and 11.1.4 channels you can actually point at. Two grand if you can't find last year's Q990C, which does most of the same job for less.

Fourteen speakers, real 9.1.4 Atmos, and a new woofer design that does the work most bars hand off to a separate sub. The trade-offs: no DTS, one HDMI port, and the Sonos app is still the Sonos app.

A premium Atmos soundbar in the brass-and-vinyl Marshall aesthetic, with a low end that actually moves furniture. A grand is a lot. It earns most of it.

A compact Atmos bar that punches above its size and slides into the Sonos ecosystem without thinking. Around $500, and it has not been meaningfully beaten in its class.

A compact soundbar with a Roku streamer baked in, dialogue you can actually hear, and a setup that doesn't require a Discord server. Around $200, and it earns it.