Sonos Beam - Smart TV Sound Bar with Amazon Alexa Built-in - Black

I recently purchased an 82" Samsung Q8 TV and researched the heck out of soundbars to use with it. For reference I have Martin Logan speakers with Parasound and Adcom electronics because I used to be heavily into audio, but I really wanted to simplify my life and clean up the clutter in the family room. Enter the soundbar search! I still had a little bit of the audio snob in me because at first I decided that I really needed Dolby Atmos, so I was close to pulling the trigger on a 1.5k Samsung or Sony system. But then enter a whole bunch of technical gobbledegook about needing eARC and current HDMI ARC outputs not being upgradeable and lack of streaming Atmos content and yadda yadda yadda - ok forget Atmos.So I decided to heck with Atmos, just give me a basic soundbar. Then I was about to pull the trigger on a $100 Yamaha when I realized it didn't have HDMI ARC. That was the one thing I wasn't going to compromise on - I wanted the soundbar to act like the tv's built-in speaker, and HDMI ARC allows the tv remote to control the volume of the soundbar vs optical requiring you to use the soundbar's remote. I wanted to simplify my life and getting rid of remotes was part of that!I had just gotten my first Sonos speaker for Christmas, a Play:1. So I started looking at Sonos soundbars. Sadly neither the Playbar nor the Playbase has ARC. But surprisingly their cheapest, smallest speaker - the Beam - does have ARC! Finally I pulled the trigger and got the Beam and another Play:1 so I could have a pair for surround.Ok finally the actual review - everything works flawlessly. Really, that's all you need to know right there. Setup was a breeze, my tv works fine with the Cox cable box connected via HDMI and the Beam connected via HDMI ARC. Alexa works fine for playing music and radio. Spotify and Pandora stream perfectly. The sound is good but obviously doesn't compare to my previous setup, but it's less than 1/10th the price so I can't complain. After the Sonos auto-tuning I did adjust bass down one notch and treble up one notch. The system sounded a bit closed-in at first, like it was buried under a few towels, but after a day or two either I've gotten used to it or the speakers have broken-in and now sound much lighter. The Sonos app confirms that they are receiving the Dolby Digital signal, so yay.For people that are true movie lovers that like to play at Dolby reference levels (i.e. really loud), this speaker will probably not do it for you in the bass department. For normal people, I think it's perfectly fine. The bass is not really deep, but is certainly adequate and definitely much better than the tv's built-in speakers. If Sonos offered a $200 sub, I'd be all over it. But I'll pass on their $700 sub. The little Beam does look puny sitting under my 82" tv, so if the larger Playbar had ARC I probably would've bought that instead both for looks and a wider soundstage. Yes, another small nit is that the soundstage of the Beam is not huge at lower volumes, so if that's important then maybe keep looking. For my purposes, it's just fine. The soundstage does seem to get larger at higher volumes which is nice when you're ready to sit and watch a loud movie, but it's not going to make you think you have a left-center-right setup.Note that since the Beam and Play:1 surrounds are all linked together into a single room/system, you can't stream to them individually. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but if you wanted to maybe pick up a surround speaker and take it outside and play it by itself without playing the rest of the speakers, you'd probably have to undo the surround configuration. Also fyi, the Sonos TruePlay speaker auto-tune software is not available for Android (iOS only). It's not a huge requirement but worth knowing.Bottom line - it has HDMI ARC, it sounds great, everything works as advertised. Highly recommended unless you're the type that needs a subwoofer and plays movies really loud.

I had a Sony receiver with the Polk RM6750 compact speakers and subwoofer which sounded great but I’ve been looking for a soundbar for a few years now for simplicity and visual appeal. I purchased a Sony HT-ST5000 shortly after its release and ended up returning it a couple days later. The dialogue was particularly awful and the lack of surround channels really made it flat sounding.I was originally disappointed that Sonos released a small soundbar instead of a “playbar 2” but decided to try out the Beam with Sub and two One’s after many 3rd party review sites ranked the Beam especially high.It sounds excellent. Together, it sounds just as good and even better than my previous wired system. Movies and music both shine on this. The Beam itself sounds full and produces a wide sound stage although it’s important to note that it produces little bass so I would not use the Beam by itself unless its on a secondary TV in a very small room. Add the One’s and you get much better bass. Add the sub and you get rumbling thunder. If you can only get one, I’d say get the two One’s so you also get the surround. Note: I’m using the system primarily in a 10x12 ft living room but it will easily fill my 700 sqft apartment with music. Dialogue in movies is always very clear and sounds full. I do not use the dialogue enhancer either - no need for it. Night mode works well but I’ll probably never use that.Alexa works well. The microphones can hear me speak in a low tone from 20 ft away in my kitchen around around a corner which was surprising.Big fan of the app. You can adjust all of the speaker levels or turn on enhancements there. You can play iPad music through it. I just wish you could ask Alexa to play XYZ from the iPad like you can with the other music services. You first have to start playing from the iPad in the app and then you can tell Alexa to pause/play or skip the song.I think I’ve been experiencing some audio delay with XBox One X Blu Rays only... I think because its very slight and only noticed in a C movie and then a movie primarily with CGI so I can’t trust either one. But there is no delay when streaming from apps on the XBox, apps from my TV or my FIOS cable box. The Xbox and cable box are both routed separately through my x900e then HDMI to the Beam. Need some more Netflix DVDs to come in to further test that.Its nice being able to adjust the volume of the system using Alexa or your TV remote.All in all - loving the system. Was thinking I’d replace the Beam when Sonos does release a playbar 2 in the following years but there’s really no need. I’m very happy with it. I’d suggest it if you can get it along with two Ones, the sub or most definitely both - alone though, it lacks bass needed for movies and music.Update: 7-31 - I watched another Blu ray on the xbox and there wasn’t a perceivable audio delay on that one...Update: 8-29 - Experienced more audio delay on Blurays through the XBox. Bought a new Bluray player - no audio delay so far. I'm wondering if it was only DTS movies that the Xbox had to convert to Dolby. No converter on the new player tho.