Bose Smart Soundbar: https://geni.us/GC-BoseSmartSB
Bose Bass 500: https://geni.us/GC-BoseBass500
Bose Surround Speakers: https://geni.us/GC-BoseSurroundSPKRS
Sony Theater System 6: https://geni.us/GC-SonyTheaterSystem6
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 and surround sound speakers cause bose gets very pricy very quickly.
So if you’re looking for a home theater system that comes included with a subwoofer and surround sound speakers then you’ll might want to look at the Sony Theater System 6, cause this system comes with a Subwoofer and rear speakers. 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. And then there are the surround sound speakers which retail for $400… but don’t worry, if you were to bundle everything then bose is going to give you a solid deal at $1,387… Like it just hurts saying these numbers. Where as with the Sony Theater System 6 which comes with a soundbar, a subwoofer, and surround sound speakers, this system has a retail price of $800 but goes on sale for $700. Half of what a fully built out bose system is. Nonetheless, if you want to pick either of these 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 down 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.
But one of the biggest things that you’re going to have to keep in mind here between these two systems is going to be the connectivity and power delivery of these systems. Now lets start with bose, in order to power this complete system you’re going to need a total of 4 power outlets. Now both the soundbar and subwoofer plug in via an AC port, so its clean. But with the Bose surround sound speakers, even though these speakers are very small and they look very sleek… they each have a power brick that you’re going to have to hide. Personally, I wish these speakers were just larger and have their power bricks built in rather than having to deal with external bricks.
Where as with the Sony System 6, you only need a total of 2 power outlets to power this system. One in the front and one in the back. Cause with this system, you plug in your subwoofer into power, and you plug in your soundbar into the subwoofer. And for the surround sound speaker, there’s a wireless bass that you plug into power and you plug your surround speakers into this bass, so by comparisons, power delivery with this system is much cleaner. The only issue here is, your subwoofer placement is limited cause this subwoofer also has your HDMI port that goes into your TV. Where as with Bose’s system, your HDMI port in found on the Soundbar… and you can place or hide your sub wherever you want. Peronsally i think Sony is the better set up here cause you only need 2 power outlets… where as bose requires 4 and you have those two power bricks that you have to hide.
Now connectivity wise, these Systems 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. And like I just mentioned, on the Sony your HDMI port is found on the Subwoofer which can limit your subwoofer placement.
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 system 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 Bar 8 and up. However, useing the Theater Ssytem 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 now lets talk about sound, when it comes to speaker set ups, these two systems are very different from one another. With the Bose, for starters this soundbar is much smaller… but more importantly it has a total of 4 speakers, two that shoot upwards which give you true dolby atmospheres support and two that shoot out the sides, and there’s a single tweeter that shoots out the center. Then with the statute speakers, they each have one built in driver… and then there’s the subwoofer which fires downward. Where as with the Sony System 6, unfortunately, this system does not have any upward firing speakers, so you’re not going to have true atmos support. The sound bar it self has 3 frontward firing speakers and dual frontward firing tweeters… the satellite speakers each have a speaker and tweeter set up and then there’s the subwoofer which has a diameter of 20 centimeters and its shoots frontwards as well as the exhaust port so this subwoofer not only is going to give you more bass, you’re going to have more resonance 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 comparing these two surround sound systems… the most noticeable difference here is going to be max volume performance. 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 System 6. Yes, the Bose smart soundbar does get a little louder when it has the help of its satellite speakers versus when it doesn’t… but still this system doesn’t get anywhere near as loud as the Sony System 6 which is going to be able to fill a medium sized living room or maybe even a larger sized living room.
And then there’s the bass…. Now the bass module 500 does a great job of keeping up for its size cause its a downward firing subwoofer… but with the Subwoofer that comes with the System 6, this sub is just much larger and denser… so you’re going to have a lot more kick out of it. But more importantly, since this is a frontward firing subwoofer, you’re going to get a lot more resonance in your bass… and since this sub doesn’t depend on bouncing sound off of the ground… the bass from this system never get overpowering when it doesn’t need to.
But when it comes to the overall sound quality between these two systems… with the bose, this system likes to emphasize people’s voices. Especially the satellite speakers… but overall, Bose’s system sounds narrow when compared to the System 6 cause this system does sound more open and immersive. And unlike Bose’s surround speakers, Sony’s surround speakers sound more balanced cause they have both a speaker and a tweeter. Overall, Sony’s systems sound more open, but dialog doesn’t pop as much…
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 personally I would never build a surround sound system with Bose, cause Bose’s system gets very expensive very quickly. And with this particular setup, its max volume performance is very lack luster for the price and its going to have trouble filling a medium sized living room with sound. Where as with the Sony Theater System 6, this system gets much louder, its sounds more open and its has a lot more bass as well. The power delivery for this system is much cleaner as well cause you only need 2 power outlets, where as with Bose’s system you need 4 outlets and you have some power bricks to hid. The only drawback with the Sony System 6 is that it doesn’t have upwards firing drivers so you’re not going to have true dolby atmos support… and your subwoofer placement is a little limited. But Sony’s system gives you a much bigger bang for your buck than Bose’s surround sound system.