Bose Smart Soundbar: https://geni.us/GC-BoseSmartSB
Bose Bass 500: https://geni.us/GC-BoseBass500
Sony Theater Bar 6: https://geni.us/GC-SonyTheaterBar6
Sony Bravia 5 TV: https://geni.us/GC-SonyBravia5TV
The Bose Smart Soundbar is my favorite soundbar to recommend if you’re looking for a sound bar for a small or medium sized living room, and its a great option if you’re looking for something for your bed room cause it sounds good and its super compact and it doesn’t need an external subwoofer. However, for me it is very hard to justify building out the Bose Smart Soundbar with an external subwoofer, cause bose gets very pricy very quickly.
So if you’re looking for a soundbar that comes included with a subwoofer, then you’ll might want to look at the Sony Theater Bar 6, cause this system comes with a Subwoofer and it has true dolby atmospheres support just like the Bose Smart soundbar. So today we’re going to compare these two systems and lets see which one is right for you.
Regarding pricing, the Bose Smart soundbar by itself has a retail price of $550, not bad given that its has true atmos support. But if you were to throw in Bose’s smaller bass module, the 500, it has a retail price of $550 as well. Pretty up there. But if you were to bundle these two together, bose will give you a solid deal at $988… im being sarcastic if you haven’t noticed. Where as with the Sony Theater Bar 6, this soundbar and subwoofer combo has a retail price of $700 but it routinely goes on sale for $550… and the subwoofer that you get here is much larger and better than the sub that comes with the Bose. So if you want to pick either of these two systems up they’ll be linked down below, or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button, and if you want to further support the channel then you can always watch some of the related videos in the description below.
So first there’s the design of these soundbars, the Bose Smart soundbar is noticeably smaller than Sony’s soundbar. But more importantly, Bose’s soundbar doesn’t require an external subwoofer cause it makes it own bass. So I feel that this soundbar is a great option for your bedroom, or for a small to medium sized living room cause you don’t have to make room for an extneral subwoofer if you don’t want to. Where as with the Sony, this system requires a subwoofer cause the soundbar it self doesn’t produce its own bass. Now both of these subwoofers are wireless so you can place them wherever you want… but more importantly, the Sub that comes with the Sony is much larger and denser than the Sub that comes with the Bose.
Now connectivity wise, these soundbars are the same. They both have a single HDMI port that connects to your TV and they both come included with an HDMI cable in the box. And no, you don’t need to be a gold plated and Dimond encrusted HDMI cable… that just nonsense that self proclaimed audiophiles say to make them feel better about themselves cause they think they have super hearing. The important thing here is, these soundbars don’t have an HDMI in port, so you can’t plug in your playstation, or blue ray player into them. Now this isn’t the end of the world, but I think it would have been nice to have.
But besides that, both of these systems are easy to wire and place into your home theater setup. All of the components plug in an AC port and none of them have an external power brick to worry about, both of these Subwoofers are wireless so you can place them or hide them where ever you want, and you just have a single HDMI cable to goes into your TV.
However, if you do plan on wall mounting these soundbars… keep in mind that Bose’s wall mounting kit is sold separately, which I do feel is not cool… where as with the Sony you can use any screws. And both of these soundbars are relatively light weight weighing in a little under 7 pounds, so you don’t have to worry about your walls taring down either in your new construction home that’s probably already falling apart, or in your “Luxury Apartment” that you’re clearly overpaying for.
Now both of these systems are going to work well with any TV out there. However if you have a Sony TV like the Bravia 5 that we have here, unfortunately, the theater Bar 6 doesn’t have acoustic center sync. So you can’t use your TV’s built in speakers in conjunction with your soundbar like how you could with lets say the Bra 8 and up. However, use the Theater Bar 6 with a sony TV is little more conviente cause you can more easily adjust your sound settings directly from the TV menu. But regardless both of these soundbars do have their respective apps that you can use to adjust your settings, or they also come included with a remote. But to be honest I never use these remotes.
