Sonos Beam vs Bose Soundbar 300: Key Differences

Did you just buy a new TV ,and now you’re looking for the best soundbar to complement your purchase? Are you at the Sonos Beam vs Bose Soundbar 300 crossroads? In many homes today, it is normal to see people having sound systems to support their Television sets or other household gadgets.

Obviously, you’re going to be much better off going with a soundbar rather than sticking with your TV’s built-in speakers. Now when it comes to choosing between AV Sonos beam and Bose smart soundbar 300.

I have to say that you are better off going with the Bose from a performance standpoint.

The Bose does get a little louder than the Sonos. But more importantly, the Bose has more physicality in its base, allowing you to better feel what’s on-screen and more immersed.

Pricing

We’re going to compare the Sonos beam to the Bose smart sound bar 300, which is an awesome name, by the way, but more importantly, the Bose smart sound bar 300 has been my go-to sound bar for a few months now, regarding pricing both of these sound bars retail for $400. 

Now for the purpose of this review, we’re going to be evaluating these sound bars by themselves. But if you want to, you can always build out these sound bars by either adding a sub or a pair of surround sound speakers.

But if you do decide to build out these systems, their total price is going to be way different from one another. 

With the Bose, if you were to pick up their bass module, it’s going to run you $400, whereas the Sonos Sub retails for $700, which is almost twice as much as the beam itself, and with the Bose, if you were to pick up their surround sound speakers, it’s going to run you $300. Whereas with the beam, you would have to pick it up to yourself, which is going to renew for $358. 

So the total cost of the Bose system with the soundbar bass module and surround sound speakers is going to run you $1,060. Whereas with Sonos, the complete package is going to run you $1,456. So yeah, these systems can definitely get very expensive very quickly.

Now, if you’re going to be using the sound bars in your bedroom, or small living room, then the soundboard by itself is going to be perfectly fine.

Check out this video; Sonos Beam vs Bose Soundbar 300: Key Differences

Design

Let’s talk about the designs of the sound bars. Both of these soundboards have very subtle designs to them with very minimal notification lights, which is great sound bars should be heard, not seen.

Because personally, I absolutely hate when sound bars have constantly powered-on lights or when they constantly display the time on the front because it’s completely unnecessary and distracting when you’re watching something. 

Now even though both of these sound bars are very compact, I do have to point out that the Bose is a little longer than the beam with a length of 27 and a half inches, whereas the beam has a length of 25 and a half inches.

But when it comes to thickness, the Bose is a little more low profile than the beam, with a thickness of two and one-quarter inches, whereas the beam has a thickness of two and three-quarter inches. I don’t know. Personally, I do prefer the Bose’s more low-profile design because it doesn’t look sleeker. 

However, whatever important thing that beam does have with the Bose is that it does have built-in control buttons. So you can directly adjust your media without having to rely solely on your phone, TV remotes, or voice assistant, whereas the Bose only has two control buttons on it, one to mute the microphone and the other one to activate your voice assistant.

Connectivity 

Now, the Bose does come included with remote control, which is nice. But personally, I do wish this soundbar had built-in control buttons for those fringe cases where you just can’t reach your phone, TV remote soundbar remote, or you just don’t want to use your voice assistant. 

But now it’s about tech specs regarding ports on the back of the soundbar, as both of these sound bars have an AC port for power. Pretty basic. But the good thing is that neither of these sound bars has an external power brick that you have to hide, which is good.

However, I do want to point out that Sonos’ power cable does feel a little more premium than the one that you get with Bose. So I’m going to say this cable is a little longer and a bit more flexible, just making it a little easier to wire into your setup. Now both of these soundbars have an HDMI port to connect to your TV. 

However, the Sonos actually comes included with an HDMI cable, whereas with the Bose, if you want to use an HDMI connection, and you should use an HDMI connection, then you’re gonna have to get your own HDMI cable because the Bose only comes included with an optical cable.

 However, even though the Sonos doesn’t have an optical port like the Bose, which I think is fine, the Sonos does have an Ethernet port. So if you’re planning on using the Sonos in an area of the house with spotty Wi-Fi, you could always hardwire it into your network. 

Both of these soundbars have WiFi and AirPlay to support them. So if you’re an iPhone user, as long as you’re connected to your Wi-Fi, you can stream music to either of these two sound bars. However,  I am not a fan of the Sonos overreliance on WiFi because let’s say your friend was to come over and they wanted to DJ. 

They can’t just simply connect to the beam using a Bluetooth connection. Now, I know this might be a fringe case, but a lot of people like to use their soundbar to play music to entertain guests. Whereas the Bose does have Bluetooth. 

So whether your friend wants to DJ or if you just got the soundbar in an area of the house with spotty Wi-Fi, you can always just connect using trusty old Bluetooth; you don’t have to worry about your Wifi signal strength or having to download an extra app. 

Now both of these sound bars have support for Google Assistant. And so, if you want to, you can always use either of these two soundbars as a smart speaker. And you can always use voice commands to control your music playback. 

You can always use voice commands to control your TV just as long as you’re using an HDMI connection, which shouldn’t be a problem with the Sonos because Sonos gives you an HDMI cable included, or I would, whereas with the Bose, you are going to have to get your own HDMI cable. 

But if you don’t want to, you don’t have to use a voice assistant on either of these two sound bars. Now some people don’t like using voice assistants because of security concerns. About as long as you’ve got a phone in your pocket. 

That argument is basically out the window. But personally, I don’t like using voice assistants on my sound bars because of accidental activations while I’m watching something, which can be a little annoying. 

Setup

Let’s talk about speaker setups because these sound bars are fairly different from one another.

Bose has a single phone we’re firing tweeters. It’s got two drivers flanking either side of the tweeter. And then there’s a second pair of drivers on either end shooting out at like a 45-degree angle.

Sonos also has a single tweeter and a total of four drivers similarly placed to the Bose. But the beam also has an additional three radiators to shoot out the front and one that shoots out the back. So the Sonos does have a lot more going on under the hood than the Bose.

Now both of these sound bars do have a companion app, and they both do basically the same thing. They both act as an aggregator for your various streaming services subscriptions, and you can also use them to adjust the EQ of your soundbar.

Conclusion

Sound systems are a great way to feel every moment when watching movies or listening to music at home. We have compared the Sonos beam and Bose Soundbar 300 for your convenience.