I Tested the Affordable Bose Smart Soundbar and Loved Its Immersive Multi-Directional Sound, Even if It Suffers From Weak Bass

The Bose Smart Soundbar is the comfortable mid-range option in Bose's offerings, boasting some of the same tech you'll find in their flagships, with certain things missing to make it more affordable.

As a devoted lover of Bose portable speakers for the past 10 years, I was excited to try out the Bose Smart Soundbar to find out whether it lives up to the brand's audio reputation.

I watched a comprehensive list of TV and movie scenes, and listened to a standardized playlist of songs spanning everything from bass-heavy to floaty trebles, to see whether the Bose Smart Soundbar is one of the best soundbars and worth your money.

My One-Minute Verdict

The Bose Smart Soundbar is a strong mid-range option, costing $100s less than the flagship models from Bose and Soundbar while still boasting strong tech. Its most impressive feature is detailed surround sound, with incredibly clear sound direction that intimately matches what's on screen.

It also has great sound balance. Highs, mids, and lows all sounded faithful to how they should, even if the bass could be stronger.

But although it thrives in its tonal balance, it suffers from a lack of depth. The soundbar has five speakers but no subwoofer, meaning that the bass was weak in almost every scene and song I listened to.

This can be improved by the Bose Bass Module 500, but as that's an expensive package altogether, the Yamaha True X Bar 40A has two built-in subwoofers that delivered punchy, hard-hitting bass on test, and it costs less than the Bose Smart Soundbar.

And that's the kicker with this soundbar. It has a lot going for it, but for the $399-$599 price, you'd expect more bass extension and a fuller sound because of it. Paired with the separate Bose subwoofer, it costs as much as the Sonos Arc Ultra or the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar, both of which sounded incredible on test with rich detail and rumbling depth.

Bose Smart Soundbar: Specifications

Bose Smart Soundbar: Setup

I found the Bose Smart Soundbar's setup to be similar to setting up the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. Fiddly, but likely because the unit I tested has been previously used by other product reviewers like myself. It's something worth considering if you're shopping second-hand, as the setup becomes less straightforward.

After plugging in the soundbar's HDMI and power cables, my Roku TV immediately popped up with a message asking me to connect to the Bose Smart Soundbar. All I had to do was press a button to the next screen, and it was done, and it played a Roku demo of different scenes – cars racing, animals roaring – to show off the soundbar's sound capabilities.

But when I turned the TV on again, the sound wasn't playing out of the soundbar, and I couldn't connect my Bose app to it. I had to disconnect it from my TV, reset the soundbar's factory settings using the remote, and then I could connect it as new again.

If you're buying brand new, I'm sure you won't have to deal with this extended setup, but it's worth noting if yours has been used before.

On the app, it guides you through connecting to your Wi-Fi and naming your soundbar (bedroom, living room, or Bose Smart Soundbar, for example), then it's ready to go. And as it's compatible with Apple AirPlay and Chromecast, it's already part of your smart home setup.

Bose Smart Soundbar: Design and Features

The Bose Smart Soundbar has five built-in speakers: Three horizontal speakers, and two up-firing speakers for surround sound. The latter are why the soundbar can play Dolby Atmos titles, and how it can create a wide soundstage from such a small device (more on that below).

It's compact, measuring just 27.34 inches. Compared to the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar's 41 inches and the Sonos Arc Ultra's 47 inches, it's much smaller in comparison to the flagships, and a great addition to small living rooms where space is more precious.

As it doesn't have any subwoofers, it doesn't have a dedicated bass extension, and I noticed this during the scenes I tested it with. Some soundbars at this price point have built-in subwoofers if you prefer bigger bass (like the Yamaha True X Bar 40A) or you can also grab Bose's Bass Module 500 if you want to build up your setup, but it'll cost you around $1,000 in total.

