Best sound bars for 2026
Our expert's top picks, plus some shopping tips
In this article: our top sound bar picks, along with a few wallet-friendly alternatives...
- Best budget sound bar — Yamaha SR-B30A
- Best sound bar for music lovers — Sonos Arc Ultra
- Best sound bar for big rooms — Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar
- Best sound bar with wireless surround sound — JBL Bar 1300XMK2
- Best-sounding sound bar — Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar | MAX
- Best sound bar for small rooms — Polk Audio MagniFi Mini AX
- Best bass for a standalone bar — KEF XIO
- Best for Dolby Atmos — Yamaha True X 90A & Surrounds Bundle
...plus we'll provide some handy shopping tips.
One of the easiest ways to add high-quality sound to your home theater is to pick up a powered sound bar. These space-efficient, speaker-packed bars can fit snugly under most TVs and are a breeze to set up. Most of the time you only need to deal with a couple wires: an A/V cable connected directly to your TV and a power cord plugged into an A/C outlet.
Most sound bar systems cost less than a traditional component home theater system. And lots of bars come bundled with a powered subwoofer, so you can still enjoy deep bass impact with your entertainment. There's a lot to love about a solid sound bar system. But which one is right for you? No better place to start than a list of the best.
Check out our top sound bar picks for 2026 below.
Best budget sound bar— Yamaha SR-B30A
Yamaha's sound bars have been a hit with our customers for years. The SR-B30A is no exception, with a set of eight drivers including two built-in ported subwoofers for powerful full-range sound. This slim 2.1-channel bar is packed with value, providing immersive home theater sound with Dolby Atmos virtualization. This sound processing technology simulates surround and height channel speakers to create a surprisingly spacious soundstage.
The SR-B30A also comes with built-in Bluetooth, which lets you control the bar with a free downloadable app and easily stream music from your phone.
Details
- 8 built-in speakers including dual 3" woofers for rich bass
- Dolby Atmos virtualization simulates surround, center, and height channels
- built-in Bluetooth for wireless music streaming from compatible devices
- Clear Voice mode for clearer, louder dialogue with movies and shows
Best sound bar for music lovers — Sonos Arc Ultra
The Sonos Arc Ultra is a powerful update on the original Arc, one of our most popular and well-rated sound bars. Sonos lets you play music from an expansive range of streaming services, making it easy as pie to find and enjoy your favorite tunes. It's also great for movie night. This Dolby Atmos bar offers expansive, high-quality sound with a whopping 14 built-in speakers, including angled side-firing and up-firing speakers that can place sound effects in a precise three-dimensional soundstage as they move around you.
One of the coolest things about Sonos is that they make it simple to expand your system without running wires all over your house. You can pair the Arc Ultra with a Sonos Sub to add serious bass impact to your movies and music. Or if you want to build up to a home theater system with true surround sound, the bar can also be paired with two Sonos Era 300s or Era 100s to act as rear-channel speakers.
Controlling the Arc Ultra is a breeze, too, whether you're using Sonos's intuitive app or the bar's built-in voice Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control. If you're an Apple fan, you can also control the bar with Siri using Apple AirPlay 2.
Details
- 14 built-in speakers (includes precisely angled side, front, and up-firing drivers)
- force-canceling woofer for distortion-free bass impact
- communicates wirelessly with other Sonos players
- quick, easy setup and control with free Sonos app
- you can add other Sonos speakers to your TV sound system
- easy to integrate into Sonos wireless whole-home audio system
Best sound bar for large rooms — Bose Lifestyle Ultra
The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar is the most powerful entry in Bose's line of impressive sound bars. It delivers the smooth sound quality Bose is famous for and has a clean, elegant look that fits almost any room.
This bar supports Dolby Atmos and features nine built-in speakers, each expertly arranged to aim discrete sounds towards different parts of your room. By reflecting sounds off your ceiling and walls, the sound bar generates effects that feel like they're coming from all around you.
The Ultra Soundbar also has a ton of convenient smart features like built-in voice control and robust music streaming options. Your home theater setup can also be expanded with deep bass and rear-channel effects by adding an Ultra Subwoofer and a pair of Ultra Speakers, respectively.
Details
- specially designed drivers deliver full, spacious sound
- support for Dolby Atmos for an immersive, theater-like experience
- TrueSpatial technology creates overhead effects with regular 5.1 or stereo sources
- CustomTune audio calibration optimizes the sound to match your room
- built-in voice control with Amazon Alexa and Alexa+
Best sound bar with wireless surround sound — JBL Bar 1300XMK2
The JBL Bar 1300XMK2 is a streamlined 11.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos system that features a speaker-packed bar and 100% wire-free surround speakers. And the included 12" wireless subwoofer adds deep bass to help you feel the action onscreen.
