so this is the sonos beam gen 2. now this isn't a huge upgrade from the original sonos beam
however there are some minor cosmetic changes and changes under the hood that we need to talk about
now the short of it is there really is no need to run out and upgrade if you have the original sonos
beam and even though this sound bar is decent i would mainly only recommend it for small rooms now
when it comes to pricing the sonos beam 2 retails for 450 the same as the bose smart soundbar 300
which i feel is its most direct competitor now for the purpose of this review we are strictly
going to be focusing on the soundbar itself now like a lot of other home theater setups out there
you can add an external subwoofer and or surround sound speakers to the soundbar if you wanted to
but for simplicity's sake we're only going to be focusing on the sound bar itself nonetheless if
you want to pick any of these products up they'll be linked down below and if you want to further
support the channel check out the merch shelf down below i made some shirts and hoodies that look and
feel great and if you've been watching me for a while you know i can be very particular so i'll
only set my name on something that i'm really proud of now first let's talk about the design
of this sound bar the sonos beam gen 2 has the same shape as the original beam we've got rounded
sides and a concave top but what is different here from the original beam is that the gen 2 now has
a perforated grille on the front very similar to what you would find on a lot of other sound bars
these days whereas the original beam has a fabric fascia now this isn't a huge change but i do have
to admit i do prefer the look of the gen 2 and just like before the beam 2 does a great job of
fully disappearing when you're watching a movie in a dark room after you go into the app and turn off
the constantly on indicator light now when it comes to dimensions the beam 2 has a length of
25.6 inches a thickness of 3.9 inches and a height of 2.7 inches now concerning its length the beam 2
is relatively short because here it is compared to the bose smart soundbar 300
and the jbl bar 5.0 however when it comes to its height the beam 2 is pretty tall and personally
i've always wished that the beam 2 was thinner but besides the height of this sound bar the
beam 2 should be easy enough to place almost anywhere but besides the height of this soundbar
the beam 2 should be easy enough to place almost anywhere however i do have to point out that this
soundboard does not come included with a wall mounting kit that's sold separately just like
with bose but now let's talk about what does come included in the box now obviously you get a power
cord and this power cord goes into the ac port on the soundbar pretty simple stuff however i really
like this power cord for a few reasons now first off there is no external power brick that you
have to worry about which is great because it makes wall mounting the sound bar much easier
but i also really like this power cord because it's longer than normal and it's very flexible
as well so it just makes wiring the sound bar into your home theater setup much easier so even though
most people would overlook something as simple as this power cord i thought i'd give credit
where credit is due now the beam 2 also comes included with an hdmi cable and this leads us
to the first major change under the hood of this soundbar now the hdmi out port on the beam gen 2
now has e-arc support whereas the hdmi port on the original beam only has arc supports now whether
your tv has e-arc or arc support doesn't matter the sound bar is still going to work with your tv
however if your tv does have e-arc support and then you're going to be able to enjoy
higher quality audio formats like let's say dolby atmos you know the one that's printed on the box
now what dolby atmos is is that it's an audio format that allows creators to play sounds
in a three-dimensional space now we'll get deeper into dolby atmos in a little bit but for right now
i just want you to know that all content doesn't automatically have dolby atmos and all tvs don't
have e-arc support especially older tvs but these aren't prerequisites to use the sound bar now the
sonos beam 2 also comes included with an hdmi to optical port adapter just in case your tv doesn't
have an hdmi port that has arc or support but i'm just being blunt here if your tv doesn't have arc
or eor support then you should probably upgrade your tv before getting a sound bar rule of thumb
you usually want to try to use an hdmi connection between your tv and soundbar and also the beam 2
does have an ethernet port on the back which could come in handy if you plan on placing the soundbar
in an area of the house with a spotty wi-fi and if you plan on constantly streaming music to it
however i feel that if you're still suffering from spotty wi-fi around the house i feel that
you should probably upgrade your wireless network before getting a sound bar if you were to upgrade
your wireless network it's going to improve your streaming experience because your content
isn't going to buffer among many other things but ethernet port aside the sound bar does have wi-fi
and it also has airplay 2 support which is good if you're an iphone user and you can also cast to it
which is good if you're an android user so as long as you're connected to the same wi-fi network as
the sound board you're going to be able to stream music to it and if you want to you can always use
this soundbar as a smart speaker and the sonos beam gen 2 plays nice with both google assistant
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down 2.9 over the last 24 hours however one pet peeve that i do have about this sound bar is
that you cannot connect to it using bluetooth you can only stream music to the beam 2 using wi-fi
and some people just don't like to have their sound bars on their wi-fi network either for
security reasons congestion reasons or just connectivity issues and personally i don't want
to be forced to have to share my wifi password with just anybody who might be over the house
and they might want to stream music to the sound bar but now let's talk about actually listening
to your music with this soundbar regarding speaker setups the beam 2 has a frontward firing tweeter
which is then flanked by two mid-range woofers then there are two front wheel firing
passive radiators and there's an additional passive radiator that shoots out the back
and finally there's a mid-range woofer on each side which is angled out at like a 45 degree angle
overall the beam 2 has a very respectable speaker setup however there are two major disclaimers that
