Sonos Beam Gen 2 Long Term Review: Worth It In 2024?

H so this is the beam generation to everyone love to talk about let me see what this little thing's got I mean it's seriously small it can't possibly have power can it I mean seriously oh my goodness I think I just peed my pants what the heck was [Music] that I don't know about you guys but in the grand hierarchy of first world problems built-in TV audio ranks pretty highly it's just terrible it's flat Baseline there's no lows the highs in the mids are awful and the dialogue just also sounds quite terrible thankfully sound bars have become a very popular and kind of affordable alternative to high quality audio without breaking the entire bank now with that said of course today's product is the Sonos beam generation 2 and in all fairness it's been out for a hot minute which makes this more so of a long-term review I've been using it for a while and I can give you guys a clear Insight of what you can can expect where you to get a beam generation to right now and answer the ultimate question of whether or not this mid-range Soundbar is the right one for your needs so let's get into it it all starts with design in my absolute honest opinion most sound bars just look outright ugly because most companies don't really care how they look they're industrial they're just more so for performance and Aesthetics Sonos has a very different approach they really care about the way their products look and that's one of the reasons they such a successful brand I mean just look the beam its rounded edges rather than sharp lines with a more subtle but ultimately welcoming design that seamless mesh gr that has a near 360° coverage or the fact that you have a clean flat surface on the top with a very subtle curve and those minimalist icons that look so nice or that clean LED indicator light at the top all these things combined with a modestly small form factor make the beam a very attractive looking Soundbar that goes great with your living room and combin the fact that you have two distinct color options you've got the perfect combination of choices whether you keep it on a TV stand like I have or mounted it fits nicely with most home theater setups now one of the downsides with Sonos product in general is that your connectivity is often limited when compared to a lot of the competition so on the back side you do have a two- pin port of course to power on the Soundbar the iconic joint button which allows you to nearly seamlessly connect to an existing C system and then of course you have a ethernet Jack in case you don't want to use Wi-Fi to connect to your network and then the HDMI port which of course has Arc and E certification though you can also use it in the capacity of an optical audio cable the dongle comes within the Box itself it is worth noting you do have built-in AirPlay 2 support however what's deeply concerning is the lack of a Bluetooth connection here that's right with the Sonos beam and most of Sonos soundbar products you just don't get Bluetooth connectivity out of the box which which severely restricts a lot of thirdparty devices from using the Sonos beam as a standalone speaker technically speaking the beam 2 is a plug- andplay product so once you connect that HDMI connection you're all good to go though I strongly encourage you to get the Sonos app it's got a clean interface that lets you see the device status troubleshooting anything that's wrong you can also of course use to connect to your Wi-Fi Additionally you can issue over there updates you have a lot of settings to tweak the EQ for example and various other sound and system settings as well you can also enable built-in integration with apps like Spotify or YouTube music and of course also enable The Voice Assistant that includes Google Assistant Amazon Alexa and Son's own VA now we come to one of my personal favorite features true play simply put this is a subprogram within the Sonos app that calibrates the audio configuration of the Sonos beam based on the dimensions and position of yourself in a given room it's a quick test that takes no more than a couple of minutes once the calibrations are done however ever you will find that there is a subtle but notable difference in the quality and positioning of the audio and this is quite important to make sure you get the most out of your speakers the biggest downside is that if you're using a Android device you are unable to use true play you can only use it on iPhone or certain compatible iOS devices son those claims this is because of mic parameter limitations I think it's also a degree of lazy programming and also a lack of priority which means some consumers get left out just because of their choice of phone and I think kind of unfair to the consumer and definitely an area that Sono seriously needs to reconsider let's get to the main course meal of course and that's the audio performance so a quick recap the beam generation 2 is Dolby Atmos certified additionally it has a grand total of five speakers one Center Tweeter and four midwoofers two on either side which provides a balance of lows and mids while the center tweeter of course deals with the highs and dialogues and I got to tell you one of these