4 reasons dumb soundbars are a waste of money

If you weren’t aware, there’s still a certain sniffiness about soundbars in some quarters of the audiophile community. It makes sense to a degree — all else being equal, a speaker with distinct channels will always be able to produce more authentic and nuanced surround sound. You might call a soundbar the audio equivalent of eating a veggie burger instead of the real deal. In practice, of course, many soundbars do sound amazing, and simulated Dolby Atmos is better than going without.

Likewise, a “dumb” soundbar is instantly preferable to using your TV’s internal speakers. If you’re going to spend money on external audio, however, I’d argue that you should gravitate towards smart technology. The industry has progressed to the point where for most use cases, you’re needlessly crippling yourself by choosing a vanilla soundbar.

Smart soundbars are increasingly cheap

You get what you pay for, though

As you’d imagine, it used to be that any smart soundbar was pricey. Indeed, you’ll still pay a fortune for the best of the best — the Sonos Arc Ultra, for instance, is about $1,100 before any discounts, and even the Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar is $900. Some people would balk at the idea of paying $1,100 for a complete home theater setup.

If all you want is something better than your TV’s internal speakers, though, it’s easy to jump in now. A Roku Streambar Pro is just $99, and that gets you both a Roku OS device and Amazon Alexa compatibility. If you want more power, you can opt for the likes of my Sonos Ray, which is normally around $220 but easy to find on sale. There may potentially be better values in terms of raw audio quality, but the Ray is already so loud, clear, and bass-heavy that I don’t feel the need for any add-on hardware.

Add-ons may be the one time it’s worth stepping outside of smart technology. If you really insist on a soundbar with Dolby Atmos and a separate subwoofer and/or satellites, that may be the way to go, but you’re not necessarily getting something dramatically better than an all-in-one smart bar in a similar price range. You may wish you’d paid a little bit more for the smart features.

Casting and voice commands can be huge

More than just TV audio

It may be possible to play music over a vanilla soundbar via Bluetooth, but that’s not necessarily as convenient as it should be. Phones, tablets, and computers normally auto-connect the moment a paired Bluetooth speaker turns on, and the last thing I want is to hear my browser and mobile games pumping out of my TV’s sound system. You can fix that by manually disconnecting, but then that and reconnecting becomes a hassle.

Technologies like Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect let you treat a smart soundbar like an on-demand music system without the trouble of Bluetooth or turning on your TV. The apps you’re casting from do have to be compatible, but it’s rare that you won’t have one of those three options, and there’s another advantage to them: bandwidth. Because casting relies on Wi-Fi, it supports higher quality, including (sometimes) spatial audio formats like Atmos. More rarely, lossless is possible, such as through Spotify Connect.

Soundbars with voice command support can cut out the middleman. Not everyone is comfortable with a smart speaker listening for a wake word — but once you get used to being able to ask for a song, playlist, or podcast on-demand, having to tap things out on a touchscreen feels antiquated. I just wish assistants were better at understanding artist and song titles outside your native language. Good luck asking Alexa or Siri to play music by Nachtmahr.

Smart home integration matters

The impact of automation

Speaking of voice assistants, a smart soundbar can potentially let you control your TV without having to hit a button on your remote or buy a model with a built-in mic. That won’t be a big deal for a lot of you — bars like the Ray don’t even support direct voice control — but I’ve got a pair of HomePod minis paired to one of my TVs, and it’s wonderfully frictionless to be able to open an app or turn off a TV no matter where you are in a room or what you’re holding.

For me, though, the real value of this tech is in integrated automation. A “movie night” routine, for example, might not only set your soundbar to a particular volume, but turn on your TV, dim the lights, close the blinds, and announce that the feature presentation is about to begin. This is going to be fenced in by the combination of products you own and the platform they share, but otherwise, the only limitation is how much effort you’re willing to put in.

In fact, it occurs to me that Apple, Amazon, and Google are missing out by not releasing their own smart soundbars. Even Amazon’s Fire TV Soundbars are actually dumb devices, rather than based on their namesake streaming tech. Imagine if there were an Apple equivalent of Roku’s Streambars — as much as some people dislike Siri, the Apple TV 4K is so popular that an all-in-one upgrade would probably boost the use of both Siri and HomeKit. Maybe the company will be brave enough once it finally delivers on its promised Siri overhaul.

App-based customization has real value

Your speaker your way

It’s honestly hard to go back to TV speakers that don’t have an app-controlled EQ. There can be ways of achieving similar control over a dumb soundbar, but I have particular preferences for the way I like my movies to sound, and I’d rather not go out of my way just to ensure the same treble and bass levels regardless of which app I’m using. One thing I’m particularly fond of about smart bars is their tendency to include vocal clarity boosters — my hearing is questionable at the best of times, so having dialogue enhanced automatically ensures that I don’t miss important plot info.

There can be additional features depending on the product you’re using. Some, like Sonos bars, can tune themselves to your room’s unique acoustics. You’ll also find options like alarms, sleep timers, and night modes, that last one coming in handy if you’re up late but don’t want to wake your partner with the gunfire in Commando.

If I have a complaint, it’s that some of these features are brand-specific, meaning there’s no way to control them from a third-party smart home platform. Maybe that will change in a later version of the Matter protocol — a man can dream.