Bose Smart Soundbar 900 review

As soundbars become more and more popular for cinematic home audio, it's also true that the marketplace becomes more competitive. This bar joins the likes of the Samsung HW-Q950A and the pricey but impressive Sennheiser Ambeo – plus various offerings from Sonos. But which to choose?

Bose has long been admired as one of the best brands for home audio, but it's a trickier space than ever, so we put Bose's latest offering through its paces to see if it's really worth your cash.

Jump to:

• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 review: summary
• What is Bose Smart Soundbar 900?
• How much is Bose Smart Soundbar 900?
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 design
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 sound quality
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 set-up
• Our verdict
• Where to buy

Bose Smart Soundbar 900 review: summary

Finally, there's a Dolby Atmos soundbar from Bose — the Bose Smart Soundbar 900. It's an elegant, glass-topped soundbar with bags of features and a wonderful, well-rounded sound.

The Smart Soundbar 900 is a sleek and fantastically well-designed soundbar with lots going for it and a distinctive new look. Bose has ditched the fabric soundbar frontage in favour of a subtle metal grille and for our money, it's one of the best-looking soundbars out there at the moment.

So, how does it compare to competitors in terms of price? The Sonos Arc is one of the key competitors in the marketplace and it's currently sold by Sonos at £899. They're directly comparable as the Arc is Sonos' first Dolby Atmos soundbar and similarly uses both front and up-firing speakers to create an enveloping bubble of sound.

In many ways, it's neck-and-neck between the two, but the Sonos Arc makes a couple of marginal wins when presenting cinematic sound for films, partly thanks to its extra four drivers. Also, it's worth noting that there are more options as regards supplementary speakers from Sonos. So if you're looking to start a larger surround-sound setup, the Arc may be preferred. For more on the performance of the Sonos, take a look at our full Sonos Arc review, in which it bagged an impressive five-star rating.

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 outperforms its younger sibling, the Bose Smart Soundbar 700, but feels like a solid iterative upgrade rather than a revolutionary change. That said, the addition of Dolby Atmos is notable.

We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent testing out the Soundbar 900. However, there are one or two minor drawbacks. Read on for a full summary of our testing and thoughts on the latest Bose soundbar.

Price: £899.95

Pros:

• Great sound quality
• Looks great
• Dolby Atmos

Cons:

• Is it better than Sonos Arc?
• Expensive

Key features:

• Dolby Atmos
• eARC connectivity
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Voice controls
• TrueSpace technology

What is Bose Smart Soundbar 900?

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is the first-ever Dolby Atmos soundbar from Bose.

Dolby Atmos technology first appeared in cinemas in 2012 and now represents the cutting edge of home audio tech. Essentially, Dolby Atmos is an audio format that creates a sound bubble, using one or several speakers.

Dolby described the technology as follows: "From music and movies to podcasters and game developers, Dolby Atmos allows creatives everywhere to place each sound exactly where they want it to go, creating a more realistic and immersive audio experience."

This soundbar also packs TrueSpace technology, which helps to give a spatial element to non-Dolby-Atmos tuned audio too.

How much is Bose Smart Soundbar 900?

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 will set you back £899, so it's hardly a budget option.

Bose has always been a premium brand though, so we're not surprised to see a new soundbar in this price bracket from Bose and the bar itself performs well and looks great.

• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899.95 at Bose
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899 at Currys
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899 at John Lewis

If you buy and enjoy a Bose Smart Soundbar 900, there are several add-on options to turn your one-piece soundbar into a true surround sound system. These include the Bose Bass Module 700 and the Bose 700 Surround Speakers.

• Bose Bass Module 700 | £799 at Currys
• Bose 700 Surround Speakers | £519 at Currys

Bose Smart Soundbar 900 design

The glass-topped soundbar is available in black or white and looks sleek in any living room. The fabric fronting of many popular soundbars is replaced on this model with a metal grille. This is easier to clean and — from an aesthetic standpoint — we think it's an improvement.

Certainly, the product design in terms of where the speakers are placed and how they're deployed is fantastic. Front, side and up-firing speakers come together to offer impressive spatial audio and a well-rounded sound.

Equally, while the set-up of ADATiQ is a little unwieldy, it can work wonders in some spaces and is an ingenious design solution for setting up a Dolby Atmos system. More on this later.

There are also two small touch buttons on that glass top. One mutes and unmutes the microphone for your audio assistant while the other wakes up that audio assistant for a task. The remote that comes with the soundbar is small, compact and well designed. It doesn't feel cheap and plastic-y either, as so many entertainment remotes do.

