Bose Smart Soundbar 900
RRP $ 899.00
"The Smart Soundbar 900 adds Dolby Atmos for just $ 100, making it a great choice for a single speaker home theater sound system."
advantages
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Elegant design
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Good Dolby Atmos effects
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Excellent music quality
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Practical TV voice control
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Synchronization of private headphones
disadvantage
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Only one HDMI port
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Simple remote control without backlight
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Limited support for Android
When Bose launched its $ 799 Smart Soundbar 700 in the last half of 2018, it probably should have included Dolby Atmos, the highly immersive surround sound format used for both movies and music. That wasn't the case, and that gave longtime competitor Sonos the chance to jump in with its very own Dolby Atmos soundbar, the Sonos Arc, which debuted in 2020 at the same price as the non-Atmos Smart Soundbar 700.
But Bose has finally jumped on the Atmos bandwagon with its $ 899 Smart Soundbar 900. Is it worth the extra $ 100? Let's find out.
Holes in the glass
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If you think the Smart Soundbar 900 sounds familiar, don't dream. It's a dead ringtone for the Smart Soundbar 700, right down to the classy (but slightly smudged) glass plate. The biggest difference is the matching set of racetrack-like oval holes on either end of the glass. These openings are for the additional upward-facing drivers that help the soundbar deliver the height effects that have become synonymous with Dolby Atmos.
The drivers are angled upwards so they can bounce certain sounds off your ceiling and back to your listening position. While the 900 is impressively short (2.29 inches tall) and could easily fit under most large screen TVs, don't put it there. It has to be open to get the most out of these aspiring riders.
In its black guise, the 900 pretty much disappears into the background, but if you want your soundbar to make both a visual and an audible statement, it is also available in white.
One port too little
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You can connect the Smart Soundbar 900 to your TV with an HDMI cable or an optical cable, and Bose includes both. If you use the optical cable, you will not be able to send a Dolby Atmos signal to the soundbar even if your TV supports it. Atmos is simply too bandwidth-hungry for an optical connection – it requires the thicker HDMI cable. That's not to say that the 900 doesn't produce very visually immersive sound when used – it'll still sound great thanks to the company's TrueSpace technology – you just can't get the full Atmos experience without HDMI.
The Smart Soundbar 900 delivers beautifully clear, room-filling sound.
Speaking of HDMI: The 900 only has one HDMI port, through which it receives audio from your television and sends control instructions back to the television. For most people, this will be a bit of a nuisance as it will force you to give up one of your TV's HDMI ports and not provide you with a replacement. Depending on the number of HDMI devices you have and the number of inputs on your TV, it may even be necessary to purchase an HDMI switch.
But for the audio purists out there with older TVs, this poses another challenge. If your TV doesn't support HDMI eARC (most TVs over two years old), there is simply no way to get the highest quality audio signal that the 900 can handle, namely lossless 24-bit Dolby Atmos in Dolby TrueHD.
With other Dolby Atmos soundbars, such as the Sony HT-A7000, you can connect a Blu-ray player or streaming media device to one of the HDMI inputs on the soundbar, bypassing your TV's HDMI ARC restrictions by adding You send the sound directly to the soundbar while the video is relayed to your TV.
The Smart Soundbar 900 isn't the only Atmos soundbar with this limitation. The Sonos Arc also only has a single HDMI port.
Don't lose the remote control
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While it is true that you can control all functions of the Smart Soundbar 900 via the Bose Music app (more on this in a moment), the supplied remote control should be close at hand if there are no controls integrated into the soundbar itself. The only controls that Bose installs on this smooth glass surface are for intelligent loudspeaker functions (microphone mute, action button). You need the remote control or the app for volume, mute, play / pause and other functions.
Oddly enough, Bose decided to equip the Soundbar 900 with one of its simple, non-backlit infrared remote controls, while the Soundbar 700 comes with a much fancier, backlit Bluetooth universal remote. When I asked Bose why this was the case, I was told that the Voice4Video feature (which I'll discuss below) is viewed as a replacement for most of the functions on the universal remote.
You need an app for that
In theory, you can only operate the Smart Soundbar 900 with the included remote control, but you're missing out on a lot. The Bose Music app (for iOS and Android) guides you through the setup process, including connecting the soundbar to your home's WiFi, calibrating the sound with the included AdaptIQ microphone, and setting up the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa if you want to activate the intelligent loudspeaker functions of the 900. The connection of the soundbar to Wi-Fi is a prerequisite if you want to use one of the natively supported music streaming services, Spotify Connect or Apple AirPlay 2.
In the app you will also find all the deeper settings such as adjustments for bass, treble and treble channels as well as the dialogue improvement mode. None of this can be controlled with the remote control. The app is also the only way to confirm that the soundbar is receiving and playing Dolby Atmos.
Brilliant sound
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Whether you're playing 5.1, Dolby Atmos or a standard 2-channel stereo mix, the Smart Soundbar 900 delivers wonderfully clear, room-filling sound. In typical Bose fashion, the sound signature tends to accentuate the mids and high frequencies out of the box. For music, there is a crisp, energetic sound to vocals, but it is also ideal for TV dialogues.
Bass is also abundant. But as mentioned above, to maximize the speaker's low-end capabilities, you'll need to dive into the Bose Music app as it's pretty tame the first time you set it up. I also recommend increasing the elevation channel settings. Even with my basement's relatively low ceiling height of 7.5 feet, I found that I needed the extra punch to get the most out of these upward-shooting height drivers.
It's not difficult to convince yourself that there are additional surround speakers in the room.