The coolest feature of the 1300XMK2 has got to be the ultra-convenient battery-powered surrounds. They charge when connected to the bar and can be detached in seconds. This lets you effortlessly add rear-channel effects when you need them, without worrying about finding an A/C outlet.
The surrounds also feature Bluetooth that can be operated separately, letting you use them to play music in another room. Just pair them up and go. You can even use a single surround to listen in mono, just like a portable Bluetooth speaker. When JBL says "wireless," they mean it.
Details
- powered sound bar, wireless 12" subwoofer, and true wireless surround speakers
- delivers 11.1.4-channel sound with MultiBeam technology, DTS:X, and Dolby Atmos for immersive 3D audio
- surround speakers feature built-in batteries and recharge when attached to the sound bar
- PureVoice 2.0 technology for crystal-clear dialogue
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay 2, and Chromecast built-in for wireless music streaming from compatible devices
Best-sounding sound bar — Sennheiser AMBEO | Max
The AMBEO Soundbar | Max has been one of our best-selling and top-rated sound bars for years with room-filling 3D sound that injects life and impact into everything you listen to. It also made a big splash here at Crutchfield. Folks still talk about the demo around the office. A whopping 13 drivers are built into the bar, expertly controlled to produce incredibly immersive and detailed sound.
The AMBEO Max's secret sauce is Sennheiser's AMBEO advanced virtualization technology, which auto-calibrates the bar's sound to match your room's acoustics. This allows the AMBEO Max to simulate realistic surround and height effects, so you can hear sounds above and around you that feel true to life. You can even customize the level of virtualization the bar produces to match your mood or what you're watching.
Details
- 13 built-in drivers deliver 5.1.4-channel sound from a single sound bar
- AMBEO 3D technology creates an immersive experience using 32-bit processing and room calibration to virtually place speakers around the room
- supports content encoded with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
- Chromecast built-in for easy streaming and multi-room music, compatibility with Google Assistant voice control
- mono RCA subwoofer output lets you add your own powered subwoofer
Best sound bar for small rooms — Polk MagniFi Mini AX
Polk packed in as much sound as they could into a tiny package with the MagniFi Mini AX. This ultra-compact sound bar and subwoofer system delivers an expansive soundstage with a level of detail and precision you'd expect from a much bigger and more expensive bar.
The MagniFi Mini AX's 3D audio mode adds a virtual height dimension, enhances surround effects, and even upmixes stereo audio for bigger, more involving sound. You can also expand your system to true 5.1 home theater sound with the optional Polk SR2 wireless surround kit.
If you want to chill and listen to music, this bar has you covered with built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay 3, Chromecast built-in, and Spotify Connect. With all these options, it's easy to wirelessly stream your favorite tunes from your phone directly to the sound bar.
Details
- three 2" midrange drivers and two 3/4" tweeters
- separate wireless subwoofer with 5" x 7" driver
- Great sound from a compact bar
- Chromecast built-in and Apple AirPlay 2 for easy streaming and multi-room music
- Polk VoiceAdjust™ technology helps keep dialogue intelligible
Best bass for a standalone bar — KEF XIO
The KEF XIO is an all-in-one sound bar system, delivering full 5.1.2-channel Atmos sound with built-in subwoofers for extra low-end impact. I got to spend some dedicated time with the XIO right at launch and came away seriously impressed. It has the hardest-hitting bass of any standalone sound bar I've ever auditioned. There's also plenty of rich detail and a spacious, accurate soundstage.
One of the coolest experiences I had with the XIO was while playing the action-packed Stellar Blade. I discovered that I could pinpoint the deep resonating thoooom of cannons regularly firing in the distance even as I continuously moved around while exploring. It didn't matter if the cannons were above, below, or off in the distance. The bass would hit, and I would immediately get a clear sense of where it was coming from on (or off) the screen.
The XIO doesn't just rock movie night and gaming, though. I tested out several high-res music tracks, including the entirety of Rush's 2112 album. The XIO handled the extra definition perfectly. The main 20-minute self-titled track really let the XIO shine, from the heavy electric riffs of “The Temples of Syrinx” to the gentle acoustics of “Discovery." The XIO belted out hard licks and thumping bass the whole time, expertly staged and detailed.
