Beam Gen 2 - Black - Soundbar with Dolby Atmos

I had my heart set on the Arc Ultra, but didn’t want to shell out nearly twice as much. I was worried I would be disappointed after going to numerous stores and listening to the both side by side. The Arc is definitely a superior product but that doesn’t not take away from how great the beam is!! It was going to be between getting the arc on its own or getting the Beam, Sub Mini and 2 Era 100’s. I am so glad I went with the later!! The era 100’s added so much to the whole thing. I think the beam is great, but I do think that it is much better when paired with a whole system. Also, set up was super easy! Literally just plugged it in and connected via the app and boom!

I almost bought a cheaper brand, but so glad I didn’t. This is the best sound bar I’ve ever had. Easy to set up, fantastic sound quality, and the speech enhancement option is a game changer. Looks great as well.

When I first connected the sound bar I was underwhelmed by the lack of low frequency output. Down loaded the Sonos app and performed the Trueplay procedure. What a difference! No, it isn’t as dramatic as a what sub woofer could produce but I am very happy with the balanced sound it provides. The clarity of dialog and singers voices is really outstanding. I had been using a pair of Klipsch bookshelf speakers connected to the TV. They were just ok, better than the TVs speakers but nowhere near the output from this sound bar. I’ve shied away from soundbars with subwoofers because of the gimmicky, artificial sound they produce. The standalone Sonos Beam in my mind delivers a more natural sound experience. A surprise was the ability to stream music content from my mobile device as well as content from the Sonos app. I’m a 78 year old senior. If I can navigate the technology there is no need to fear it. Every thing in the set up was straight forward with absolutely no glitches.

Love this soundbar. The sound quality is incredible. Not only does it work with the TV, it works directly with Alexa to stream music and it even streams music from my QNAP NAS. The setup was challenging but I finally got it to work. The only thing that would be nice to have is a basic remote. But I can use the SONOS app or Alexa for basic controls like next track or volume, so not a big deal. Otherwise, it does everything that I wanted and I'm very happy with it.

Sound was OK, a bit of improvement over regular tv sound but not enough improvement to have to constantly reset things and lose control over many functions on my tv remote. Specifically, my Fios cable remote no long turned off the TV after installing the soundbar; and volume controls not work consistently. It's just too complicated to figure out how to install and keep it going consistently and I chose not to invest more time into trying to get it work with my system so I returned it.

The Beam was fairly easy to install - once I found the right setting on my 8 year old flat screen TV. Customer support was very good: patient, helpful, etc., but because my TV was so old they did not know the right setting to change to enable the sound to be sent to the Beam. After I hung up with them I went through all the settings and found the correct one. The BASS is very good - and the sound clarity for speech makes it easier to understand the dialog even with SOME accents. That means I don't always need to turn on subtitles when my wife is watching a program with me.

I held off on becoming a Sonos house for years. They are costly, proprietary, a walled garden. But, I've been searching for whole house systems for 20 years. WISA was promising but never went beyond 5.1 speaker configurations. I had wired my house with speaker cable all back to an Onkyo receiver but that only had two zones. I figured after 20 years, things would not get better anytime soon. I splurged on Sonos Arc Ultra, ERA 100 and 300 pairs, Sub and Mini Sub, Move 2, and Beam Gen 2. Now I can play throughout the house including outside. Sonos is not going to rock your house. It's not that loud. The bass is not room shaking. Everything is just nice. I replaced Kef, Polk, and JBL speaker with these. I do miss the very loud volume for some music but overall, Sonos works for gatherings and movie watching. The Beam Gen 2 does not support Trueplay with Android phone apps. This is a Sonos feature available on the Arc Ultra, Move and other speakers with microphones. To set up the speakers for optimal playback in a room, you need to use an iPhone as that will simulate Trueplay. After all these years, Sonos still doesn't support Android sound management. The Android app is still difficult to use as of June 2025 after last year's update. It's still missing features like list scrolling in music library. There are so many issues with the new app but I'm hopeful these will be corrected in 2025. I compared many, many other soundbar systems both in store and on the web and was almost set for a Sony or Samsung soundbar. A couple of things stopped me. Most major electronic companies have confusing lines of soundbars and this makes it difficult to compare features and value. I was also confused about whether the soundbar would even work with my TV ARC connected as specs showed ARC, eARC, optical, and were basically not specific about TV brand and compatibility. I purchased the Beam Gen 2 just as Sonos announced a 25% price cut. For a bit more money, my initial $300 soundbar purchase turned into the Sonos Beam. The Beam does produce low frequencies without a sub and that was a nice surprise. Dolby Atmos support is OK but there are no upward firing speakers so I don't really notice Atmos on a Beam, unlike the Arc Ultra and ERA 300 system downstairs. There is voice enhancement for streaming video and it's very good when viewing news and movies. This is the second Beam for a spare room. The other Beam includes the Mini Sub and a pair of ERA 100's but I don't notice much of a difference in the sound field for most television programs.

Very much plug and play although it requires you to download the app. It is a good product for the price and works with my Samsung tv. Compatible with Spotify, Android, and iOS. Sound works well and fills the room,