Sonos Beam Gen 2 Review: Is This Compact Soundbar Still the Smart Pick for Everyday Living Rooms?

1. What the Sonos Beam Gen 2 Actually Is

The Sonos Beam Gen 2 is a compact, Wi-Fi connected soundbar designed to sit beneath a television and handle both screen audio and music streaming. It is the second generation of Sonos’s smaller soundbar, and it sits in the lineup between the budget-friendly Ray and the larger, flagship-class Arc. If you picture the three as small, medium and large, the Beam is the sensible middle that most apartments and average living rooms are really shopping for.

What separates it from a generic soundbar is the ecosystem it belongs to. A normal bar is a speaker you plug in and forget. The Beam is also a node in a multi-room music system. It can play the same song as a kitchen speaker, pair with a subwoofer wirelessly, take on surround duty with other Sonos speakers, and respond to voice commands through the built-in microphones. That ecosystem thinking is the reason people pay a premium for the badge.

The key specifications at a glance

Notice what is missing from that list as much as what is present. There are no dedicated up-firing drivers, no separate center channel, and no Bluetooth. Those omissions explain both the price and the personality of the product, and we will return to each of them in the sections that follow.

2. Design, Build Quality and Size

Sonos has always been good at making audio gear that looks like it belongs in a lived-in home rather than a showroom, and the Beam Gen 2 continues that habit. The body is a smooth, rounded rectangle wrapped in a fine fabric-like polycarbonate grille. There are no visible screws, no flashy logos shouting from the front, and no glowing displays. In a dim room the only thing you notice is a discreet status light.

At just under two and a half feet wide, it fits comfortably beneath most televisions in the 40 to 55 inch range, and it works well with larger sets too as long as your stand is wide enough. The low height is the detail that matters most in practice. At roughly two and three-quarter inches tall, it generally stays out of the way of a TV’s infrared sensor and the lower bezel, which is a common annoyance with taller bars.

Touch controls that stay out of the way

The top surface carries touch-sensitive controls for play and pause, volume, track skipping and the microphone toggle. They respond well and the layout is intuitive, but you will probably use them rarely. Once the soundbar learns your TV remote, volume and mute just follow whatever remote is already in your hand. The physical microphone switch deserves a mention too. If you are uneasy about always-listening devices, a hardware-level off switch is a genuinely reassuring feature rather than a software promise.

Wall mounting and placement

You can set the Beam on a TV stand, or mount it on the wall below the television using a compatible bracket. Both approaches work, but the placement affects tone. Tucked inside a tight cabinet, any soundbar tends to sound boxed in. Giving the Beam a bit of open space around its sides and front lets the drivers breathe and keeps dialogue crisp. If your television sits on a stand with a lip that blocks the speaker, consider raising the bar slightly or moving to a wall mount.

Build quality is solid without being heavy. At around six pounds, it feels dense and well-damped, with no rattling cabinet resonance at moderate volume. The white and black finishes both age gracefully, although the fabric grille on the lighter model is more likely to show household dust over time.

3. Setup and the Sonos App Experience

Setup is one of the places where the Beam Gen 2 feels like a product from a company that has had many years to refine the process. The box includes the soundbar, a power cable, an HDMI cable, an optical audio adapter for older televisions, and a quick-start guide that is blessedly short. You connect the power cable, plug the HDMI cable into your television’s eARC or ARC port, and then follow instructions in the Sonos app on your phone.

Within a few minutes the bar is joined to your Wi-Fi network, learning your TV remote, and offering a Trueplay tuning routine. If you are building your whole system step by step, our walkthrough on how to set up a home audio system covers the general principles of cabling, placement and network setup that apply here as well.

What to know before you start

• You need a Sonos account and the current Sonos app, which uses the S2 platform.
• Your TV needs an HDMI ARC or eARC port, or you can use the supplied optical adapter.
• A stable 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi network is required for streaming features.
• Keep your phone close during setup so the tuning routine can capture the room clearly.

Living with the app

The Sonos app has been criticized in the past for changes that frustrated long-time users, and it is fair to say it is not perfect. But for the core job of playing audio, adjusting sound settings and grouping speakers, it works. The home screen lets you search across the streaming services you have linked, so you can find a song or podcast without hopping between apps. Equalizer controls for bass, treble and loudness sit in the settings, and the TV-specific options such as dialogue enhancement and night mode are only a tap away.

If you prefer to stay inside your existing habits, you do not have to live in the Sonos app all day. AirPlay 2 support means iPhone and Mac users can stream directly from the apps they already use, and Spotify Connect works the way you would hope. For many households the Sonos app ends up being a setup and settings tool rather than a daily driver.