But while the bass isn't the strongest, the Bose app fortunately has plenty of EQ settings to make sure you're hearing the parts that are important to your taste:

This is more comprehensive than you'll find in other soundbars. Being able to adjust these four channels by plus or minus 100 means you have complete control over the sound balance you're hearing. It takes some getting used to, but pairing the right EQ with the right volume is how to achieve your desired sound.

It also has AI Dialogue Mode, which registers when there's dialogue and adjusts the sound balance to improve tonal clarity. I'll expand on this below, but I'll say quickly here: It works great.

I also found that generally, there's low latency when using the soundbar and changing the settings. Whether I'm using the soundbar remote, my TV remote, or the app, hitting a button changes the settings almost immediately. Other soundbars like the Fire TV Soundbar Plus have a slight delay when changing the volume, for example.

Sadly, however, there's no room optimization, so although this is a 'Smart' soundbar, it can't learn the acoustics of your room to refine its sound projection. The Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar has this feature, ADAPTiQ, and it was one of the most effective I've tested to date, so it's a shame to not see it included – although I guess that's what the premium cost is for.

Visually, it has a classic look: Matte black with a flat top and a reflective logo. It won't be the highlight of your living room, but it's muted enough to blend in with most styles. You can always learn how to hide your soundbar if your living room setup prefers brighter tones.

Bose Smart Soundbar: TV and Movies

Overall, movies and TV shows sound encompassing. That's to say, the soundstage is impressively wide from this small soundbar, with clear sound direction that matches what's on screen. Soundtracks and scores sound rich, and sound effects mostly sound tight and crisp, but there's an overarching lack of depth, and there's a raspy sibilance in the vocals.

I started with Our Planet II, and I felt that something was missing. I adjusted the EQ settings a lot here: With the bass up high, I could somewhat feel thunderous waves, and the precise details within busy animal scenes.

But David’s voice had a distracting sibilance to it, with every 's' and every breath sounding a little too harsh. I lowered the treble and tried to perfect the right sound setting, but could never quite fix it.

The wide soundstage was certainly impressive, though. From the tiny speaker, it felt as if the audio was being projected from my entire 14-feet-wide wall, which is great if you're designing a movie room on a budget.

I then moved on to the climactic scenes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Wow – the sound effects sounded immaculate, and the directional sound was felt instantly. As Hermione shot a spell, the audio whizzed past me from right to left to match the visuals on the screen. And the score sounded euphonically dramatic.

I could hear more of a gentle spaciousness in the dialogue here, but at times I could still hear that slight sibilance that I heard during Our Planet II. I used AI Dialogue Mode, and it instantly improved, even if only slightly.

I wanted to test whether AI Dialogue Mode muffles non-vocal sound effects as speech enhancers occasionally can, so I watched the next scene four times, with and without it. I was impressed – the difference could barely be heard, and I had to rewind certain moments multiple times more to check I wasn’t missing any loss in quality.

Other soundbars I have tested, such as the Sonos Ray, can make voices sound less authentic with this mode turned on, while at the same time dampening background noises.

Season six episode nine of Breaking Bad was another stellar showing of the wide soundstage. The toy car whirring in the background of this scene is one of my favorite tests for directional sound, and this Bose demonstrated true directional clarity.

And the sound balance? Going from soft noises to deep thuds felt natural, even if the low-end could have more substance to it. I find that it can become quite loud during those moments, but it’s volume rather than depth. The Bose Bass Module 500 subwoofer would fill this gap.

When watching Avengers: Infinity War, I suspected that the Bose Smart Soundbar thrives when moments are busy and overwhelming. As there are so many sounds coming at you at once, it’s easy to forget the lack of deep bass. Fight sounds, including characters' spells and the destruction of New York, sounded crisp and sparkling, but I never felt the rumbles that you hope for in scenes as thunderous as this. The Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar delivers this scene much more powerfully.

The opening jazz flourish in the Arrested Development pilot wasn’t as sharp as I’ve heard with others (such as the Sonos Arc Ultra). The soundstage was great, though, as it had been at every point thus far. Background noises like wind, cars, birds, music, and chatter are always present, but never distracting, making sure the scene feels real – and not filmed on a closed set.

