Bose Smart Soundbar review: This time it’s personal

Bose’s soundbar range has historically been befuddling for your average consumer but was streamlined to just the Bose Smart Soundbar and Bose Smart Soundbar Ultra earlier this year. The Smart Soundbar is the cheaper and smaller of the two and is designed for those wanting a compact, well-specified soundbar to improve the audio quality of their TV.

Like its more expensive stablemate, it supports a new AI Dialogue mode and Bose SimpleSync, allowing you to use it simultaneously with select Bose headphones and Bluetooth speakers. And, if those headphones are the Ultra Open Earbuds, the Smart Soundbar offers a uniquely engaging “Personal Surround” experience.

But is the Bose Smart Soundbar worth it if you don’t own a pair of Bose’s open-ear buds? I’ve spent the past three weeks using it for my festive viewing, so read on for my verdict.

Bose Smart Soundbar review: What do you get for the money?

The Bose Smart Soundbar cost £500 at launch but it can currently be purchased for £399. It’s a 3.0.2-channel soundbar with left, right and centre speakers and a pair of up-firing drivers to handle height effects. As usual, Bose doesn’t state frequency range or power output.

There’s no subwoofer built-in, meaning it can’t match the low-end reproduction of the 5.1.2-channel Smart Soundbar Ultra, which will set you back £749. You can, however, connect it to Bose’s bass modules or surround speakers, so there is room for expansion.

At 694 x 104 x 56mm (WDH), the Smart Soundbar fits neatly onto most TV cabinets and under most TVs without obscuring the bottom of the screen. The bar can be wall-mounted and there’s a dedicated Wall EQ to optimise the sound quality if you decide to go this route. The Smart Soundbar complemented the 55in Philips OLED809 I tested it with very nicely; it wouldn’t look out of place under a smaller set either. However, I’d recommend a soundbar that’s a little more substantial if you’ve got a TV of 65in or above.

You have two main ways of controlling the Smart Soundbar: the included remote, which has buttons for playback controls, source switching, volume adjustment, muting and Bluetooth, and the Bose app.

The in-app options are extensive, giving you access to the aforementioned AI Dialogue and Wall EQ modes, the ability to tweak the level of bass, treble and the centre and height channels, and play around with the audio delay. You can also set up accessory speakers, enable the Smart Soundbar’s Chromecast built-in and Amazon Alexa capabilities and link music services to your Bose account to stream audio content via the app.

The bar doesn’t incorporate any playback controls but there are two touch-sensitive buttons to look after Amazon Alexa. The “Action” button engages Alexa, while the other turns the microphone off to prevent Amazon’s assistant listening in.

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Bose Smart Soundbar review: What does it do well?

Setting up the Smart Soundbar is very easy. Most people will hook it up to their TV via HDMI using the included HDMI cable, but there’s also an optical port on the rear of the bar and an optical cable in the box as a backup. Once connected, the Bose app will walk you through a quick and easy setup process, which requires you to connect the bar to your Wi-Fi network.

The Smart Soundbar is a sleek-looking thing primarily made from black plastic, with a metal grille that wraps around the front and sides of the bar. There’s not much you can do to make a soundbar like this sing aesthetically but I enjoyed the simple, sturdy elegance of the construction.

I also appreciated its size. Massive soundbars are great for those with larger televisions or huge rooms but the pleasingly compact Smart Soundbar was ideal for my needs. Its frame didn’t dominate the area of my living space dedicated to home entertainment and its height means it will only get in the way of the lowest-lying TVs.

For the most part, I was a fan of its sonic output. It goes very loud – far louder than I needed – and demonstrates control and skill at all volume levels. The soundstage is slightly wider than you might expect of a soundbar in this price range but occasionally sounded a little forced and artificial.

The height effects delivered by the two up-firing speakers were impressive, too. The ceiling of the room in which I was testing the soundbar is roughly 2.5m high, which is ideal for bouncing sound back down to create dimensionality, and the Smart Soundbar proved convincing when handling Dolby Atmos soundtracks. Outdoor scenes with flying vessels in Foundation on Apple TV+ had a strong sense of verticality and the sound effects of crafts traversing Outerspace were believably reproduced.

