Bose’s newest soundbar, the $499 Smart Soundbar 600 is the corporate’s newest volley within the cat-and-mouse recreation it performs with Sonos. In 2021, Sonos up to date its compact Beam soundbar with Dolby Atmos functionality, giving it a function that Bose’s equally priced and featured Smart Soundbar 300 didn’t possess. The Smart Soundbar 600 addresses that hole and even strikes the needle only a bit additional by integrating up-firing drivers, one thing the Beam lacks. It will likely be accessible October 20, however you possibly can pre-order it beginning October 10.

For those that is probably not steeped in Dolby Atmos trivialities, the 3D immersive sound format takes benefit of top in addition to left/proper/heart and rear encompass audio system. But not all Dolby Atmos soundbars possess devoted, up-firing drivers to bounce these top sounds off your ceiling to your viewing place. The second-gen Sonos Beam is one in all these soundbars, and it makes use of virtualization to create that sense of top as an alternative.

Virtualization will be very efficient, nevertheless it’s hardly ever nearly as good as devoted drivers, so we anticipate the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 to have an edge on this space. It’s additionally acquired a set of side-firing, racetrack-shaped drivers which may unfold the sound out to the perimeters, and a devoted heart driver for dialog.

I used to be handled to a demo of the Soundbar 600 on the September 2022 launch occasion for the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, and if that was any indication of its audio prowess, it’s trying like Bose has one other glorious speaker for patrons to decide on.

When you’re not listening to Dolby Atmos content material, Bose says that its TrueSpace tech will intelligently upscale stereo or 5.1-channel content material into an immersive combine, supplying you with an Atmos-like expertise for your whole motion pictures and exhibits.

Like its earlier good soundbars (300, 500, 700, and 900) the Bose Smart Soundbar 600 will be expanded with Bose’s assortment of subwoofers and encompass audio system, and you may make it a component in a multiroom speaker system, with the Bose Music app performing as your mission management.

The soundbar is provided with Bluetooth, and Apple AirPlay 2. It has Chromecast built-in, and you need to use it as an Amazon Alexa good speaker because of the built-in mics. If you go for Alexa smarts, you’ll additionally have the ability to use Bose’s Voice4Video function which helps you to management a related TV with just a few easy voice instructions.

Speaking of TV connections, the one draw back to the Smart Soundbar 600 (the identical draw back as all Bose and Sonos good soundbars) is that it solely has a single HDMI ARC/eARC connection, so you possibly can’t join an exterior video supply like a streaming media system and passthrough video to your TV whereas the soundbar handles the audio.

Like the Sonos Beam Gen 2, the Smart Soundbar 600 is kind of compact, at simply 27 inches broad and solely 2.2 inches tall. That makes it the proper dimension for lots of small-to-medium-sized rooms by itself, or bigger areas in the event you add the extra elements.

We’ll get our palms (and ears) on the Smart Soundbar 600 very quickly, and once we do, we’ll be again with our in-depth overview so you possibly can see if that is the Bose speaker you’ve been ready for.

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