Sonos has built its reputation in the wireless home audio category with multiroom speakers, soundbars, and an app ecosystem that connects everything across the home. The Beam Gen 2 is Sonos’s compact Dolby Atmos soundbar, built around smaller rooms and TVs up to 55 inches. Five drivers (four woofers and a center tweeter) create a wide soundstage, with three passive bass radiators handling low-end output and five Class D amplifiers powering the array. HDMI eARC connectivity supports lossless audio passthrough from the TV, with Wi-Fi and AirPlay 2 also available for music streaming when the TV is off.
You can get the Sonos Beam Gen 2 on Amazon for $369, marked down $130 from $499 for a 26% discount.
A powerful portable soundbar that can enhance your favorite movies and TV shows
The Beam Gen 2 uses psychoacoustic processing to produce Dolby Atmos from its five forward-facing drivers. Two of the five drivers handle overhead and surround audio, using software algorithms made possible by a CPU 40% faster than the original Beam. The result is a wider soundstage for movies, TV shows, and games than the original Beam delivered, with crisp dialogue and centered vocals among the soundbar’s notable features. Audio format support includes Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and stereo PCM, as well as DTS Digital Surround for older audio sources.
You only have to connect the Beam to the TV with an HDMI cable and plug in a power cord, and you’re good to go. Wi-Fi connectivity supports both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, and Apple AirPlay 2 lets you stream music directly from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Voice control works with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, both of which are built into the soundbar. The Sonos app handles setup, room tuning, multiroom audio, and music service connections, with Trueplay tuning available on iOS to calibrate the sound to your specific room.
Multiroom audio is a key part of the Sonos ecosystem. You can group the Beam Gen 2 with other Sonos speakers around the house to play the same audio throughout multiple rooms or stream different content to each speaker. Adding a pair of Sonos rear surround speakers and a Sonos Sub turns the Beam into a full 5.1 surround setup over time. Music services including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, and dozens more connect through the Sonos app for a unified streaming experience across all connected speakers.
The Beam Gen 2’s virtual Dolby Atmos does not match the overhead immersion of soundbars with dedicated up-firing drivers, including the higher-end Sonos Arc and Arc Ultra. Support for DTS:X is also missing, though the older DTS Digital Surround format works for compatible content. One thing to note is that Trueplay automatic room tuning requires an iOS device because it uses the iPhone mic, so make sure you have one handy if you want to use that feature.
At $369, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 is among the lower-priced Dolby Atmos soundbars from a major audio brand. Pick one up on Amazon while the discount holds for Dolby Atmos sound and Sonos ecosystem integration at $130 below the standard list price.