If you’re watching non-Atmos content (specifically simple stereo mixes) Bose’s TrueSpace technology can still create something vaguely akin to a true multi-channel audio experience. This upmixes signals and assigns them to each of the Smart Soundbar’s five channels and does so successfully, although it doesn’t achieve quite the same level of immersion as you’ll get with Atmos.

Unlike a lot of soundbars, which are primarily tuned for films and TV shows, the Smart Soundbar’s tonal balance is effective for music, too. I got a lot of mileage streaming from my phone over Bluetooth and Chromecast. There was a satisfying energy to the way it managed to keep up with the faster hard dance genres I love to annoy my neighbours with.

But for me, the Smart Soundbar’s greatest strengths are its proprietary Bose features. AI Dialogue mode is the standout. This senses when there’s a vocal component to what is being watched or listened to and automatically adjusts the bar’s tonal balance to boost dialogue clarity. It worked so well that I can’t remember a time when I caught myself trying to work out what was being said. And, importantly, it does so while taking very little from the rest of the mix. Dialogue during busy scenes with lots of background effects in Deadpool & Wolverine remained perfectly clear, meaning I never missed a wisecrack or expletive.

Then you have SimpleSync, which lets you pair supported Bose headphones and speakers with the soundbar and play audio through them simultaneously. If you do this with Bose’s open-fit Ultra Open Earbuds, you unlock Personal Surround Sound. This sees the wireless earbuds supplement the sound coming from the bar and function as pseudo-surround speakers.

You’re able to adjust the volume of the effects coming through the earbuds in a specific menu in the Bose app, and also tweak the centre channel and height and surround channel levels independently as you would on the bar itself.

The effect is relatively subtle at lower earbud volumes but at around 60% or so, significantly adds to the overall sense of immersion. It would be fair to say that the feeling of immediacy and intimacy created by the clang of Wolverine’s claw on Deadpool’s katanas, the ricochet of bullets and the swoosh of missed strikes playing in my ears had me reaching for my spectral sock.

Bose Smart Soundbar review: What could it do better?

It’s a shame that only a small number of people are going to have the means to enjoy one of the Smart Soundbar’s best features. The Ultra Open Earbuds are not cheap at £250 and unless you’re already in the market for flashy open-ear buds, the effect, while a lot of fun, won’t justify the hefty outlay. But the bar is good enough to stand on its own regardless; Personal Sound simply gives it something new and unique.

It does have a few shortcomings, however. There’s no support for DTS audio formats, which is a blow to those with extensive Blu-ray collections containing films that support the DTS:X object-based audio format but not Dolby Atmos. Bose is not alone in omitting support for DTS:X on more affordable soundbars such as this – the immensely popular Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is in the same boat – but it would have been a welcome inclusion.

As would an extra HDMI input for passing through audio from another device. Again, this is not especially unusual on cheaper soundbars from big-name brands, and the HDMI ports on people’s TVs will generally suffice. However, less is not more where connection options on soundbars are concerned and I’d have liked to have seen an additional HDMI port.

I’ve already mentioned that I found the breadth of the Smart Soundbar’s soundstage uncannily wide; my other grumble with its sound is that it’s not the most awe-inspiring where booming bass reproduction is concerned. The absence of a subwoofer doesn’t completely nullify the Smart Soundbar’s low-end impact – there was a decent kick to the basslines on Darren Styles and MC Storm’s set at The Rave That Time Forgot in 2015 – but it could certainly be more potent.

As Hans Gruber’s rocket launcher-wielding compatriot wrought havoc in Christmas classic Die Hard and John McClane hit back with some fireworks of his own, the resulting explosions felt a little restrained and lacked the chest-rattling crash I’d hoped for. Bass notes could also be a little cleaner but that is typically the way with bars that forgo a sub dedicated to handling low-end frequencies.

Bose Smart Soundbar review: Should you buy it?

If you already own Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds, the Bose Smart Soundbar offers a unique and compelling proposition. I don’t typically wear headphones when watching TV but the Personal Sound mode had me reaching for my earbuds whenever I was settling down for a solo film binge.

There’s a lot to recommend the Bose Smart for, even if you don’t own those buds, however. It’s one of, if not the, best mid-range soundbars I’ve tested for dialogue, handles Atmos soundtracks and music adeptly and possesses plenty of smarts. If Bose had somehow managed to squeeze a sub, an extra HDMI input and support for DTS:X in, we’d probably have been looking at my favourite soundbar of the year.