Sonos Beam (second gen) review: Atmos (t) a minor upgrade

From the moment Sonos announced the second-gen Beam soundbar, it was obvious that this sequel was more of a refresh than a reinvention. The new Beam, available October 5 and now slightly more expensive at $ 449, is the same compact size as the 2018 original. The speakers inside the unit are completely unchanged. Sonos updated the look by switching from a fabric cover on the first Beam to the company’s signature perforated plastic with finely drilled holes all over the front end of the soundbar. And because it’s equipped with more processing power and eARC, the new model supports immersive Dolby Atmos audio.

But the target customer of the Beam hasn’t changed at all: it’s a soundbar for people who want to upgrade their TV’s lousy built-in sound – with the alluring benefit of native integration. with the Sonos multiroom sound system. At its price, the Beam is more expensive than entry-level soundbars from Vizio and others. And if you’re willing to spend double, you can get much bigger, more powerful Atmos soundbars like the Arc from Sonos or alternatives from Sony and Bose. The Beam is eclipsed by the Arc, and its sonic performance does not come close to the same level. But I can still see and understand the appeal of choosing this one instead.

Perhaps you are in an apartment where more powerful speakers would shake the neighbors. Maybe you don’t care or feel the need to invest in premium home theater audio: you just want your movies and TV shows to sound noticeably better, and the smart speaker functions. Beam and extensive music streaming support are just the icing on the cake. on the cake. If that’s what you’re looking for, the second-gen Beam does the job just as well as the first. A little better, even.

Don’t rely on all of the Dolby Atmos surround sound part. When examining the original beam, Nilay said the key was not to overthink it. But by making Atmos a mainstay of the second-gen model, Sonos leaves room for people to do just that and have unrealistic expectations. As I’ll get to later, despite all the work Sonos has put into virtualizing and tuning to try and mimic Atmos’ enveloping height channels, it turns out that there’s really no substitute for sharp speakers, well, up.

Aside from the sleeker perforated front end, everything else about the Beam’s exterior appearance is identical to the original. You have the same capacitive touch playback controls on top, including a button to mute the microphones of the built-in voice assistant, and the same ports on the back: there’s HDMI, an Ethernet jack, a connect button. and the power input. New to the second-gen Beam is that Sonos has upgraded the HDMI port to support eARC, which enables Atmos and comes with other benefits that often go unannounced. For example, if you have a TV with HDMI 2.1, you shouldn’t experience any audio and video sync issues (even when gaming), which could be frustrating on the first Beam. That alone is one reason I would buy this material over the original given the choice – although you can still find the old Beam for a while.

Setup remains a relatively quick and easy process using the Sonos app for Android or iOS. I plugged the Beam into my LG CX OLED TV, opened the app, the new device was automatically recognized, then held my phone near the soundbar to finish linking it to my system via NFC. IPhone owners still get exclusive access to Sonos’ Trueplay feature, which uses the phone’s mic to optimize the soundbar’s audio output to sound best in any room where it is used. Since the Beam has its own array of mics, why not just build Auto Trueplay into the thing? Android users can still manually control the bass, treble, and volume sliders.

The Beam’s 40% faster processor allowed Sonos to add more ‘tables’ – the software that coordinates playback and the sophisticated phasing algorithms between all of the soundbar’s speakers – and the new ones are entirely new. dedicated to surround sound and height effects. But remember, the acoustic architecture inside hasn’t changed since the first Beam. There’s a center tweeter, four midwoofers, and three passive radiators which Sonos says help improve low frequencies. However, physics is physics, and we’re talking about a soundbar just over two feet wide; in other words, you’re going to want a Sub if you need big, booming bass. The Beam won’t get you there on its own, but neither will the Arc or most stand-alone soundbars for that matter.

But the Beam is still a strong performer who tends to really surprise people for his size, and this one fares even better. It can fill most small to medium sized living rooms (or bedrooms) without tiring. And the amount of presence and the great stereo separation of the first model carried over to the new device. The overall surround virtualization effect is pretty good – you can get lost in movies without it being obvious that all the sound is coming from the soundbar below the TV.

Watch car chase or fighter jet footage, and you’ll hear the Beam do an awesome job of having audio “dipping” into the left and right sides of a room – assuming your walls aren’t very. distant from each other. The feeling of space is very real, and in A / B testing with the original Beam, this is where these new bays make the biggest difference. I’ve seen Sonos describe it as panoramic sound, and it feels right.

The company has also made a few changes that result in even clearer dialogue during regular listening, and the ‘speech enhancement’ mode is still there if you need to put even more emphasis on what’s up. said.

But as for the Atmos part? Meh. My bedroom has fairly low ceilings, but even when sampling Atmos action scenes in the movies, I can’t say that I often noticed noticeable height effects. Don’t buy the Sonos Beam in the hope that it legitimately sounds like the audio is coming from above. He just can’t do it. You can bounce carefully phased sound waves off the walls as much as you want, but that won’t hold a candle to a proper Atmos system with overhead speakers. Even some owners of high-end soundbars like the Arc who to do having speakers on the rise don’t consider the Atmos aspect to be a game changer. If your room conditions are ideal, you might get some notes of verticality, but there’s no real illusion of it. 3d.

Even though it’s weak on Atmos Magic, the Beam can be the start of a really good surround system if you add a Sub and other Sonos speakers as surround back. (Opting for Ikea Symfonisk bookshelf speakers is a popular way to save money on these.), It’s worth considering. Adding more speakers can quickly make you forget about the size constraints of the Beam. And you can still switch to an Arc down the line and keep everything else in place.

Everything else on the Beam is already on the first model. It’s still fully proficient as a music speaker (and improved virtualization helps here, too), although it’s not as well suited for that as something like the Sonos Five. You can choose to use Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa as your preferred voice assistant, but not both at the same time, although technically possible. (You can also skip setting up a voice assistant if you’d rather avoid them). The soundbar supports Apple AirPlay 2, so you can play music, podcasts, or other audio files on it from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. And you can also send TV audio to your other Sonos speakers if you want.

At the center of it all is Sonos’ compatibility with just about any streaming audio service under the sun. The company has said it will add support for high-resolution audio and Dolby Atmos tracks from Amazon Music later this year, and hopefully the same will be true for Apple Music. Sonos is also responding to a long-standing customer request with the introduction of DTS decoding, another feature that will be available on all of its soundbars in the coming months.

Sonos’ addition of Dolby Atmos to the second-gen Beam doesn’t magically turn it into a jaw-dropping $ 450 soundbar. But it’s still a really good rendering enhanced by new virtualization upgrades and its seamless integration with your other Sonos gear. That, combined with the company’s impressive commitment to software support, remains the number one reason to spend the extra money on it instead of buying a perfectly good Vizio bar for less. Upgrading to eARC provides a smoother and more reliable listening experience without any latency issues, and the new design will look better in your living room. But the lack of suitable speakers limits Atmos’ potential, and the fact that Sonos has reused much of the material here makes the second-gen Beam feel like it’s a half-step towards something more ambitious. . I expect to see bigger things every time the third generation arrives.

Photograph by Chris Welch / The Verge