4. Sound Quality in Real Use

Specifications only go so far. What matters is how a soundbar behaves with the content you actually watch, so we will break the sound down by use case rather than throwing adjectives at it.

Dialogue and everyday television

This is the Beam Gen 2’s strongest suit. Voices come through with a natural, forward character that makes news, sitcoms, documentaries and streaming dramas easy to follow at modest volume. If you have ever turned a television up to hear a whispered line and then been blasted by the next action scene, the Beam helps flatten that experience. Dialogue stays centered and intelligible, and you are less likely to need subtitles as a crutch.

Movies and streaming series

For films, the Beam produces a wider soundstage than its slim body suggests. Effects extend a little past the edges of the bar, rain and crowd ambience feel spacious, and music scores sound balanced instead of thin. It will not shake the couch. The bass is tight and tidy, and enough to give impact to gunshots and engine rumble, but a bar this size cannot move the air the way a dedicated subwoofer can. In a small bedroom or apartment living room that is often a feature rather than a flaw, because it keeps the neighbors happy.

Music

Music is where the Beam surprises people. It has a smooth, refined tonal balance with detailed mids and a pleasant top end, and it handles vocals particularly well. It is a bar you can leave playing a playlist all afternoon without fatigue. Compared with a typical budget bar, instruments are better separated and the sound is less boxy. Compared with a pair of quality bookshelf speakers, you give up some stereo imaging and low-end authority. If music is your main passion, take a look at our list of the best home stereo systems under $500 before you commit.

Where it struggles

Push the volume very high in a large open-plan space and the Beam will show its limits, with bass thinning out and dynamic range compressing. It is designed for rooms up to medium size, and that is where it sounds best. In a big room, a larger bar or a full system will serve you better.

5. Dolby Atmos on a Compact Soundbar: Hype or Help?

Dolby Atmos is the headline upgrade over the first Beam, so it deserves an honest look. If the format is new to you, our explainer on what Dolby Atmos means breaks down how object-based audio differs from traditional channel-based surround.

The key point is that the Beam Gen 2 does not have dedicated up-firing speakers. Instead it uses psychoacoustic processing to simulate height and width from its front-facing drivers. Sonos describes it as a virtualized Atmos experience, and that is the right way to think about it. You are not getting overhead sound objects raining down from the ceiling the way you would in a full Atmos home theater.

What you actually notice

With Atmos content, the soundstage feels taller and broader than it does with stereo or ordinary Dolby Digital. Helicopters, rain and ambient effects seem to occupy more space around the screen, and layered mixes sound less crowded. It is a real improvement, but a subtle one. If you listen expecting overhead effects, you may be disappointed. If you listen expecting a more immersive version of a good soundbar, you will probably be pleased.

Getting Atmos to work

Atmos only reaches the Beam when your whole chain supports it. That means a source that carries Atmos, such as a streaming device or app with Atmos support, a television that passes it correctly through its eARC or ARC port, and Atmos-enabled content. Most problems people report come from a setting somewhere in that chain being left on the wrong output format. If you do not see the Atmos indicator in the Sonos app during playback, check your TV’s audio output setting and your streaming device’s sound options.

• Choose HDMI eARC or ARC on the TV, not optical, for Atmos.
• Set the TV’s digital audio output to pass-through or auto.
• Confirm your streaming plan and title actually include Atmos.
• Turn off any TV sound modes that process audio before it leaves the set.

If true height effects are a priority, consider that the larger Sonos Arc and a proper multi-speaker setup deliver them with real up-firing drivers. Our roundup of the best home theater systems under $10,000 shows what the sky-high end of immersive audio looks like.

6. Connectivity: HDMI eARC, Wi-Fi, AirPlay 2 and the Missing Bluetooth

Connections are where the Beam Gen 2 makes its biggest philosophical choices, and not everyone will agree with them.

HDMI eARC and ARC

The single HDMI port supports eARC, which gives the bar enough bandwidth to receive uncompressed or higher-quality audio formats from modern televisions. It also falls back to standard ARC for older sets. One cable carries audio to the bar and lets your TV remote control volume, which is exactly the convenience most people want. The tradeoff is that there is no HDMI input on the bar, so you cannot connect a game console or Blu-ray player directly to the soundbar. Everything has to go through the TV first.

