Sonos Playbar vs Sonos Beam

Playbar vs Beam comparison chart

Overall
Sonos Playbar
5.5
Sonos Beam
6
5
8

Sonos Playbar vs Sonos Beam review

Sonos Beam vs Sonos Playbar

Sonos Playbar review

The first explicit advantage of Sonos in the Sonos Playbar vs Sonos Beam comparison is the fact that the low-profile design of the panel corresponds to the Sonos corporate identity; it has been successfully designed in such a way that it can look relatively flat both when mounted on a wall and when installed under a TV. The Playbar is also one of the few sound panels that convincingly simulate surround sound - it creates the feeling that the room, as if, really has separate speakers. Its output power is 200W. There are 3.0 built-in channels.

Sonos Playbar

Sonos Beam review

What about this pretender to win the Sonos Beam vs Playbar rivalry despite the external simplicity, everything is very complicated inside - this is the signature feature of Sonos. For example, five microphones are installed in the case, which are responsible for interacting with voice assistants and for the operation of the DSP system, but the noise reduction system directly affects the sound quality. Four mid- and low-frequency drivers, one tweeter, each with class D amplifiers. Three bass reflexes here also managed to be hidden. There are 3.0 built-in channels.

Sonos Beam

Sonos Playbar pros & cons

Pros

  • I paired it with a Sonos subwoofer which I highly recommend and now there are nights where I never turn the TV on
  • After a no brainer install, I downloaded the Sonos app, which is intuitive, holds all my Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music songs, etc. which are easily accessed

Cons

  • Spoken dialogue is too quiet while action scenes are window-shaking loud

Sonos Beam pros & cons

Pros

  • I paired it with with my two Sonos One speakers and the surround sound is almost as good as my full 5.1 previous system
  • The native Apple Airplay streaming without the need for the Sonos app (it allows streaming collectively to the Play:1s also) is a great bonus also

Cons

  • The issue I have is codec support. Sonos has DD support and literally nothing else

Votes 2 2
Rating 5 5
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Common

Product

Sonos Playbar
Sonos Beam

Model

Playbar
Beam

Brand

Sonos
Sonos

Reviews

1767
3280

General

Placement type

table-top, wall-mountable
table-top, wall-mountable

Connection to source

wired, wireless
wired, wireless

Soundbar buttons

play/pause, volume up, volume down
volume down, volume up, microphone, play/pause

Audio features

Built-in channels

3.0
3.0

Amplification type

active
active

Output power, W

Separate speaker (in package)

0
0

Separate speaker connections

wireless
wireless

Subwoofer

Built-in subwoofer

Separate subwoofer (in package)

Separate subwoofer connections

wireless
wireless

Streaming services

Apple Music (AirPlay)

AirPlay 2
AirPlay 2

Amazon Music

Spotify

Other streaming services

Pandora, Tuneln, SoundCloud
Pandora, Tuneln, Chromecast

Connectivity

WI-FI

Bluetooth

Ethernet (RJ45)

2
1

NFC

HDMI input/output

0/0
1/0

HDMI ARC

HDMI eARC

HDMI CEC

Optical digital input/output

1/0
1/0

USB

Coaxial digital input/output

0/0
0/0

Analog audio input/output (RCA)

0/0
0/0

Headphone output

0
0

Subwoofer output

0
0

Features

Voice control

Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant

App control

Microphone

Remote control

Multi-room

Multichannel surround

Dolby Atmos

Dolby (other)

Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital

DTS:X

DTS (other)

has not
has not

User manual

Manual

Dimensions

Size (Wx H x D), cm/in

90 x 14 x 8.5/35.4 x 5.5 x 3.3
65 x 6.8x 10/25.6 x 2.7 x 3.9

Weight, kg/pounds

5.4/11.9
2.8/6.2

Other

Release year

2013
2018
Sonos Playbar
Sonos Beam
Sonos Playbar
Sonos Beam

Soundbars CHooseratoR comparison rating

  • better
  • worse
  • 5.5
  • 6
  • 5.5Sonos Playbar
  • 6Sonos Beam