Details
- 5.1.2-channel sound bar with integrated subwoofers for impactful bass
- automatic sound optimization lets you install the bar flat on the wall or place it on a tabletop
- 12 high-fidelity drivers powered by built-in Class D amplifiers
- Music Integrity Engine® (MIE) for Cinema uses custom DSP algorithms to intelligently expand your soundstage and virtualize spatial sound effects
- built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless music streaming from compatible devices
Best for Dolby Atmos — Yamaha True X 90A & Surrounds Bundle
The Yamaha True X 90A & Surrounds Bundle is a full Dolby Atmos package. It includes a speaker-packed sound bar, a dedicated subwoofer, and a pair of wireless surround speakers. The bar and rear speakers work to provide a big, immersive soundstage. While the sub adds clean, hard-hitting bass to fill out your low end.
The bar has two arrays of six up-firing drivers that use unique sound beam technology to precisely direct overhead effects — a key ingredient for true Atmos sound. Part of the Surround 90A's precision comes from its built-in Surround:AI room correction technology, which optimizes your sound to match the room.
This system's built-in Wi-Fi makes it easy as pie to stream music from a wide variety of sources. It comes with Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and TIDAL connect. Or, if you prefer, you can simply pair your smartphone directly to the bar with built-in Bluetooth. The True X Surround 90A is also part of the MusicCast wireless multi-room ecosystem, which means you can group it with other MusicCast speakers to stream music throughout your home.
Details
- 5.1.2-channel sound bar system with wireless subwoofer and rear speakers
- Beam Speaker Technology for precise overhead effects
- Surround:AI® analyzes content in real time to optimize surround sound performance
- built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Apple AirPlay 2 for wireless music streaming from compatible devices
- MusicCast wirelessly connects compatible Yamaha components together for seamless whole-home audio
Sound bar shopping tips
We carry lots of sound bars and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There's something to fit almost any space and budget. To find the one that will fit your needs best, you can start by asking yourself a few questions.
How "home theater" are you looking to go?
Are you looking for a theater-like experience or just trying to hear your TV a little better? If it's the latter, a simple two-channel or three-channel sound bar will be more than enough in all likelihood.
The bigger you want to go the more you'll want to consider a bar that's matched with a subwoofer or that comes with rear-channel surround speakers. The sound bars with the biggest sound are the ones that come with a sub and support both height and surround channels.
Are you having trouble hearing dialogue?
Look for models that have a dedicated center channel and/or dialogue enhancement features. These two features will help you hear those hard-to-catch lines above anything else.
How much space do you have?
The bigger your room the more a larger sound bar starts to make sense. The same goes for your TV. If you have big TV, you'll want your sound bar to be big enough to match. Always double check a sound bar's dimensions before you pick it up to make sure it's a good fit for your space.
Where's the sound bar being placed?
Lots of sound bars will fit right under your TV. This is probably the easiest way to install a sound bar, but you need to double check the bar's height to make sure it will fit under your TV.
If you prefer a clean setup, you might consider a sound bar that can be wall-mounted. Fortunately, this is pretty much standard these days.
Are you trying to connect several components?
The more A/V equipment you've got in your setup, the more you might need a few extra connections on the back of your sound bar. If you're connecting a source like a Blu-ray player or gaming console straight to the sound bar, you'll also want to make sure the bar supports video passthrough.
Check out our sound bar connection and setup guide for more information.
Get started today!
There are tons of great sound bar systems to choose from, and we're here to help. We have even more tips in our full sound bar buying guide. And if you need a little guidance finding exactly what you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of our friendly Advisors.
Free lifetime tech support is included with your Crutchfield purchase.
Popular questions customers ask
Not aways. Self-powered sound bars are more common than passive sound bars. You don't need a receiver or amplifier of any kind to drive a self-powered sound bar. The amplification is built into the bar itself.
We carry over 50 sound bars that can learn your remote’s commands. This helps keep the number of control devices to a minimum. From your TV’s remote, you can adjust the volume, switch sources, and more.
Yes. While your TV’s speakers might have had you saying, “Huh?” a lot, sound bars are great for making dialog discernible. Some have a dedicated center channel for dialogue, and many even have dialog enhancement modes that add even more emphasis to voices.
If you already have a self-powered subwoofer you'd like to use alongside your sound bar, you're in luck! We carry a handful of models that have a dedicated mono subwoofer output. All you need to connect the two is a standard subwoofer cable.
Most of the sound bars we carry have Bluetooth built in for streaming your favorite tunes. Some models only support basic Bluetooth, while others support higher resolution codecs like aptX and LDAC. There are also a few models that support Bluetooth transmission, which lets you send audio wirelessly to headphones and compatible Bluetooth speakers.