Optical adapter for older TVs

For televisions without HDMI ARC, the included optical adapter provides a way in. It works well for stereo and standard Dolby Digital, but it will not carry Atmos. If your TV is an older model, you may be giving up the Beam’s best feature simply because of the cable you are using.

Wi-Fi, Ethernet and AirPlay 2

The Beam is a Wi-Fi speaker, not a Bluetooth one. That brings noticeably better quality than Bluetooth streaming, and it means the bar keeps playing when you leave the room with your phone. There is also an Ethernet port for a wired connection if your wireless signal is weak. AirPlay 2 support makes the bar a natural fit for Apple households, and it can be grouped with other AirPlay 2 speakers around the home. For a deeper look at how wireless audio quality really compares, see our articles on whether wireless speakers lose quality and whether wireless speakers are any good in the first place.

The Bluetooth question

This is the one that catches people out. The Beam Gen 2 does not support Bluetooth audio streaming. If a guest wants to play a song from their phone, they will need the Sonos app, AirPlay 2 or a supported streaming service. For those who value the quick pair-and-play simplicity of Bluetooth, our guide to the best Bluetooth speakers for home offers alternatives that make that easier.

7. Voice Control and Smart Features

The Beam Gen 2 contains a microphone array and supports three voice options: Sonos Voice Control, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. You can enable one assistant at a time on the bar, which is sensible, because it avoids two assistants fighting over the same request.

Sonos Voice Control

Sonos’s own voice assistant is focused on music and speaker control. It processes commands on the device itself, which makes it quick and appeals to privacy-minded owners. It handles requests such as playing a song, adjusting volume, grouping speakers and switching to a streaming service. It is limited when you ask for general knowledge or smart-home actions, since that is not its purpose.

Alexa and Google Assistant

If you want a more conventional smart speaker experience, Alexa and Google Assistant add weather, timers, questions and smart-home control. The bar can act as a competent far-field speaker for these uses, with decent pickup even when a movie is playing at moderate volume. If smart assistants are central to your plans, you might also compare it with the Amazon Echo Studio, which approaches music and voice from the Alexa side.

Privacy and control

Every voice-enabled speaker prompts the same worry, and the Beam handles it well. The physical microphone switch on top cuts power to the microphones entirely, and a light confirms the state. You can leave the bar as a pure sound system and ignore voice features altogether without losing anything else.

Many owners end up using voice for the small things: pausing a movie when the doorbell rings, turning the volume down for a call, or asking for a favorite playlist while cooking. None of these are essential, but they quickly become habits.

8. Speech Enhancement, Night Sound and Trueplay Tuning

A soundbar earns its keep in the unglamorous moments, and the Beam Gen 2 includes several features designed for exactly that.

Speech Enhancement

This feature emphasizes the vocal frequencies in a mix, which makes dialogue easier to understand without turning everything into a shouting match. It has multiple levels, so you can nudge it slightly for a normal evening or push it harder when the content has muddy audio or you are watching with older relatives. It is one of the most appreciated tools in the app, and the difference is easy to hear.

Night Sound

Night Sound compresses the dynamic range so loud effects are tamed and quiet moments are lifted. It is ideal for late viewing when you do not want to wake a sleeping child or a roommate. The sound is a little less cinematic with it on, but you also stop having to ride the volume buttons constantly.

Trueplay room tuning

Trueplay measures how sound behaves in your room and adjusts the bar’s output to compensate. The process takes a minute or two and involves your phone listening to test tones as you move around. For most living rooms, the improvement is noticeable in clarity and balance, particularly if the bar sits in a cabinet or against a wall. Trueplay on the Beam is typically run through compatible Apple devices, so if you only have Android phones in your household, check the current compatibility before you plan on relying on it.

Other helpful settings

• Bass and treble controls for matching your taste.
• Loudness toggle to keep tone balanced at low volume.
• Surround volume balance when rear speakers are added.
• Sound fidelity options for matching TV or Atmos output.

9. Expanding the System: Subwoofer, Rear Speakers and Multi-Room

One of the smartest things about buying into Sonos is that the Beam Gen 2 does not have to be the end of the story. It can start as a simple soundbar and grow into something much larger as your room, budget and ambitions change.

Adding a subwoofer

The Beam is the part of the setup that benefits the most from a wireless subwoofer. Adding a Sonos Sub Mini or the larger Sub gives the low frequencies the room-filling presence a compact bar cannot manage alone. Explosions gain weight, bass guitars sound fuller, and you can often lower the Beam’s own bass setting so the soundbar focuses on clarity. The connection is wireless, so placement is flexible, although the sub still needs a power outlet.