signature features with the beam generation 2 is its dialog Clarity which in my opinion outclasses its bigger brother the Sonos Arc visibly not to say that the arc isn't great it's far superior overall but the dialog Clarity on the beam generation 2 is so crisp I rarely have to use subtitles anymore of course the midwoofers do a decent job with the Bas they're not as good as the likes of what I find with bows or even Samsung however generally speaking there is representation on the low end and it's sufficient as long as you're using it in a small to mediumsized room where the walls aren't too far away as far as the Dolby Atmos goes technically speaking it's more of a virtual representation than a physical one CU you don't have upward firing speakers despite that however when you're watching certain types of footage whether it's rain in the background an insect buzzing off or a jet taking off you definitely get somewhat of a degree of immersion around you in terms of sound and that's pretty impressive given how small this thing is it's not easy to put Dolby at most level speakers over here in such a small form factor generally speaking this is a very well-tuned speaker and as a standalone product it does great in those kind of environments a very common point of contemplation is whether you should get the larger and more powerful Sonos Arc or save yourself some money and get the Sonos beam and for some reason a lot of YouTubers tie this to your TV size that should be a secondary Factor at most what you should be looking at are the dimensions of your room for example I live in a town home and the beam in my case is situated in my living room so the overall width of my room is about 10 ft long and about 13 ft in length give or take and then my ceilings are about 10 ft high this is more than sufficient coverage for the beam 2 to encapsulate most areas of my room and provide decent sound immersion now if you get too much larger than this then the arc might be a better option because the walls are further apart so you need more audio horsepower to bounce back the audio and provide a true Dolby Atmos experience however you don't have to consider the arc just because you have a 60-in TV in a mediumsized room in those cases the beam is enough unless you of course want that added immersion you don't need to consider it at the time of this video The Beam generation 2 goes for about $500 and this is a two-part perspective I mean on one side you can now get Dolby Atmos at 500 bucks which is a pretty good proposition but on the other side $500 is definitely trending towards the upper side of the mid-range segment now the value proposition of the beam 2 is entirely dependent on certain checklist items first and foremost making sure you have an iOS device otherwise you can't use true play which I think is a pretty essential experience of the beam 2 experience and if you just have Android devices you might want to look elsewhere additionally of course it's important to know that you don't get built-in Bluetooth connectivity so you do have severe restrictions with the kind of devices you can connect directly to your beam 2 if you just want to let's say listen to music thirdly of course is the the fact that you need a very recent TV or a relatively recent TV that supports HDMI ER to make sure you can actually get Dolby Atmos otherwise you can save yourself some money and get a cheaper Soundbar alog together now for the million dooll question is the Sonos beam generation 2 the best Soundbar at the $500 price point the short answer is no I think that award goes to the B smart Soundbar 600 that's right the reason for that is because it actually has upward firing speakers giving you true Dolby at versus the virtual one you get with the beam Gen 2 however it also has deeper base it's a little bit louder and it's a more wholesome speaker that has Bluetooth connectivity all at the same price point however the one key Advantage you do get with the Sonos beam Gen 2 is modularity Sonos has a ton of sound products that actually work seamlessly to one another if you don't want to get a full-size roofer you can get the sub mini which is a fairly cheap subwoofer and it adds a lot of base without having to break the bank dramatically the Sonos can be upgraded with so many different products whereas the Bose and other companies are severely limited in that regard it all comes down to just what kind of solution you want if your ultimate objective just to get a soundbar and call it a a I do think there are other Alternatives like I mentioned the Bose smart Soundbar 600 that might do a better job but if you are looking to build an Empire of a home theater system down the road as your budget permits Sonos definitely has an advantage for it there and it has some topnotch experiences if to meet the checklist items I mentioned before let me know what you think of the Sonos beam Gen 2 and it's possible when you're watching this the Generation 3 might be announced let me know what you think of that one in contrast to this as always thank you so much for watching catch you in the next one

Channel: SoulOfTech

Views: 8,577

Keywords:

Id: PkC5QiChUQ0

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2024