Ditch Your Old Soundbar for Good, Sonos Beam Hits Record Low One Week Before Christmas on Amazon

The audio quality of TVs has improved dramatically over the years, but sleek modern displays sacrifice speaker quality for sleek designs and deliver tinny sound that undermines your viewing experience. Finding space for full surround sound systems proves to be a challenge in apartments or smaller living rooms where large speakers and subwoofers simply don’t fit into the layout.

Sonos has built its reputation on delivering premium audio in compact sizes, and the Beam (Gen 2) meets the soundbar needs of space-conscious homes without sacrificing performance: This Dolby Atmos soundbar is currently selling for $369 on Amazon, down from its regular price of $499, and marks a low point for one of the most respected names in home audio.

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A small package with immersive audio

The Dolby Atmos support creates soundscapes that are three-dimensional and places sounds above, around and next to you instead of right in front of you. This adds depth that regular stereo soundbars can’t match. Height channels bounce sound off your ceiling, making it sound like helicopters flying by or rain falling from above. This makes the scenes feel more realistic. The effect works best in rooms with flat ceilings that are less than 3 meters high. It can’t match dedicated ceiling speakers, but the virtual height makes the soundstage seem very large.

One of the most common complaints about TV audio is that voices are lost in music and sound effects crystal clear dialogue display solves this. Sonos designed a separate center channel processing system that focuses on vocal frequencies, so you can hear every word without having to keep changing the volume. Speech Enhancement Mode makes speech even clearer when it’s needed. This is useful during shows with strong accents or hard-to-understand lines that would otherwise require subtitles.

The Maximum power of 200 watts gives you enough volume to fill medium to large rooms without distortion. It also ensures clear sound even at high volume, when cheaper soundbars start to crackle. The frequency response drops to 50.4 Hz, giving explosions and music a nice bass presence without the need for a subwoofer. You’ll feel the low-end impact during action scenes and bass-heavy songs, but bass lovers may want to get the dedicated Sonos Sub for truly room-shaking low frequencies. The small size of 25.6 inches wide allows it to fit easily under most TVs without blocking screens or making entertainment centers too large.

The Trueplay tuning technology uses the microphone on your iPhone or iPad to figure out how sound travels in your room and then automatically changes the soundbar’s output for the best sound. The app plays test tones as you walk around the room. It measures how sound reflects off walls, furniture and ceilings to create a custom EQ profile. This calibration compensates for acoustic problems, such as placing speakers in corners or on bare walls, which would otherwise change the sound. This means the sound is always the same, regardless of how the room is set up.

You only need two cables to set it up: the HDMI eARC cable plugs into your TV for sound and the power cable plugs into a wall socket. An HDMI connection allows all audio sources from your TV to be sent via one cable, eliminating the need to connect every device directly to the soundbar. The Beam knows when you turn on your TV and turns on automatically. You can also use your current TV’s remote to change the volume without having to program anything else.

Buying the Sonos Beam Gen 2 for $369 is a great deal, as it’s the lowest price this model has ever been at and you’re getting high-quality audio engineering from a top company. The lowest price ever makes Sonos quality affordable to people who previously thought it was too expensive, and the timing right before the holidays makes it the perfect time to upgrade.

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