Rear surround speakers

If you want real surround rather than virtual surround, you can add a pair of compatible Sonos speakers behind the listening position, such as the Era 100 or One SL. The Beam takes the front and center duty while the rears supply true side and back effects. The jump in immersion is considerable, especially with action films and games. It does increase the cost, so this is best approached as an upgrade path instead of a day-one purchase.

Multi-room music

Because the Beam is part of the Sonos family, you can group it with speakers in other rooms and play the same music throughout the house, or different music in each space. This is a feature you cannot easily replicate with a standalone bar, and it is a major reason people stay in the ecosystem once they are in it. A kitchen speaker, a bedroom speaker and a living room Beam can all behave as one system.

Cost versus a traditional approach

If you start adding a sub and two rear speakers, the total can climb quickly. At that point, it is worth asking whether a traditional receiver and speaker package might give you more for the money. Our comparison of receiver vs soundbar walks through when each route makes more sense, and the answer often depends on room size and how much wiring you are willing to tolerate.

10. Sonos Beam Gen 2 vs the Competition

No soundbar exists in a vacuum, so here is how the Beam Gen 2 stacks up against some of the alternatives people commonly consider. We have kept the comparison practical and focused on how each option feels to live with, rather than raw numbers alone.

Beam Gen 2 vs Sonos Ray

The Ray is the cheaper sibling and it is a good bar for a small bedroom or a modest television. But it drops the HDMI connection, relies on optical, and offers no Atmos. If you want eARC, a richer sound and a more flexible system, the Beam is worth the step up. For a closer look, read our Sonos Ray review.

Beam Gen 2 vs the value brands

Brands like Sony, Samsung, Vizio and Polk often give you more raw bass or even real rear speakers for less money. If your priority is cinematic punch on a tight budget, they can be genuinely compelling. What you pay extra for with the Sonos is refinement: a better app, better integration, better long-term software support and a smoother upgrade path. Whether that premium is worth it depends on how much you value convenience.

Beam Gen 2 vs a receiver system

A receiver with separate speakers will usually outperform any compact bar on power and scalability, but it asks for more space, more cables and more patience. For many households the Beam wins simply because it is the system people actually finish setting up and keep using.

11. Pros and Cons of the Sonos Beam Gen 2

After weighing everything above, here is the honest summary of what we like and what we would change.

Seen together, the pattern is clear. The Beam Gen 2 trades raw specification-sheet power for polish, convenience and a thoughtful ecosystem. If you read that as a strength, you will probably love it. If you read it as a weakness, a cheaper, more feature-packed bar from another brand may suit you better.

12. Who Should Buy the Beam Gen 2, and Who Should Skip It

The right soundbar is the one that fits your life, not the one with the biggest numbers. Here is a straightforward way to decide.

You should buy it if…

• You live in an apartment or a medium-sized living room.
• You struggle to hear dialogue on your television.
• You want a clean, minimal look with very little cabling.
• You like the idea of multi-room music and future expansion.
• You use an iPhone or Mac and want AirPlay 2 built in.
• You value an app and an ecosystem that feel dependable.

You should skip it if…

• You need Bluetooth for quick guest streaming.
• You want to connect consoles or players directly to the bar.
• Your room is very large or open-plan and you want serious volume.
• You want true overhead Atmos effects from the start.
• Your budget is tight and bass-heavy value is the priority.

If you are on the fence

Think about how you really use your television. If most of your viewing is streaming shows, sports, news and the occasional movie night, the Beam will feel like an upgrade you notice every day. If you are a home theater enthusiast who wants height channels, bass that shakes the room and a wall of speakers, start with a larger plan and learn about receiver channels so you can match the system to your space. And if music is the main event, a stylish standalone speaker such as the Marshall Acton III may deserve a spot on your shortlist alongside a more modest TV bar.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Sonos Beam Gen 2

Final Verdict: A Refined, Right-Sized Soundbar for Real Homes

The Sonos Beam Gen 2 is not the loudest, the cheapest or the most feature-stuffed soundbar you can buy. It is something more useful: a well-judged one. It makes dialogue clear, gives movies a pleasing sense of space, handles music with more grace than its size suggests, and wraps everything in an app and ecosystem that make daily use easy.

The compromises are real. There is no Bluetooth, no HDMI input, and the Atmos effect is subtle rather than spectacular. But if those limits do not clash with how you live, the Beam gives you an upgrade that you will notice every time you turn on the TV, with room to grow when you want more. For most small to medium living rooms, it remains one of the most sensible soundbar purchases you can make.