Bose Smart Soundbar 900 Review

In the old days, when you wanted a home theatre system, there will be at least 5 speakers, a subwoofer and plenty of cables snaking around the home, plus a host of boxes of Blu Ray, CD players, a radio and more. These days, your TV is smart enough to have all the apps to stream the latest movies and a single HDMI cable to your soundbar will allow you to experience better dialogue and potentially a decent surround experience. But not all soundbars are created equal and just because there is an Atmos sticker on the box does not guarantee a wonderful surround experience.

Bose has been rather late into the game of Atmos, having entered earlier with decent efforts like the 300 and 700. These gave a very significant boost to the vocals and dialogue, some left and right directionality and sounded more than half decent for music too. They also had internal streaming options which allowed you to listen to the internet radio and other music streaming options.

Then came the 900 and it has been around for a bit, but I have finally got round to reviewing this upgrade to the well received Smart Soundbar 700. 

The 900 is a nice addition, since I have been hooked up to the Bose ecosystem, with a 300 and 500 in my other rooms for music playback and radio streaming. 

Some info and tech specs off their official website:

https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/speakers/home_theater/bose-smart-soundbar-900.html#v=bose_smart_soundbar_900_white

Some important points to note:

- HDMI eARC

- Atmos with 7 channels of speakers built in

- no additional HDMI inputs

- optical input

- No DTS decoding

- remote control included with physical buttons that you can use for preset inputs 

- option of adding a subwoofer and surround channels

- calibration microphone included for ADAPTiQ room calibration

- Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

- Height 5.81cm; Width 104.4cm; Depth 10.69cm

- Bluetooth and Airplay 2

- internet radio and music streaming options built in

- dialogue mode function 

- app based treble, centre and bass adjustments

When you first unbox it, you'll find everything you need in it. Not just the power cables, but the HDMI and optical cables, and even an extra long calibration headset mike combination as well as the remote (with batteries too). It's kept in a nice box which protects it well. Everything is thoughtful and spells luxury. 

The soundbar itself feels substantive and well built, yet it is quite low in profile at 5.8cm and will fit nicely under most TVs. But it is quite wide at 104cm so do check that it will fit. 

My reference set uses a rather large Dynaudio Centre Speaker and this is still wider ... but way slimmer.

The HDMI input is a little fiddly and awkward to find and insert, furthermore heavy HDMI cables can sag, but stick to the supplied one and you will be fine.

The app is simple to use and within minutes, you should be up and running. But do take a little to run in the unit and apply the ADAPTiQ room calibration. This neat calibration does make a substantive difference and I highly recommend it. In fact, this function and the presence of the physical input selection buttons were the highlights for me. 

The soundbar itself is extremely minimalistic, and you'll need the remote and or the app to run things. The remote is a small unit, with the aforementioned input buttons as well as some volume adjustment and a power button. You can also use voice activation on this unit. With Alex or Google, it can function as a device to control some of the smart devices in your home too. 

The is a pair of upward firing Atmos channels located at the ends of the speaker to help elevate the sound and in a small room with modest ceilings that are reflective it can help with the whole surround experience. 

So how does it sound?

Now, I will always advise you that if you are after the finest surround experience, there is no substitute for a proper home theatre system with surround speakers in the right locations, instead of a soundbar that projects sound from the front and relies on reflections to give you some semblance of a surround experience. 

With these caveats in mind, the Bose 900 does give a very decent account of itself in a room with the proper walls and ceilings to help it's cause. You get a bit of heights and width, but make no mistake, you will not enjoy the same enthralling surround experience you get in a cinema. 

Even so, the dialogue is very clear, the bass whilst not thunderous is substantive enough and personally in a small room, you will be alright without the addition of the bass module. 

If you want more oomph, a better surround experience, do consider adding the sub and surround speakers. However this will add to the cost significantly.  As it is, it will be one of the better soundbars for dialogue enhancement which is my primary concern and some surround effects. One thing though, I found that turning off the dialogue mode made the voicing less tinny or sharp.

In music playback, there is good pace, rhythm, and depth. There is decent voice separation, but you cannot turn off the surround effect to use just plain stereo. With pop, there is very good dynamics, but it is not going to fill a barn.

For the asking price, I was very impressed with it as a means to increase the intelligibility of dialogue, great with music and the streaming options are very nice, with the addition of Atmos as an icing on the cake rather than the main selling point. There are rivals in the same ballpark range, so do try them out or look out for my shootout in the next few weeks. 

** I have no financial interest or other interests in any of the items / events I write about.