Bose Smart Soundbar 700: Premium Bluetooth Soundbar with Alexa Voice Control Built-in, Black

This review may interest people deciding between a Bose Soundbar 700 and a Lifestyle 600. (See Airplay comment below)After owning a Bose Lifestyle 28 for about 20 years, I decided to replace that with a Bose Soundbar 700. The Lifestyle 28 is a 5.1 system configured like a Lifestyle 600. In choosing my upgrade, I decided to risk the simplicity of a Soundbar over the possibly better room-filling sound of a Lifestyle 600.My room is 20’x13’ with the TV and sound system centered along a 20’ wall. The Lifestyle 28 system let me put my side speakers and base on the corners of the room. The Soundbar setup only has, of course the center and side speakers beneath the TV. I put my base unit in a corner. Comparing the two, I found the Lifestyle 28 filled the room better than the Soundbar setup. Music seemed to come from everywhere. The Soundbar produces equally clean and powerful sound, but the music is more localized. At first, I thought the localization was a mark against the Soundbar configuration but now I think it’s more a preference issue.Both Soundbar and Lifestyle systems produce great sound. The Lifestyle setup makes you loose sense of where it’s coming from at the cost that you hear more of the music directed toward the speaker you’re standing nearest to. The Soundbar setup also fills the room and produces a great stereo experience. Having it sounds like it’s coming from one place means you better hear what’s all the speakers from everywhere and not just the ones you’re closest to.As an aside, this localization can also be reduced and the stereo effect increased by reducing the center channel volume through the Bose Music app. Doing that lets the side speakers on the Soundbar push more sound to the sides of the room where it’s reflected off the walls and comes back sounding more like the speakers are mounted on the walls. So really, the difference for me between Lifestyle and Soundbar is a toss up.The real bonus from upgrading from my old Lifestyle to the Soundbar is the controls. Though there’s room for improvement, the controls are amazing. I have mostly Apple products — Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and iMac, AirPorts and subscribe to Apple Music. Previously, everything in my media center felt unintegrated. I would turn on the sound system, select a sound source then turn on the other things to listen to music or watch TV. Now, the Soundbar “selects” the sound sources. I pick up my iPhone and start playing music, choose where I want to hear it (via Airplay) and the Soundbar turns itself on and starts playing. (Ditto for my Bose Soundtouch wave radio.) I turn on my TV and the Soundbar switches over to playing the TV’s audio.If I want to adjust the volume, I can pick up any remote associated with what I’m listening to (Bose, TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, Firestick, iPhone, …) and it just works. The Bose remote controls my TV and Apple TV. Likewise, my TV and Apple TV remotes control the Bose. It’s as if they were all one system.So what about the Bose Music app itself. Well, it’s a decent app. I mainly use it to setup the Soundbar and make adjustments. You can use it to play music and such from a variety of sources. At first I was bummed that it didn’t support Apple Music (was iTunes). But who cares. The Apple Music app has a comparatively great interface and it can run the Soundbar plus any or all of the other compatible Bose speakers you might own.I’m sure I’ll run into issues. One, which isn’t huge, is that the Soundbar isn’t recognizing my Amazon Fire Stick. I can still use the Fire Stick, but the integration isn’t as good as with my Apple TV. This is low priority to me (I prefer Apple TV). But I’ll try and figure it out.Bottom line: Sound quality: The Soundbar can’t push music to the edges of the room as well as you can with a Lifestyle and its separate speakers. However, that might be a good thing and the difference is personal preference. Otherwise, the Soundbar sounds every bit as good or better than the Lifestyle 28.Update: I’ve had my Soundbar for over a year and have enjoyed it a lot. One thing that has deviled me is Airplay. The soundbar would randomly drop out, not be findable, or just wouldn’t connect. Ditto for my Wave radio. Bose told me it was my WiFi but I set my Soundbar and radio within 10 feet of my WiFi routers (I use Eros). Finally I decided to hardwire the Soundbar and Wave radios to the Eros nodes. Problem completely solved.My assessment is that Bose engineering is weak with regard to WiFi software. In my final debugging, I found that the devices would jump around to which Eros they would connect with, often perplexingly disconnecting from the Eros they were sitting by to connect to one far away. Or they would connect to the nearby router but bring their power down to make a minimal connection. Eliminating WiFi solved the problem. Now I have a much less stressful setup.

Bose has a particular sound profile that emphasizes crisp, clean highs and mids, with modest but clean bass. This sound bar delivers heartily on the Bose sound, while pushing it out onto a large sound stage in front of your TV. The directional sound comes across nicely - it's not pure surround so it's not perfect - but it is pretty darn convincing. The build quality is magnificent. I purchase the white one and it looks clean, minimal, and the glass/metal exterior feels as durable as it looks and feels. Overall I am very pleased with this purchase.Some key highlights I noticed right away:- The dialogue/vocals in movies and TV are crystal clear. And I mean it is CRISP. Wow. Even combined with action, drama, music, etc. you can hear every word clearly.- Music and TV/Movies both sound great. The Bose profile works better with certain music genres, and tends to fall flat on metal/hard rock and rap which rely on the lower end of the spectrum for the full music experience (...the bass module aids in balancing across all music types).- The lows/bass are a little too mild for my taste, I prefer a richer and deeper sound on the low end personally. I purchased the Bose 700 subwoofer to accompany this and I couldn't be happier about that. However, if you're not picky about wanting some heavier bass, it's by no means a necessity and if you turn up the bass on the bar (in-app) it does kick out a bit more on the lows which is nice.- The setup was one of the easiest tech setups I've experienced. Download the app, detect the device, and you're done (...with initial setup; see below)There is a setup process for a feature called AdaptIQ (setup headset included) which asks you to put a somewhat goofy headset on and sit in your favorite sitting spots in the room. It then pings the receiver headset with a variety of sounds and calibrates the bar to an optimized listening profile for the space. I was HIGHLY skeptical about this; I am the type of person who tweaks the ever-loving crap out of everything so I was dismissive at first. However, after reading some feedback online indicating it can make a difference, I tried it and it does make a noticeable difference in the sound profile. It comes across as a richer, more balanced sound and it sounds even better. The process takes about 5 minutes; make sure it's very quiet when you run it, and it's a little loudSome critics denote that at this price point, it should be "Dolby Atmos-compatible" (many competing models with the Dolby cert at that price point). While I don't have much experience for that sound comparison firsthand, I will say I have no regrets about going with this sound bar over something else at this price. The surround is still solid for a sound bar, and if you're really that picky about having "Dolby Atmos' for surround or whatever you shouldn't be buying a sound bar anyways... just buy an actual surround system.The remote is bigger than modern remotes, but looks nice and has a sturdy build quality. I like it (wife hates it). It is what it is. We programmed our Samsung TV remote to control the soundbar right away and it works great.Was initially attracted to the built-in Google Assistant feature because I have smart home devices and use Google Home frequently. However, it isn't as responsive/snappy as an actual Google Home device. Using it occasionally would be fine; we use Google every day for our lights and the delay is noticeable. After about a day I un-linked my google assistant from the device and reverted back to a Google home device in the living room. No big loss. If you want Google Assistant in your living room, I recommend just go buy a Google Home Mini for $20 and put it right next to it. If you're buying this soundbar specifically for Google Assistant features, well, you'll be disappointed but that's not why you should buy this anyways. It feels a little tacked on like it is with every new tech device these days. I don't hold it against them.Bluetooth, AirPlay, etc. all work great, and it shows up as an audio device in music apps (e.g., Spotify) that you can directly stream to.... and if you made it this far, I hope this review helped! Thanks :)