It does take some tweaking, but once you're done with the settings, the Smart Soundbar 900 creates a compelling Dolby Atmos sound dome. All of my Atmos test films like Mad Max: Fury Road, Ford V. Ferrari and Avengers: Infinity War sounded exciting. You can definitely hear the added dimension of the height channels, but like the non-Atmos Smart Soundbar 700, what catches you most is the incredible breadth of the 900's soundstage. Sit in the middle and it's not difficult to convince yourself that there are additional surround speakers in the room.
This is where the comparison of the 900 with the Sonos Arc becomes interesting. From a purely Dolby Atmos perspective, the Arc does a better job with height effects, and its significantly larger housing produces deeper, more resonant bass. But the Smart Soundbar 900 is better at creating a full surround sound experience, and it also offers better clarity, especially with dialogue.
Musically, both soundbars are convincing, but here, too, each has its strengths. The Arc produces a warmer bass response, but cannot quite keep up with the clarity of the Soundbar 900 in the upper ranges. Given the 900's wider soundstage, I think Bose has the edge, but that will likely depend on personal preference.
Streaming sounds
It's worth noting that Android users have less high-quality music streaming options since the soundbar 900 supports AirPlay 2 but not Chromecast. All streaming services natively supported in the Bose Music app (Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn, Deezer, iHeart Radio and SiriusXM) are streamed via Wi-Fi. If these services support high-resolution or lossless audio (and you have access to that level of content), you should be getting the best possible audio quality. However, if you're using Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube Music, or one of the many services not included in the Bose Music app, you're limited to Bluetooth and using either the SBC or AAC codec.
Apple device owners have more freedom of choice. With AirPlay 2, practically any music app can stream via Wi-Fi in lossless quality of up to 16-bit / 48kHz from an iPhone to the Soundbar 900, and all grouped speakers can play along from there.
This pales in comparison to the huge range of services that Sonos supports. The Bose Music app also doesn't offer the ability to browse all of your services from a single interface or create an unlimited number of favorite playlists and stations – you're limited to just six.
"Alexa, channel 33"
Your TV or streaming device may have built-in Chromecast, but the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 does not. Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
If you choose Amazon Alexa as your voice assistant, Bose offers a clever way to control your TV and cable set-top box with voice commands. It's called Voice4Video and it's configured in the Bose Music app. Once the soundbar has correctly identified your TV, cable box and local cable provider, you can turn your TV on and off and use your voice to jump to specific channels.
It's hardly anything you need, but if you want it you'll be happy to know that it works really well. I have seen only a few occasions where I had to repeat a TV-based voice command.
Multiroom audio
Bose Smart Soundbar 900 (left) and Sonos Arc. Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
One of the advantages of having a speaker connected to Wi-Fi is the ability to broadcast multi-room audio. Here you can play a different music source on each speaker, have all your speakers play the same music in perfect sync, or split your home into speaker groups, each doing their own thing.
The Smart Soundbar 900 lets you team up with other Bose wireless speakers, bluetooth speakers, and headphones to create a whole house audio solution – a very versatile range of options. These grouped speakers can play any source that the primary speaker can access, be it Bluetooth, Bose Music's built-in streaming services, AirPlay 2, or your TV's sound. However, the management of these speaker groups is not quite as flexible.
If your group only contains Bose Wi-Fi speakers, such as the Bose Home Speaker 500 or Bose Smart Soundbar 300, you can edit the group and easily add and remove speakers as you wish. However, groups containing SimpleSync Bluetooth products like the QuietComfort 45 cannot be edited – you have to end them and create a new group with the devices you want.
Bose may not offer the same level of music controls as Sonos, but the multiroom controls are excellent.
Pssst … the children are sleeping
If you have Bose Bluetooth headphones, such as the newly released QuietComfort 45 or the Noise Canceling Headphones 700, you can pair them with the Soundbar 900 using Bose's SimpleSync technology. Most soundbars offer Bluetooth to stream music from your phone to the speaker, but very few let you do it the other way around – from the soundbar to a headphone – and it's a handy feature.
Our opinion
The Bose Smart Soundbar 700 was already a great speaker for movies and music. The only thing missing was Dolby Atmos. Now that the Smart Soundbar 900 is here, adding that missing component for just $ 100 more, it's an excellent choice for a single speaker home theater sound system.
Is there a better alternative?
For this price there is really only one alternative to the Bose Smart Soundbar 900: The Sonos Arch. They are the same price and go head to head on many functions. Both give you a choice of Google or Amazon voice assistants, both connect to music streaming services, both can be used as part of a whole house wireless audio setup, and both use just a single HDMI eARC port for the TV connectivity.
With great software from Sonos, the Arc is a better choice for all-home audio and control of your music. It also creates deeper bass and slightly more noticeable Dolby Atmos height effects. But you can't plug in headphones for private listening, the high-frequency clarity isn't as good as with the Bose, it doesn't come with its own remote control, and you can't control your TV with Alexa. It is also significantly larger and bulkier than the Soundbar 900.
One more consideration: Bose gives you cheaper options for adding a subwoofer and wireless surround speakers. You can add these to the Soundbar 900 for just $ 798. It takes at least $ 1,147 to do the same with the Sonos Arc – although you can get a much higher quality speaker set from Sonos.
How long it will take?
Bose may not offer software updates for the Smart Soundbar 900 forever, but I see no reason why it shouldn't give you great performance as long as you choose to own it. Bose products come with a one-year warranty.
Should you buy it?
Yes, unless you already own other Sonos products. In this case the Arc is the more logical choice.
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