i have to point out here now first there's dolby atmos which is the main new feature on the beam 2
over the original beam however the beam 2 doesn't have upper firing speakers like let's say the
sonos arc both smart soundbar 900 or the sony hta 5000 so you're not going to get true dolby
atmos you're going to get virtual dolby atmos now don't get me wrong the beam 2 sounds great
but you're not going to get the same verticality effect that you would with these more premium true
dolby atmos sound bars and then if there's the max volume performance on this soundbar
by itself i feel that this soundbar is better suited for smaller rooms cause it just doesn't
get super loud when compared to its direct competitors like the bose smart soundbar 300
or jbl bar 5.0 the sonos being 2 just doesn't get as loud and can leave you wanting more
if you're in a medium sized room and this is the same issue that i had with the original beam but
now we're going to jump into the sound test you're going to notice that the beam 2 is playing at a
higher volume setting than the bose but they're getting just as loud as one another
that's just a false truth no need to argue
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so like you may have just heard obviously any sound bar is going to sound better than your
tvs built-in speakers your tv most likely just has a pair of downward firing speakers that
bounce sound off of the table they don't get all that loud and their bass becomes a rattling mess
at higher volumes and even if you were to have a more premium tv like let's say for example
the samsung q8a whose built-in speakers don't sound all that bad you're still going to enjoy a
sound quality improvement if you were to invest in the soundbar now even though the sonos beam
2 doesn't get super loud to my liking and even though you're only getting virtual dolby atmos
so you're not going to get the same verticality effect that you would with a true dolby atmos
soundbar i gotta admit the sonos beam 2 has really good instrument operation the beam 2 sounds more
open than the bose smart sound bar 300 and even though the beam 2 was playing at relatively higher
volumes and even at max volume sometimes even at those higher volumes the beam 2 continued to
sound very clear and distortion was not an issue and through sonos's app you can go in and adjust
the eq on the soundbar now personally i think the trouble on this soundbar is just fine but i do
like to raise the bass on this soundbar a little bit but even if you were to go in and raise the
bass on this soundbar all the way up its bass is still not going to have too much physicality to it
and the sound bar does struggle a bit to actually rattle the floors and walls in your house
and if you were to raise the base on the sound bar too much it does start to sound shallow so overall
i like how the beam 2 sounds i really appreciate the amazing instruments operation on the soundbar
even when you're not watching dolby atmos content however i gotta stress that the beam 2 does not
get super loud it doesn't get as loud as a lot of other sound bars out there so you definitely don't
want to get the beam 2 if you plan on placing it in a large room or maybe even a medium sized room
because it is going to leave you wanting more then there's the nature of its base the beam 2 has a
decent amount of bass but it's not as much bass as some other sound bars out there and its bass
does lean more towards the audible side so you're not going to feel what's happening on the screen
as much as you would with some other sound bars out there but finally let's talk about the media
controls and app on this soundbar unfortunately the beam 2 does not come included with a remote
control like most other sound bars do however the soundboard does have meter control buttons on it
so that you can raise or lower the volume and skip through your music directly from the soundbar
itself but if let's say you have a little one and you don't want them messing around with these
control buttons you can always deactivate them now personally i like having the control buttons
on the soundbar and i don't mind that you don't get an included remote because i usually just use
my phone anyways but then there's the app now the app itself is fine it's easy to use and i haven't
had any connectivity issues with it however what i don't like about this app is that sonos's app
does like to collect a fair amount of information on you and i especially hate that you have to
sign into your sonos account to use this app so there's that but if you can look over those two
things then this app shouldn't be a problem but finally let's talk about pairing this sound bar up
with other speakers now if you have other sonos sound bars or sono speakers lying around the house
you can group them all together and get them to play in sync however since the soundbar does
have airplay 2 support and chromecast support if you have any other airplay 2 or chromecast
enabled speakers lying around the house connected to the same wi-fi network you can also group them
together and get them to play in sync as well but with all that being said the sonos beam 2 is
decent and i definitely can't hate on it however this isn't a sound bar that i would recommend to
everyone now yes the sonos beam 2 does have dolby atmos but it's not true dolby atmos because you
don't have those upwards firing speakers so you're not going to get the same verticality effect that
you would with a true dolby atmos sound bar there's also the max volume performance of this
sound bar the beam 2 will struggle to fill a large room with a sound and if you've got a medium sized
room it's going to leave you wanting more and then there's the bass on the sound bar it just isn't as
physical as some other sound bars out there however where the sonos beam 2 does stand
out is is isomer separation the beam 2 sounds very open and continues to sound very clear
even at max volume and believe me you're going to want to use max volume on the sound bar on a
regular basis now even though the beam 2 is not my top pick it is a good option if you want something
simple that just works and if you plan on placing it either in your bedroom or small living room
if you made it this far i guess you enjoyed the video so hit the like button and get subscribed if
you want to pick any of these products up they'll be linked down below and if you want to further
support the channel check out the merch i made some shirts and hoodies that look and feel great
and you know i can be very particular so i'll only slap my name on something that i'm really proud of