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Bose Smart Soundbar 900 sound quality

It's sound quality that Bose is known for and the Smart Soundbar 900 does not disappoint. It's wonderful for music, television and film. The soundbar creates a noticeably wide soundstage and uses its up-firing speakers to good effect.

The up-firing speakers differentiate the soundbar from more affordable alternatives like the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and help to create a big sound that will fill any living room with ease. When switching from TV speakers to Smart Soundbar 900 audio, you'll be blown away by the quality difference, as well as the way the bar fills the room with sound and offers previously unnoticeable audio detail.

When listening to music, the Smart Soundbar 900 rendered the bassy beats of 'Glue' by Bicep and the big-band soundscape of The Hot 8 Brass Band's 'Sexual Healing' cover with equal ease.

Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car' nicely showed off the sparkling mid-tones and crystal clear vocal performance of the soundbar. The multi-layered treble of Steely Dan's 'Do It Again' and 'Reelin' in the Years' also showed the Bose to be more than capable.

When it comes to that all-important cinematic sound, Bose even has a backup plan for non-Dolby-Atmos content. 'TrueSpace' technology helps to turn non-Dolby-Atmos content into more spatial audio, helping to minimise the disparity between films with Dolby-Atmos tuned audio and those without.

When we tested the cinematic performance of the soundbar, we were very impressed. The bar creates a well-rounded, cinematic sound with notable breadth. However – seemingly due to this breadth – occasionally certain elements of a film's audio may feel like they've ended up slightly further to one side of the soundstage than intended. This was the case as Christoph Waltz's character arrived in a noisily clattering horse-drawn cart in the opening scene of Django Unchained (2012). This is only a very slight criticism and ultimately doesn't undermine a very enjoyable audio-visual experience.

Elsewhere the soundbar uses its nine drivers dextrously, creating easily distinguished layers of sound that make for a wonderfully well-rounded whole. Film sound effects are clear and appear in distinct layers over the score. It's all immensely listenable.

The Smart Soundbar 900 also did a wonderful job of rendering the highly-praised sound design of Dunkirk (2017). The scream of Stuka dive-bomber shells landing, crowds of soldiers waiting to be evacuated and close-up dialogue all take distinct places in the sound stage and remain crystal clear, even at high volumes.

Bose Smart Soundbar 900 set-up: is it easy to use?

Things get a little odd when it comes to setting the Smart Soundbar 900 up. Bose has equipped the soundbar with ADAPTiQ – a technology that helps to optimise the Smart Soundbar 900's audio for your space. This requires you to wear a small, head-band shaped microphone while sitting in the five most commonly used seats in your television room. This helps to optimise the audio for each spot and deliver the very best sound the soundbar is capable of.

You'll feel more than a little silly setting this up, but afterwards, it pays dividends. The Dolby Atmos and TrueSpace technology know where to expect you to be, meaning more spatial audio and a more engrossing soundstage.

We found the app slightly more straightforward to use than the Sonos equivalent, which is a nice little win for Bose fans. It's really simple to switch between TV and Spotify and to connect up to other services.

Our verdict: should you buy the Bose Smart Soundbar 900?

It's impossible to render a verdict on the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 without comparing it to the Sonos Arc. These are two brands that have been locked in competition for years, now offering their debut Dolby Atmos soundbars at the same price.

While the sound quality is really the most important facet of any soundbar, we're sure some buyers will choose the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 over competitors simply because it looks nicer – and if that's your preference, that's fair.

When it comes to audio quality, the Sonos Arc may have a very, very slight edge, but we're splitting hairs and only audiophiles are likely to find huge differences between the two offerings. The other counter-argument for the Sonos Arc is that there are more Sonos speakers to supplement a wider multi-speaker system with.

Ultimately, if you want a soundbar at this price, that looks great in your TV room and offers top-notch sound, then the Bose is a great buy. If you're completely focused on sound, then the four extra drivers in the Arc give it a slight edge.

Where to buy the Bose Smart Soundbar 900

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is available from a range of retailers including Currys and John Lewis, as well as straight from the Bose website.

• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899.95 at Bose
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899 at Currys
• Bose Smart Soundbar 900 | £899 at John Lewis

For more soundbar options, take a look at our full Sony HT-G700 review to see more of the competition. Looking for more tech? why not check out our best smart speakers and best smart TV guides.