![]() ![]() Sound effects are clear and detailed, and you don't have any trouble following the action on screen, thanks to its clear and detailed dialogue reproduction. With its wide, immersive soundstage, you feel like your favorite movies are playing out in the space around you, bringing the action right to your living room. It's a premium 5.0.2 soundbar that supports many different audio formats, including those that are commonly found on streaming platforms like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos. Where the Beam Gen 1 might skim over certain complex sounds, the Gen 2 has a greater capacity to take them on, consistently resulting in a richer, more nuanced and varied listening experience.The best all-in-one soundbar that we've tested is the Sonos Arc. Atmos aside, it sounds incredible, reaching deeper than the Beam Gen 1 with greater refinement, a warmer treble, and wider dynamic range. The Beam Gen 2 provides a more enveloping, spatial soundscape with richer, more detailed audio as well as tangible motion and depth. ![]() Well, genuine overhead sounds are perhaps a stretch too far, but there’s more to Dolby Atmos than aeroplanes and helicopters, and we’re pleased to report that the Beam Gen 2 handles the format better than any similarly priced soundbar. So does the new Beam produce compelling height effects and precisely place sounds in three-dimensional space without the use of upward-firing drivers? With its enhanced processor power, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 uses psychoacoustic HRTF (head-related transfer function) technology to give the impression of height without the need for vertical drivers. When watching Atmos content, two of these arrays are dedicated to reproducing overhead and surround sounds. The new Beam’s internal layout is much the same as its predecessor’s, but the quintet of front-facing drivers are configured into five separate arrays rather than three. Given that the original still blows us away with its sound quality, can the new model, with the added complexity of Dolby Atmos support, achieve extra spaciousness and immersion without having to sacrifice any of the original model’s directness, detail or general musicality? Key to the original Beam's success has been simplicity of design and streamlined functionality that, remarkably for its size, has overcome two of the usual limitations of compact speakers: sonic scale and weight. **Winner: Sonos Beam Gen 2** Sonos Beam Gen 2 vs Sonos Beam Gen 1: sound On the subject of simplicity, the Beam Gen 2 also gains NFC so that you can tap your phone to initialise the wi-fi setup. While some people will be disappointed to note that there’s still no HDMI passthrough in the Gen 2, Sonos insists that resisting having multiple HDMI inputs and sticking to a single ARC/eARC connection keeps things as simple as possible, though we suspect that keeping costs down is also probably a factor. Apple AirPlay 2 support remains, too, as well as built-in smart assistants in the form of Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Lovers of HD music will be pleased to know that both models also now support Amazon Music’s Ultra HD audio, while the Gen 2, in addition to its big sibling the Sonos Arc, also now boasts Dolby Atmos Music support.Įlsewhere, other features remain the same, including support for Sonos’ TruePlay room calibration via the Sonos S2 app, which also allows you to adjust treble and bass, and access the Loudness, Night Sound and Speech Enhancement features. Upgrading to eARC connectivity also means that the Beam Gen 2 has a larger bandwidth and speed allowing it to deliver up to 32 channels of audio, including eight-channel, 24bit/192kHz uncompressed data streams at speeds of up to 38Mbps. Whether you’ll be able to tell the difference via an affordable device such as this is another matter entirely. Still, if you also use a 4K Blu-ray player, you might appreciate knowing that your soundbar is capable of handling its full-fat Atmos signal. Truth be told, that’s likely not a huge benefit here, as all streaming services currently deliver Atmos in Dolby Digital+ anyway. The main benefit of eARC is its substantial boost in bandwidth and speed compared to that found in regular ARC connections – it means that Dolby Atmos signals can be delivered in the advanced Dolby TrueHD format, rather than the Dolby Digital+ format to which standard ARC is limited. In addition, the new Beam Gen 2 also lands with eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) connectivity. This opens up the door to a more immersive audio experience via the newer Beam. Let’s kick off with Dolby Atmos support – the Beam Gen 2 has it (thanks, in part, to a CPU that’s 40% more powerful), while the original Beam doesn’t. This is where the differences between the two Beam models become more significant. ![]()
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