John from ARLINGTON
Posted on 1/26/2023
Have a BenQ V7050i paired with a 110" screen. Have Panasonic 420 4k player and Charter Spectrum Cable box. Since the screen is so wide, I want a bar with width for better sound stage. No gaming, no streaming..only movies and tv watching. Don't want to have to use apps to set up, just remote set up. Atmos is not a must as none of my blurays have it. A single bar, with or without a sub is acceptable, and external surround is nice but not 100% required. Am leaning towards the Ambeo, likely the smaller vs Max but am intrigued by Sonos and Samsung. Am open for suggestions.
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 1/27/2023
Michael McArter from Barrie
Posted on 3/23/2022
Hello this is a very helpful site for learning about the products you're looking into. I'm very interested in reading more information that I had not a clue about. Thank you very helpful. I'm still looking for a sound bar for mainly listening to music. I enjoy crisp clean vocals and yet warm tones. If you could please send some ideas. Thank you
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 4/11/2022
Gary Bowler from Babcock Ranch Florid
Posted on 2/7/2022
I like your video on the Seinheiser Ambeo sound bar. I seem to fit into one of your examples of have a new home that does not accommodate a bunch of speakers like I had in my old home but I want the best sound for my TV. Best price including shipping? Delivery ? Best hookup to my Sony 65 " tv HDMI ?
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 2/8/2022
Andrew
Posted on 2/4/2022
Hi, We have a new house and the room I want to put the sound bar in is quite large, open and has very high vaulted ceilings. I don't feel that there will be a suitable placement for rear speakers and was wondering if you have any recommendations for type of soundbar or specific unit to target. Thank you.
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 2/7/2022
Todd Chambers from Pickerington
Posted on 10/24/2021
Hi Emily, I have a 31x18 finished basement with an 84 inch LG tv with hdmi arc. I looked at the Bose 900, Sonos Arc and JBL 9. Unbelievably the Bose 900 did not sound as good, the others sounded incredible. I even have other Bose in the house and love them. Still shocked about the Bose sound could it have been a bad set up. I am open for suggestions. I want to mount the sound bar below the tv. I know with the up firing drivers this could ba problem. Thanks for all of your help Todd
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 10/26/2021
Dave Sarnoff from Bronxville
Posted on 8/13/2021
Hello, I plan to buy a 75" TV and mount it to the wall with an articulating mount. The TV will be about 2.5 inches from the wall. If I wall mount a Dolby Atmos capable sound bar to the wall and when mounted it will be more flush than the TV, will I lose the up firing speaker sound? Do I need to mount the soundbar more than 2.5 inches from the wall so as not to be behind the TV?
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 8/16/2021
Piyush from New Orleans
Posted on 6/26/2021
Colin, Emily, ... I have an open plan living and kitchen & usually watch 65' TV from 8-10 feet away. I use the soundbar heavily for music, often for casual TV watching and infrequently for movies. I have been quite confused about 3 options for quite a while - 1. Bose Soundbar 700 vs Sonos arc, especially considering the great discounts available for Bose 700. I don't intend to add a sub for now. Also wondering if future proofing for Atmos is really a big deal if I get Bose 700 at $200 discounts over Arc. 2. Will a (Beam/Bose 300)+Sub be a better option than Bose700/Arc without Sub? Thanks for your guidance.
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 6/28/2021
Albert Kettenis from Sherman Oaks
Posted on 5/8/2021
Hi Colin, I am really enjoying my beautiful Sony XBR 49X950H, and am now pairing it with the Bose 700 Soundbar. I am unclear about what Sony TV "digital audio out" settings to select. The choices are: auto 1 (output compressed without changes) auto 2 ( output only compressed audio for multi-channel without changes) or 3 (PCM always). There is also an on/off pass through mode choice , and a choice of Dolby Digital or Dolby Dig Plus. Could you please help me sort this out? I'm 75 and not very technical, but I love the great TV you guys got for me when no one else had them in stock!
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 5/10/2021
George from Tustin, California
Posted on 3/29/2021
I am getting the sony a9g in 2 weeks. I watch tv in a room 20 x15 with vaulted ceiling. Mostly watch tv shows, movies, Netflix and sports. No gaming. We sit 17 feet away from the set. A sony z9f is bundled with it, but am wondering if there is a better choice. I have read dozens of reviews, very few of which include this sony. I almost would rather do without the separate subwoofer. Can you help me?
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 3/30/2021
Jimmy from Loudon
Posted on 1/25/2021
Unless I missed something, it appears that the best 2021 sound bars are all self powered speaker systems. I was surprised there was nothing about passive sound bars mentioned. Did I miss something?
Colin M. from Crutchfield
on 1/26/2021