Now more than ever its super important that you get a sound bar for your tv
cause usually the built in speakers in your tv just really suck. Even
though yeah they’ll might get decently loud… they usually don’t have the best instrument
so everything sounds super close together but more importantly their bass is just a
rattling mess. So you’re really not going to be able to fully enjoy these major set pieces
that you’ll find in today’s blocker blusters if you’re trying to watch them from home.
Now there are a lot of sound bars out there but today we’re going to be checking out the new
Bose Smart Soundbar 300 which is just packed with features.
And if you’re someone that already has a pair of Bose headphones like lets say
the Bose NC 700’s… then the 300 is definitely going to make a fine addition.
Now when it comes to pricing the sound bar by itself retails for $400…
and since ive been using this sound bar in my room, the sound bar
by itself is perfectly fine. However you can get a separate bass module which retails for
$400 as well or you could get two additional surround sound speakers which retail for $300.
Ultimately for me ive just been using the sound bar by itself but you can always build it out.
Now when it comes to the contents of the box you get the sound bar it self, a 5 foot power cord
without a power brick which is good, a decent remote control and a 5 foot optical cable. Now
this speaker does have an HDMI ARC port but you are going to have to supply your own HDMI cable.
Now when it comes to speaker set ups this sound bar has 4 full range speakers, 2 located here
in the center and then we’ve got one on each side which fire out at like a 45 degree angle.
And in the dead center we’ve got a tweeter for those crisper highs. Now obviously
this is going to sound way better than the internal downward firing speakers that you’ll
find on your tv. But so that you can hear for yourself we’re going to jump into a sound test.
So like you may have just heard, the sound coming out of the sound bar is just more open,
much fuller, and more importantly the bass is just much cleaner. Really any sound bar is just going
to be an improvement over the built in speakers found on today’s TV’s cause today’s TV’s
just have a pair of downward firing speakers that just bounce sound off
the table. And in general they do tend to be very mids focused so that you can hear dialog
and their bass usually just ends up getting super distorted.
But the main reason why I really like the Bose Smart Sound bar 300 is cause of all of the extra
features. First of which is being able to stream whatever’s playing on the sound bar
to other bose speakers or bose headphones. So lets say for example me, I like to use this feature
with my Bose NC 700’s. And you can still use the active noise cancelation on your headphones
at the same time which is great either for when your
neighbors are being super loud or maybe someone might be vacuuming at home.
Or you can also still use the ambient mode on these headphones at the same time which could
be useful for like lets say you’re watching something late at night but you still want
to be able to hear your surroundings cause maybe your little one might wake up and start crying.
And you can also use this feature with the Bose QC 35’s,
Bose QC 35 Series 2, and you can even use this feature with Bose’s earbuds.
And from a performance stand point there aren’t any latency issues either.
However keep in mind you can only have one pair of headphones synced up to the sound bar.
Another major feature on the Bose Smart Sound bar is that it does have voice assistant integration.
And it plays nice with both Alexa, and Google assistant. So you can use either one. However if
you do decide to use Alexa with this sound bar you can do extra things like say Alexa turn on
the TV or Alexa switch to so and so channel… Now personally for me this isn’t a must have feature
but it does come in handy either for when you can’t find your remote or if you’re just too lazy
to get up an get it. However keep in mind if you do want to use these more advanced Alexa commands
you are going to have to hook up your sound bar to your TV via the HDMI port.
Another thing that I really like about this sound bar is simply its app.
This sound bar connects to Bose’s music center app. And from here you can easily adjust the bass,
and treble on this sound bar but more importantly you can also very easily the adjust audio delay
on this sound bar. Which can sometimes be very hard to adjust on other sound bars.
And finally this sound bar also has Airplay 2 support.
So if you want to play music through this sound bar from your iPhone
you don’t even have to manually pair it using Bluetooth. If its connected to your wifi then
it just going to show up on your iPhone and you're going to get much better range as well.
So over all, obviously the Bose Smart Soundbar 300 is going to sound way better than the internal
downward firing speakers that you’ll find in your TV. However the main reason why I really like this
sound bar is cause of all of the extra features. Being able to stream audio to your Bose headphones
is great for late night movie watching, having voice assistant integration is nice to have
and if you decide to use Alexa you do get voice commands for your TV, and then there’s also the
fact that this sound bar has a solid app that just make customization and tuning super easy.