A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to thoroughly test the Sonos Beam soundbar, a very compact model that offered a powerful and impressive sound on a first listen, able to fill a medium-sized room without problems although somewhat lacking in bass and with a clear boost in vocal frequencies, which allowed to improve the intelligibility of the dialogues.
Now the manufacturer has announced that they already have the evolution of this model that will arrive at our houses in October under the same name of Beam, although with the surname of “2nd generation”.
We are in front of a sound bar almost identical compared to the first version in terms of general appearance, which in a compact size of 69x651x100 mm promises to offer us everything we need to start enjoying the equipment without using an external subwoofer.
This season the brand has introduced more computing power to its digital processors that will now be capable of decode tracks in Dolby Atmos theoretically offering a more enveloping sound that also adjusts to the acoustics of the room through Trueplay technology.
To achieve these surround effects, inside the bar it has gone from 3 sets of drivers to a total of 5 sets, each with its own amplifier Class dThese two extras are in charge of managing the Atmos effects and expanding the sound space. Thus, the internal configuration of drivers is made up of a center tweeter and 4 elliptical woofers that are accompanied by 3 passive radiators to improve bass response.
Improvements and functionalities have also been incorporated into the mobile control application from which we can manage the bar, such as Speech Enhancement to highlight dialogs, or Night sound that reduces the intensity of the low frequencies so as not to disturb the neighbors.
The bar will feature long range microphone With noise cancellation for vocal control, we can adjust the level of bass, treble and general volume and it will be compatible with the stereo sound formats PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD and Multichannel PCM. It will also allow us to access the service Amazon Ultra HD and Dolby Atmos Music by the end of the year.
Regarding connectivity, I am very afraid that they have continued with the same “austere” line as the first model, with only WiFi AC for control from the mobile, a Ethernet port and other HDMI eARC / ARC that thanks to HDMI-optical adapter included in the package can be used in televisions that only have optical audio output.
Price and availability
The new sound bar 2nd generation Sonos Beam will be available for pre-sale on September 14 by 499 euros on the manufacturer’s website, and worldwide as of October 5.
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