Now the Bose does have airplay support, so you can stream music to it, where as with Sony’s system you can’t stream music to it, but personally I don’t think that matters cause I usually just stream music to the TV which will play through the soundbar. But more importantly, both of these systems do have bluetooth, so you can still share these soundbars with a guest without having to share your wifi password.
But with all of that out of the way, lets talk about sound. When it comes to speaker set ups the thing that I like about both of these systems is that they have upwards firing drivers, so they are going to give you true dolby atmospheres support and they are going to have a good sense of verticality. But they do have their differences. With the Bose, this systems is just overall smaller. It has a single frontward firing tweeter, and it has a total of 4 speakers, two that shoot upwards and two that shoot out the sides. And with this subwoofer, this is a downwards firing sub, so even though its small, it produces lots of bass for its size. However, even though the Bose Smart Soundbar does produce its own bass cause it does have bass chambers… when paired with a Subwoofer, the Bose will turn off its bass chambers and just let the Sub handle all of the bass. But then there’s the Sony Theater Bar 6, this soundbar has a total of 5 speakers, three that shoot out the front and 2 that shoot upwards. But sadly this soundbar doesn’t have any built in tweeters. But with the Sub… this is a 17 cm diameter subwoofer that shoots out the front and it has a frontward firing exhaust port as well… so not only does this sub produce more bass than the Bose… it also resonates cleaner as well.
But now we’re going to jump into the soundtest. Both the Bose and Sony systems are playing at 70% volume with their bass set to 5 and we’re going to be comparing them to the built in speakers found on the Sony Bravia 5 which are going to be playing at max volume.
Sound test
So first off, obviously any soundbar is going to sound better than your tv’s built in speakers. Your TV most likely has a pair of downward firing speakers that bounce sound off of the table, they don’t get all that loud, and when the bass gets going then it can become a rattling mess. However if you were to go with a more premium TV like lets say the Bravia 5 like we have here, distortion isn’t a problem… however you are going to be better off getting a soundbar cause these built in speakers are going to be mainly for hearing dialog with.
Now when it comes to comparing Bose’s system to Sony’s system… we need to address max volume. The Bose Smart soundbar is a great soundbar for a bedroom or for a small sized living room. But if you have a medium sized living room or large living room… then I think the Bose isn’t going to cut it cause it just doesn’t get as loud as the Sony Bar 6. I think the Sony Bar 6 is going to have no problem with a medium sized living room cause it does get louder and it also have more kick in its bass.
But when it comes to actual sound quality… these two soundbars do have their distinct differences. With the Bose, since this soundbar actually has that frontward firing tweeter, it does like to put an emphasis on dialog, so people are very easy to understand. Where as with the Sony, since this system doesn’t have tweeters, dialog and the highs aren’t as pronounced like with the Bose. But interestingly enough… the Sony does sound more open and you do get better defined center, left and right channels cause you have those three dedicated speakers aimed right at you, and then you have those two upward firing speakers for your verticality. Where as with the Bose… this system does sound more narrow by comparison.
But with all of that being said, I really like the Bose Smart soundbar… its a great soundbar to use in a small or medium sized living room… and its my go to option if you’re looking for a soundbar for your bedroom and you don’t want to have to deal with an external subwoofer. Thanks to its upwards firing drivers it has true dolby atmospheres support and it sounds very open. And thank to its frontward firing tweeter, dialog really pops with this soundbar. But for me it is very heard to justify building out this soundbar by adding an external subwoofer cause first off it gets over priced very quickly… but more importantly, the max volume performance of the Bose Smart Soundbar isn’t going to be able to adequately fill a medium or large sized living room. Where as with the Sony Theater Bar 6… with this system you’re going to get a lot of the same benefits that you’ll find on the Bose. Thanks to the upwards firing speakers, this system also give you true dolby atmospheres support. And surprisingly, this system sounds more open than the Bose. The only draw back is since there are not tweeters, dialog might not pop as much as the Bose. But the Sony also comes included with a larger subwoofer so you’re going to have more bass… and the Sony also get louder than the Bose, so its going to be able to fill a medium or large sized living room. And the Sony does all of this for half as much as an equivalent Bose System.