Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar has honestly been one of the best soundbars I’ve used. The sound quality is incredibly immersive and makes movies, gaming, and even regular TV sound so much fuller and more cinematic. Dialogue is clear, bass is strong even without the subwoofer, and the surround effects are surprisingly impressive for a soundbar setup. Music also sounds amazing on it. The design is sleek and premium looking, which is exactly what I expect from Bose. Setup itself was pretty simple, although I did have some connectivity issues with the Bose app initially. The app took a few tries to recognize everything correctly and there were a couple moments where I had to reconnect devices, but once everything updated and synced properly it has been working great. Overall, this soundbar completely upgraded my living room experience. It’s powerful, clean sounding, and easily one of the best premium soundbars I’ve owned. You can’t deny the quality and it goe well with the subwoofer and speaker

I continue to enjoy Bose products because they always seem to feel as aesthetically pleasing as their sound is well rounded. This Lifestyle Ultra soundbar is no different. It continues this trend. The soundbar is not huge but gives a high quality feel. The exterior is a blend of fabric, glass, and soft touch plastic that is the nicest presentation of a soundbar I’ve experienced. There are two up firing drivers that are apparent but the remaining drivers are behind the fabric on the front. A circular control panel on the top is the only other feature on the top. The back is pretty standard with one HDMI, the power inlet and an aux port. Two air ports are also there. And this is where I think sound comes in. In Bose fashion the ports are pointed toward the ends of the soundbar and this is intentional. They use these to help give the presence of stage. I’ve noticed over the years that soundbars try different things to do this but Bose seems to have a magic from their acoustimass days that just seems to beam the sound. This results in a really wide stage. For movies it is amazing. I will note that it works better in a room that has walls closer rather than farther. A very wide open room still needs more I believe. But even then there is a widening here that you notice. The app gives you the now Bose standard three band eq that you adapt to your taste. You also have a room calibration tool that works pretty well, especially when you pair a sub and the two lifestyle speakers Bose has also released. Overall the set with the sub and surround speakers is very nice. Perfect system to get that cinematic experience. Musically, I do get a pretty strong Atmos effect that elevates music especially tracks that are produced for it. So it is a really great system if you’re looking for a stereo experience as well.

