Sonos Beam Gen 2 review: Sonos’ compact soundbar goes Dolby Atmos

The second-generation Beam certainly shares a large part of its acoustic design with its predecessor, but that does not prevent it from adopting a significantly different sound profile.

The exemplary neutrality of the 2018 model leaves room for a warmer sound, with low frequencies slightly emphasized. Is this a defect? Not really, since the rendering is still very balanced – especially for iPhone owners, who are lucky enough to be able to access the TruePlay automatic acoustic calibration. It is simply decked out with a small surplus of roundness which purists can certainly castigate “infidelity”, but which is very flattering to the ear. It is no coincidence that many connected speakers on the market share this character trait (see for example the Apple HomePod Mini).

Beyond this consideration, the Beam Gen 2 nevertheless ensures a remarkably clean and controlled sound reproduction, in which the excellent precision of the mids and treble stands out. This allows it in particular to offer a very open, very “lively” restitution – a quality that is appreciated just as well in music listening as in video content.

On the bass side, the seat is obviously not what one could achieve with a dedicated subwoofer, but it remains quite commendable. Within the limits of what is physically possible with a compact soundbar, the balance found between depth and percussion is ideal. It is only with the most heavily loaded signals in the lower midrange that the bar sometimes reaches its limits; then, the dynamics of the restitution can be undermined, and leave room for a little confusion. If you are disturbed by this, one solution may be to go to the tone settings in the mobile application, and lower the bass by two or three notches.

Finally, with regard to virtual spatialization, the extent of the improvements made by the new sound processor is ultimately minimal, but not insignificant, since first and foremost, we are delighted to note that the defect that we noted like the Achilles heel of the first Beam of the name has been corrected. The central channel is now clear, located very precisely in the center of the bar, which therefore allows a perfectly natural localization of the dialogues!

For the rest, we find here horizontal surround effects of a very good width, but also very imprecise. They provide an excellent feeling of envelopment during the reproduction of diffuse sound fields (rain noises, reverberation effects …), but show their weaknesses in the reproduction of very localized sound objects. All the same, this is enough to bring a real additional sound immersion in movies and games. The height effects of Dolby Atmos tracks, on the other hand, leave a taste of far too little in the mouth – and for good reason, since they are virtually absent. It is difficult to differentiate them from horizontal effects, to the point sometimes of doubting that the difference exists. In practice, absolutely no elevation effect is felt.