Article updated on March 3, 2024 at 8:30 PM PST
Adding a soundbar to your TV is a great way to jazz things up with music streaming and voice capabilities. These are the best soundbars we’ve tested.
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Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
- Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Investing in a good soundbar is an easy and fairly inexpensive way to improve your home entertainment setup. It won’t just enhance the sound profile of your TV, it’ll also consolidate the number of boxes on your TV cabinet. Modern soundbars come with a lot of bells and whistles, including voice assistants, music streaming and even video streaming. And the best part? They don’t cost an arm and a leg anymore. You can get some of the best soundbars on the market, starting at around $150.
There are considerable differences between a smart soundbar and a smart TV, though. You get onboard streaming apps with smart TVs, but a smart soundbar usually means the speaker has an onboard voice assistant — usually either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. The Roku Streambar and Streambar Pro (previously the Smart Soundbar) are the main exceptions here, with streaming apps and an optional always-on assistant.
All soundbars work with most TVs, regardless of whether either device is smart or not. But if you’re looking for an all-in-one streaming speaker and voice assistant, these are the soundbars you should buy.
Read more: Best Smart Speakers for 2024: Alexa, Google and More
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The compact Roku Streambar plugs into your TV’s HDMI ARC port and works as both a 4K streamer and a soundbar. We’ve found the Streambar easy to set up, and it sounds good for the size, particularly with dialogue. To make the soundbar truly smart, the $30 Voice Remote Pro adds an always-on voice assistant that’s handy for finding new shows, and even the remote itself.
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At CNET I test audio equipment from compact soundbars though to surround sound speaker systems, but regardless of the device my methodology is largely the same. I always compare products against one or more reference devices which offer the best performance at a similar price.
When it comes to soundbars, I want to see how well a system performs with music as well as with movies, as most people will want to do both. I watch from a handful of test scenes from 4K Blu-ray or streamed from a 4K streaming service (Vudu, for example) and evaluate aspects such as bass performance and dialog clarity. I also use a number of test music tracks and evaluate any streaming features such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Systems that can perform well with both types of entertainment that inevitably score the highest.
See my how to buy a soundbar for more of the features and other things you should consider when looking for a new system.
Smart soundbar FAQs
Streaming & TV Accessories
