Big-screen TV ads love to brag about their incredible sound quality. Maybe compared to other TVs, sure, but they all seem to leave you on the edge of the couch straining to make out the dialogue before giving up and putting on the subtitles. Your TV needs a sound upgrade — all TVs need a sound upgrade — and the Sonos Beam Gen 2 soundbar is one of the very best. It’s also marked down at Amazon right now by $130, bringing it to a very accessible $369.
It’s a given that the Sonos Beam will give you a huge aural boost over your TV’s built-in speakers, but the jump in quality from even a basic soundbar is dramatic. That’s because the Beam Gen 2 is anything but basic: It’s Sonos’s compact Dolby Atmos soundbar, which means it generates a virtual 3D surround sound effect from a single 25.6-inch bar. Action sequences push sound overhead and around the room, dialogue sits cleanly in the center channel, and bass has actual weight — all without wiring rear speakers or mounting anything to a ceiling.
Retire the Subtitles
Speech Enhancement is the single most useful feature on any soundbar, and the Sonos Beam Gen 2 handles it well. Poorly mixed audio — mumbled dialogue buried under a blaring soundtrack or constant explosions, streaming shows with inconsistent levels — is the reason people turn subtitles on in the first place. The Beam’s speech mode raises the dialogue channel above the mix so you can actually hear what’s being said without cranking the volume and rattling the walls.
Night Sound does the inverse for late viewing: It compresses loud effects like explosions and gunshots while lifting quieter audio, so you’re not diving for the mute button to avoid waking up the household every time an action scene hits.
Expansion Available
The Beam Gen 2 works exceptionally well as a standalone soundbar, but it’s also a starting point for a multi-room Sonos setup — add rear speakers later for true surround, or connect additional Sonos speakers in other rooms for synchronized whole-home audio. When the TV is off, the Beam streams music, podcasts, and audiobooks directly via Wi-Fi, AirPlay 2, or Spotify Connect. Alexa and Google Assistant are built in for voice control, and the Sonos app handles everything else alongside your existing TV remote.
Setup is a snap. Just two cables need to attach — power and HDMI eARC — and then Sonos’s Trueplay tuning calibrates the sound to the specific room it’s in. The whole process takes a few minutes, and most TVs automatically route audio to the soundbar once it’s connected. At $369 during this limited-time Amazon deal, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 is the final step toward ensuring that expensive flat-screen delivers sound as good as its picture.