I want to start off with earlier this year, I bought and set up a very nice 5.1 home theater system for our living room. It wasn't tuned perfectly, and I didn’t have the speakers located in the physical space like I wanted. We have strange dimensions in the living room, so I was still figuring out what to do. But the latter issue was bothersome enough for my wife that she didn't care for the home theater system and wanted it gone. She wants our new TV console to be the focus of the living room, not a bunch of speakers and a fancy receiver. She probably wouldn't care much about whether we had a home theater setup or not, but I want great surround sound to match our beautiful-looking OLED, especially for movie watching. Right out of the box, pun intended, Bose made a great choice of a clean, simple, and mostly eco-friendly unboxing experience. The majority of packing materials were recyclable and did not have a mess of tie wraps or cable clutter. If you’ve ever set up a traditional home theater system, you know that it can suck to run speaker wire behind furniture, baseboards, or through walls just to connect your rear speakers to a receiver. Here, the only wires you need to deal with are a power cord for each unit and a single HDMI cable running from the soundbar to your TV. I decided on “going all in” on a fully connected Soundbar system. I hoped to get close to the sound I wanted, but still appeal to my wife visually. I tested the full setup from Bose’s new Lifestyle Ultra lineup: the soundbar, the Subwoofer, and a pair of the lineup's speakers for the rear left and right surround channels. It’s not supposed to match my previous 5.1 setup, but it absolutely sounds better than all the other soundbar and subwoofer combinations I've tried. More importantly, the Bose system is so good that I really don't miss the previous setup. The Bose Soundbar is not perfect, mostly due to some of the choices Bose made and not getting more granular with the options and setup. Inside the box, you get the soundbar, a power cable, and an HDMI cable. I expected a remote since most higher-priced soundbars have one, but this model doesn’t include one. The soundbar looks great with its glossy piano‑black finish, and there’s a white version if that fits your space better. I am afraid that even though I wouldn’t normally expect anyone to touch the soundbar after it’s been installed, I have two young kids…so the glossy black but turn into glossy scratched in no time. You can mount it on the wall, but the bracket is sold separately. I had a soundbar mount that attaches to the TV mount already, so I have hooked up to that. On the back, you’ll only find an HDMI eARC port for your TV and an Ethernet port if you prefer a wired connection. It does support Apple AirPlay 2, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Google Cast. The soundbar can remember up to eight Bluetooth devices. The top has buttons for power, play/pause, volume, microphone mute, Bluetooth pairing, and an action button for voice assistants like Alexa. Setup was honestly one of the easiest I’ve ever done. Just plug it in, open the Bose app, and follow the steps. The app immediately detected the soundbar, subwoofer, and surrounds, then guided me through everything. You’ll need a Bose account, but I already had one. Even the firmware updates were pretty fast and easy to install. Back to the sound quality - it’s pretty great. Dialogue in movies and shows is super clear, and the treble is much better than what I had before. I’ve always been skeptical of Dolby Atmos on soundbars, but the upward‑firing speakers here actually create a convincing height effect even with my high ceiling. Even though the soundbar sits under my TV, Bose’s spatial audio processing makes it feel like sound is coming from the middle of the TV and almost like a bubble all around the sitting area of the living room. The subwoofer and surround speakers aren’t big and bulky but still crank out loud and clear sound. One really cool thing in the Bose app is that it shows exactly what audio format is coming in, so I can confirm when I’m getting Dolby Atmos or PCM 5.1 (which is what I get from Apple TV because Apple). When playing music through Alexa, the Bose and Alexa app display the song title and playback controls. You can tweak the sound manually with a basic equalizer for Treble, Mids, and Bass. You can also adjust the volume of the center, height, surrounds, and subwoofer level. I went with Bose’s CustomTune automatic calibration. It plays tones through each speaker and uses your phone’s microphone to fine‑tune the audio for your room. You need to place your phone on top of the soundbar without a case to get the best calibration. I tested Dolby Atmos with content from a couple of overpriced streaming services and an Ultra HD Blu‑ray disc. One thing to note: this soundbar doesn’t support DTS or DTS: X—only Dolby-branded formats. This is a bummer because I have quite a few discs with great DTS tracks. For music, you can stream using AirPlay, Google Cast, or Bluetooth. It also supports Spotify Connect. This type of wireless support is exactly what I want because it allows me to play music from anywhere in the house and from any device I own - Android, iOS, Windows, or MacOS. After spending time with the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar, I can say that either I didn’t spend enough money on my previous soundbars or systems, or soundbars have come a long way. Setup was easy, the design looks great in most rooms, and the sound is rich, clear, and surprisingly immersive. Maybe not the best, but movies, shows, and music all sound very good, and the spatial audio really pulls you into the experience. Sure, it’s missing a remote and doesn’t support DTS, but those are small trade‑offs for the performance you get. If you can save enough money and you’re thinking about upgrading your setup, keeping your wife happy and still having a sleek setup—you’ll be impressed. You can also buy the soundbar now and not really get the bass, but when you’re ready, you can add the subwoofer and surround speakers. It will takes it to another level. It’s easily the best soundbar I’ve heard. I know, a “soundbar,” but movie nights did not suffer, and I don’t think I’m going to miss my 5.1 setup anytime soon.

I’ve been using the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar with my Samsung 85” QN85B Neo QLED TV and honestly I’ve been really impressed with it so far. Physical setup was extremely simple. It was basically one power cable and one HDMI eARC connection to the TV. The soundbar fit perfectly underneath my TV while using the factory TV stand, and I like that Bose also included mounting holes for people who want a cleaner wall-mounted setup. The design looks sleek but still premium. The glossy black finish almost gives it a piano-like look in person and it blends really well into a modern living room setup. The first thing I watched/listened to was a drum show from Twenty One Pilots on YouTube Music, followed by The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and the Dolby Atmos performance immediately stood out. Even before I connected the full home theater system, the soundbar by itself sounded huge. The Atmos effects and spatial audio are seriously impressive and make the room feel much larger than it is. Dialogue clarity is phenomenal especially with the SpeechClarity feature. It genuinely helps during movies and shows. Every channel on the soundbar sounds clean and detailed, and it gets very loud while still sounding controlled. My living room is a large open 20x20 space and this thing fills it easily. Music playback is awesome. You can play, pause, skip tracks, and control volume directly on the soundbar itself. The touch volume slider feels modern and responsive, and I really like that Bose used touch controls instead of bulky physical buttons. Once I added the wireless subwoofer and rear speakers, the immersion got even better. The upward-firing Atmos speakers really help bounce sound around the room and create a convincing surround effect. The only frustrating part for me was the initial app setup process. I had some connection issues at first that seemed related to my phone/account setup. Once I switched devices and logged directly into my Bose account instead of using Google sign-in, everything connected properly. Bose support was also very responsive and helpful during troubleshooting. Now that everything is connected, the system has been stable with no issues. Overall, I’d absolutely recommend this soundbar. It delivers premium sound quality, strong Atmos immersion, excellent dialogue clarity, and the ability to wirelessly expand into a full surround system. The price may be high for some people, but the performance definitely feels premium.