Bose Smart Soundbar: Music

There's lushness in the trebles, precise sound balance across the board, and a pleasant floaty feeling during soft songs – but as I found when testing TV shows and movies, the lack of subwoofer is the main factor holding this soundbar back from an all-round excellent sound experience.

After the lack of bass I felt when testing TV and movie scenes, I was intrigued to listen to Massive Attack's Angel. Overall, its hypnotic, thunderous energy was still present, but even when I turned it up higher than I usually would, I couldn't feel those room-vibrating bass-heavy rumbles.

But during Phoenix by Daft Punk, the bass had more bite to it. I could feel the thuds of the kicking bass drum, but at a high-enough volume, there's a bit of distortion, which is to be expected in a speaker without a subwoofer. The synths and cymbals sounded crisp, though, and the bassline wasn't lacking as much depth as I'd anticipated.

Erykah Badu's Didn't Cha Know sounded lush and floaty, but I could hear the distortion again when trying to reach a volume that showed off the high-fidelity sound engineering and spaciousness of this track. I felt the same during Feel No Pain by Sade – it was pleasant to hear the reverberation of the opening snare, but that gentle spaciousness wasn't kept when the song became more layered (the Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 8 excels at this).

When it came to songs that don't rely on such heavy bass, it all sounded gorgeous. The soundbar's central tweeter does a wonderful job of highlighting the tones within soft, high vocals, as I heard best during Simulation Swarm by Big Thief. The gentle guitar plucking and soft strings shone here, too, and if you're a fan of rock and folk music, this soundbar would make a fantastic addition to your music room.

Led Zeppelin's Ramble On showed this further, with the vocals, guitars, and drums all sounding almost lifelike. As I found when testing the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar, I'm learning that Bose is a master of precise sound balance. Different tones sound how they should, and the only drawbacks can be blamed on hardware limitations, such as the Bose Smart Soundbar's lack of a subwoofer.

The trebles in Cocteau Twins' Pitch the Baby were velvety, natural, and made the track sound, rightfully so, as if the soundwaves were floating above you. And after hearing similar in Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues and Playboi Carti's Location, it's become apparent that, if the Bose Smart Soundbar is paired with a subwoofer, it would deliver every frequency beautifully. That and perhaps a higher volume capacity are the only things missing.

If you're in a small space and don't want to disturb the neighbors, then the lack of a subwoofer would be a win, as you're still getting detail within the songs without wall-shaking bass.

Bose Smart Soundbar: Price

The Bose Smart Soundbar costs $549 at Bose at full price, but can be found for as low as $399 (as it is at the time of writing). My testing found that the lack of a subwoofer is the main drawback here (which is surprising, as similarly-priced soundbars have subwoofers), and if you want to buy an external one, you're looking at spending $549 on the Bose Bass Module 500.

At that price, I'd instead recommend going for the Sonos Arc Ultra or the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar. These two soundbars delivered the most impactful and true-to-form audio out of every model we've tested, and won't take up as much space as a soundbar and subwoofer combo would.

But if you're limited to the Bose's budget, the Yamaha True X Bar 40A is a great alternative. Often sold for around $399.95 at Yamaha, it has two built-in subwoofers that deliver surprisingly punchy bass, and although its surround sound isn't as detailed as the Bose's, it's still present and can stream Dolby Atmos titles.

How I Tested the Bose Smart Soundbar

I tested the Bose Smart Soundbar in the largest room of my home, against a 14-foot-wide wall and projecting into a room with smooth surfaces (wooden floors and bare walls) and scattered soft furnishings (seating, cushions, curtains). I tested the soundbar using a set list of scenes and songs that show the soundbar's capabilities across every frequency, genre, and sound.

If you are looking to elevate your home entertainment but on a budget, my reviews of the Fire TV Soundbar Plus and the Sonos Ray are perfect if you're looking to spend less.