You may not realize it, but your TV is sad. It’s sad because it wants to offer great sound to accompany its impressive image, but unfortunately it is not prepared to do so. You could buy a multi-component home theater system or a couple of bookshelves to remedy things, but if that seems too complicated for you, a good sound bar is a great alternative.
Fortunately, now is the exact time to get one. Below, we’ve rounded up the best sound bars on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday to help you change the look of your TV.
Turn it on with unlimited access to CABLING. Get the best reports that are too important to ignore just for $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive content only for subscribers. Subscribe today.
WIRED Featured Offers
Soundbar deals
If you’re looking for a simple and affordable audio upgrade, Yamaha’s SR-C20A is an option, now at an extremely reasonable price. It doesn’t offer amenities like network streaming or multi-room connectivity, but its 100-watt power plant easily surpasses the pale performance your TV is likely to have. The 2.1-channel setup includes dual full-range drivers and a built-in woofer for some weight in the low frequencies. You’ll get a simplified TV connection via HDMI, standard Bluetooth streaming, and even a 3.5mm analogue input so you can connect a turntable with a preamp and some cable arrangements.
The Bar 1300X (8/10, WIRED recommended) is an excellent audio system made even more so with this offer. This multi-piece setup provides realistic Atmos immersion with a unique touch. The fully wireless, battery-powered surround speakers can be connected to the main bar for playback and charging, or disconnected to sit behind you for versatile setups; You can even take them outside as standalone Bluetooth speakers. It’s a futuristic feature, but my favorite feature about this bar is how good it sounds, offering a wide sound dome with 3D audio and great musicality to convey your songs. I wish the app was a little more precise for settings adjustments, but the 1300X’s performance makes up for it, bringing a cinematic feel to everything you play.
The Sonos Beam Gen 2 provides expansive sound in a pint-sized package. It’s not great at bass, but it offers detailed dialogue, an expansive soundstage, and solid music streaming capabilities from a bezel that virtually disappears under the TV screen. It provides good Dolby Atmos virtualization, although it’s more limited than bars with dedicated drivers (see the Bose smart sound bar). The Beam’s best trick is its advanced networking capabilities that allow you to connect with other Sonos speakers in a surround setup or a whole-home audio system via the Sonos app. Said application has been maligned lately, but now it seems to be working again. You can also stream music from the app directly from multiple services or via AirPlay and Spotify Connect. The Beam has long been among the most popular compact bars and remains one of the best options.
The Bose Smart Soundbar (8/10, WIRED recommended) is my new favorite compact soundbar thanks to its great sound and innovative new tricks. It all starts with truly stimulating speakers, which help deliver spatial immersion in Dolby Atmos TV shows and movies. The bar’s new AI Dialogue mode is just as impressive, providing fantastic clarity in dialogue and center channel effects. Perhaps most intriguingly, you can now connect Bose Open Earbuds to use them alongside the bar as personal surround speakers. The app is easy to use for making basic settings or streaming music, and the versatile design lets you connect other Bose speakers like a bass module subwooferso you can expand the system according to your needs.
Sonos’ popular Arc (9/10, WIRED recommended) has received an update in the Arc Ultra, providing fresh sound and some cool new features. But for $1,000, it makes the regular Arc look like a real bargain, especially on sale. The basic Arc is still an incredible bar, offering smooth, detailed sound, great dialogue, and expansive Dolby Atmos immersion thanks to multiple speakers and acoustic waveguides that bounce sound around the room. It has some fun features, like the ability to connect Ace headphones (8/10, WIRED recommended) with its clever TV Swap feature, or link Sonos speakers in a surround or multi-room audio setup with the Sonos app. The app has been making headlines lately for all the wrong reasons, but it seems to have bounced back and Arc remains one of the best standalone bars you can buy.
Klipsch’s Flexus Core 200 (8/10, WIRED recommended) is the most powerful and musical standalone soundbar I’ve heard at its price. Built more like a traditional speaker system than most plastic bars, it uses MDF construction and Onkyo internal components for impressive sound and responsive performance. Upstream drivers deliver blistering Dolby Atmos performance, and powerful woofers penetrate deep into the mid-bass region for cinematic impact. What you won’t get here is a Wi-Fi connection, which limits streaming to Bluetooth, but as the bar’s name implies, you can still add surround speakers or a massive subwoofer from the Flexus system. On its own, the Core 200 won’t give you all the boom of the bars with a separate subwoofer included, but if you value sound quality above all else, this is a great option.
The Ray (9/10, WIRED recommends) is a quirky little offering from Sonos, but the smallest bar on the list is a great option for the right buyer. This is the cheapest soundbar I’ve seen with this kind of networking capabilities, allowing you to connect over Wi-Fi and enjoy all the benefits of Sonos, including connecting with other Sonos speakers in a home system. audio for the whole house. The downside is that, unlike almost all the sound bars we tested, the Ray connects to your TV via an optical connection rather than HDMI. That means it may not work automatically with your TV remote (although most remotes can be programmed) and it doesn’t even come with its own remote, leaving only the Sonos app as an alternative. If you don’t mind those limitations, the Ray is the bravest bar of its size, delivering powerful, clear, and musical sound in a profile that barely registers.
If you’re looking for an incredibly affordable way to enjoy the thrills of surround sound, Dolby Atmos, and even its DTS:X rival, you won’t find a better deal than Vizio’s 5.1.2 soundbar (9/10, WIRED recommends). . Offering a multi-component setup with true surround speakers, powerful drivers, and a powerful subwoofer to boost the sound, this system will instantly elevate your sound game to cinematic heights. To make this affordable, the bar takes some shortcuts; It requires a wired connection for the surround speakers rather than a wireless connection like many competitors, and it doesn’t offer Wi-Fi for high-quality music streaming. However, you’ll get Bluetooth streaming as well as intuitive control via a backlit remote. This may be the best Atmos deal out there, and for sale, it’s a guilt-free pickup.