Small soundbar, big Atmos sound

Whether you’re an audiophile or you don’t know your aux from your Atmos, the chances are you’ve heard of Bose. The American tech giant is one of the biggest audio companies in the world, and is a brand that people instinctively trust to deliver good products with decent sound quality. The good news? Generally speaking, that’s not far wrong.

The firm’s latest soundbar, the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 hopes to add to that. It sits around middle of the company’s soundbar offering and serves up wide range of connectivity options – not to mention promises Dolby Atmos spatial audio from a single speaker, with no subwoofer add-on. Costing $499 / £400, that takes it head-to-head with the excellent Sonos Beam Gen 2. But can it deliver as promised, and how does it stack up against its formidable competiton? Here’s my full review.

Design

• Dimensions: 56 x 694 x 104mm
• Weight: 3.1kg
• Wall mount available separately

If you’re in the market for a visually discreet but stylish soundbar, then you can consider the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 the ultimate box-ticker. Boasting a sleek and understated design, there’s no doubt it’ll complement just about any TV it’s plonked underneath, be it a humongous OLED or a smaller TV for a kitchen or bedroom.

Expect robust plastic for the main body and a perforated metal grille wrapped around the front and sides – plus another grilled section along the top for the Atmos-focused drivers. It’s understated but it works – it looks the part and feels solid without shouting too loudly about it.

The best part, however, is the Smart Soundbar 600’s compact size. In terms of dimensions, it measures just 56 x 694 x 104mm, and weighs in at 3.1kg, which makes it easily wall-mountable. Although – in true Bose style – the optional bracket comes at an additional cost. Grr.

Still, it makes it a really easy soundbar to accommodate no matter your home cinema setup, particularly for those in smaller rooms who don’t have the space to make way for a separate subwoofer too.

Features

• Dolby Atmos support
• 1 x HDMI eARC, 1 x optical
• Wi-Fi, AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth 4.2

While the main selling point of the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 is that it’s a compact and versatile all-in-one soundbar, there are other things to shout about here too.

Of course, the biggie is that it offers support for Dolby Atmos soundtracks, but in a very different way to Sonos’ Beam Gen 2.

That’s because, of the five drivers that you can find here behind this grille, two full-range drivers fire upwards to physically increase the sense of height by projecting sound upwards – something Sonos’ soundbar does virtually. There’s a single driver handling the centre channel in the middle of the bar, while a racetrack driver at either end of the soundbar give some added width, as well as height.

These physical drivers are supported by Bose’s proprietary TrueSpace processing. This claims to upconvert stereo and 5.1 channel sources into an Atmos-like soundtracks, with the same sense of added height as you’d expect from a native soundtrack – but more on that shortly.

Connectivity-wise, the Smart Soundbar 600 includes an HDMI eARC port for lossless Atmos playback, plus an optical digital audio input for connecting an older TV that doesn’t support HDMI ARC/eARC. You will lose all native Atmos functionality over Atmos though, and revert entirely to Boses’s TrueSpace processing, so do question your decision to spend the extra on an Atmos soundbar if you’re not using HDMI.

A second HDMI input to provide a passthrough would be a nice addition, though that’s something that isn’t always found on budget soundbars – the Sonos Beam doesn’t include one, for example.

Wireless streaming options are aplenty, too, with support for Wi-Fi, AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth. The Bose Music app integrates numerous services for streaming over Wi-Fi, including Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio, and Sirius XM.

From here, you can also control the soundbar’s functions, including selecting your source and adjusting the volume – there’s even an EQ for tweaking sound, as well as the option for adding other compatible Bose products, like a sub or wireless rear surrounds, for a larger system (though that would, in part, take away from the 600’s compact charm).

If your phone isn’t to hand, the Smart Soundbar 600 comes with a remote in the box, which feels substantial enough for a product of this quality – a far cry from those cheap clicky membrane devices that never really work all that well. There’s also the option to control it via Alexa, or Google Assistant if you prefer, since the presence of physical buttons on the soundbar itself is very limited – it only features a mute and voice-control action button on the top.

Alexa can offer basic controls like volume and track skipping, as well as access to music apps supported by the world-famous voice assistant. This works well – most of the time. If you’re more of a Google Assistant person, Bose’s soundbar also plays nicely with your voice assistant of choice, giving you similar functionality when a Google speaker is connected to the network.

Alexa has the edge over the two for being built in, meaning it can also use Bose’s Voice4Video feature to control functions of a connected Smart TV – everything from turning it on and off, to playing and pausing video playback and changing channels.

Performance

Get the soundbar set up – which is as simple as plugging it in and connecting it to your TV – and serve it the very best of its capabilities, like an Atmos soundtrack from Netflix or 4K Blu-ray, and the Smart Soundbar 600 shines. Watch big blockbusters like action-packed Marvel films, for instance, and the Bose handles them with authority and confidence, producing a wide, open sound that places effects convincingly.

Of course there are limitations to its capabilities, but it does sound bigger than its physical dimensions, and those height channels do a decent job of adding some elevation to the elements of a soundtrack that require it.

The midrange is solid and packed with plenty of detail, and dialogue is delivered with focus and clarity. Bass is on the warm side, but controlled, adding presence to the soundtracks of thriller or high-octane flicks. It’s a dynamic sound too, the soundbar being able to express any shift in volume without second thought.

There is, however, a lack of lower bass here. In a relatively large room, for example, the deeper rumble you might expect from a T-Rex running amok around Jurassic Park falls a little short – something you might get more from with a separate sub.

Some may also find the insistance of Bose to have the listener embrace spatial audio at every turn a little annoying. When you aren’t listening to Atmos soundtracks, Bose’s TrueSpace processing, which attempts to imitiate an Atmos experience from a non-Atmos soundtrack, is switched on by default – and can’t be turned off.

While it can be convincing with some content, and add an extra level of immersion, it isn’t reliably so, and having some control of the playback in this sense would be appreciated.

Verdict

The Bose Smart Soundbar 600 delivers big on Dolby Atmos sound for its price bracket, with an effective performance that gives the sense of height in Atmos soundtracks you’d hope for.

Dialogue clarity is commendable, and midrange detail is great, but while the bass available is warm and solid, the lower bass range is underwhelming compared to those soundbar systems that come with dedicated subwoofers. Anyone looking for a deeper, richer rumble will want to consider that.

Some people will also find the soundbar’s insistance on spatial audio, even to the detriment of performance in some cases, frustrating. It’s a shame this can’t be turned off by the user, rather than being on by default – and this loses Bose some edge.

On a more positive note, the Smart Soundbar 600 boasts a compelling feature set that many other soundbars fall short of, and the app-based setup is nice and straightforward too – ensuring even technophobes will find it easy getting this thing up and running out of the box.

Ultimately the soundbar’s compact design and all-in-one form factor means there is a balance to consider – while aesthetically pleasing, there is a limit to its acoustic capabilities. If you need something on the smaller side, that’s probably something you can make peace with, but its big competition, the Sonos Beam Gen 2, arguably comes with fewer sonic quirks.