Top Soundbars 2023

The JBL Bar 9.1 is great for mixed use. It has a balanced sound profile right out-of-the-box with just a touch of extra bass, thanks to its subwoofer. Its detachable satellites also help to create a more immersive listening experience, whether you're listening to music or movies. While it can get loud enough for a large or crowded room, there's some compression at max volume. Still, it can reproduce dialogue clearly and accurately, and you can stream podcasts or audiobooks directly to the bar via a variety of wireless connections.

The Bose SoundTouch 300 soundbar delivers strong audio performance with multiple ways to stream music and connect to your TV.

The $2,400 Devialet Dione is a powerful all-in-one Dolby Atmos soundbar that delivers a phenomenal bass output and detailed surround sound. But for the price, it’s not without disappointments.

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is good for mixed usage. Thanks to its room correction feature, it can automatically optimize audio reproduction based on your space. It has a neutral sound profile suitable for many types of audio content. It supports Dolby Atmos and surround content, too. Unfortunately, it doesn't reproduce a very extended low-bass, so you don't feel the deep thump and rumble in action-packed movies or bass-heavy music. However, you can always add a sub and satellites to improve the performance.

The pricey Panasonic SoundSlayer is a gaming-focused mini soundbar designed to sit under your monitor or TV and bring room-filling audio power to your gaming experience.

The LG SK1 soundbar is decent for dialogue-heavy content like podcasts and TV shows. The sound profile is neutral and well-balanced in the mid-range, which is typically the frequencies at which voices are reproduced. It doesn't have a dedicated center channel, so it may not sound as clear and accurate as some of the other soundbars we've tested. On the downside, it doesn't have a dialogue enhancement feature to help make voices sound even clearer. However, it has Bluetooth capabilities, so you can stream content from your phone or tablet to the bar wirelessly.

Decent for music. The sound profile of the Bose Soundbar 500 is fairly flat and well-balanced, although some may feel like it lacks sub-bass without the optional subwoofer. On the upside, it has room correction so it sounds better in your room. On the downside, it doesn’t get very loud and there’s noticeable compression at max volume, especially in the bass range, meaning it might not be the best option for bass-heavy genres.

The pricey Bowers & Wilkins Formation Bar may be the most beautiful soundbar we've tested, but it needs a companion subwoofer to sound its best.

The Sony HT-A3000 sets out to simplify overly complicated home theater setups with a single soundbar — and it largely succeeds in its efforts. Unfortunately though, the higher price tag and middling sound quality impede it from being the best soundbar we’ve seen this year and place it much closer to the middle of the pack.

The Bowers & Wilkins Formation Flex is an attractive, powerful wireless speaker, but you can find similar audio quality for less money.