The Bose Soundbar Lifestyle Ultra is a real beast of a unit that produces sound not expected from a soundbar. From the updated contemporary styling to connected ecosystems with other Bose products, the soundbar is a solid allrounder for your home theater setup with room for adding accessories when you want to take the plunge. Design: This is not a small soundbar, and it shouldn’t be for the price and its intended performance. It measures roughly 47 inches wide which still makes it slightly smaller than some of its main competitors. One thing to note with a soundbar like this: It has upwards firing speakers for Dolby Atmos so keep in mind that you cannot place it underneath your TV. It needs to be slightly out in front so that it can have an unobstructed line of sight to your ceiling. This design is not unique to this Bose soundbar, but it’s important to note. The material choices are really modern feeling with some unique decisions. The majority of the soundbar is fabric with a glass top piece that has some of the controls physically present. The glass design on top is a really cool touch by Bose that gives it it’s own unique design language to stand out a bit from it’s competitors. Connectivity: There’s nothing technically missing on the connectivity side of things, but nothing really stands out either. You get the standard HDMI eARC and WiFi and Bluetooth. The optional accessories connect wirelessly with the Soundbar. Bose also includes an HDMI cable in the box which is a nice touch for a premium product like this. You also get Google Cast which I use religiously. Audio: The meat and potatoes of this soundbar are excellent. From what I can tell there are 9 speakers total on this soundbar. These 9 speakers help create a good Dolby Atmos sound experience. What I noticed is missing and I was able to confirm on the internet there’s no DTS support, so you are pretty much stuck with Atmos for a spatial listening experience. Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion since Atmos can be really good, just something t note. The sound from this bar is right on par with other premium soundbars I’ve reviewed in the past. There is no letdown I experienced in terms of a sound experience from the soundbar on its own. However, keep in mind this soundbar is also designed to function with two satellite speakers and a subwoofer. So, while just the soundbar alone already creates a great experience, with its optional extras you will have an even more profound experience. Best part? You can add those later if you want when you are ready!

First and foremost, this thing rocks which I’ll get into later. Unboxing was very easy and the soundbar was packed beautifully. Once it turned it on and installed the app it connected almost immediately. I will add that it did take awhile to update the software but that is nothing surprising these days. The app is very easy to use and once you play around for awhile you will get the hang of it. Once I plugged it into my HDMI Arc and I was up and running. I did have to make some adjustments to tweak the sound. I think it’s important to note, that with this system you will need to either use your TV remote, set to Arc, or use your phone, as there is no actual remote. It does have touch controls on the top, which I’m not a fan of but first impressions were very good. It looks really modern, nice finishes, and feels built really solid. Sound- This is my second Bose soundbar. I have a smaller that I keep in my kids room and the bass and clarity is amazing! This one, takes that to another level. The sound is so immersive and fills the room. I have no idea how the bass, treble, dialogue and immersion comes out of this thing. It just doesn’t make sense to me how it works but it does. I have a premium sound system in another room that is 5x more than this yet this Bose soundbar keeps up. One of the big features I love is the dialogue for movies. Center channel speakers are so important in a good sound system and this bar crushes it with their proprietary dialogue feature. I also am used to Audyssey sound calibration systems in my big system and Bose answers by using your phone and app to help determine sound settings and levels. Overall, I think for the money this is truly worth it! I know it’s hard to justify spending this much on a soundbar but I promise you that for the money, you can’t buy good enough equipment to even compare to this. Again, however they make this work, it sounds like a whole array of surround speakers in your room and it all comes from one speaker. Absolutely amazing and I can’t be happier. Hats off to you Bose on this one.

Just for clarity this soundbar was combined with the Lifestyle Ultra speakers and subwoofer But this review will mostly just cover the Bose Life Ultra soundbar. Ive had quite a few soundbars in the past, and thought I had seen the best it was going to get with some other well known brands. But Bose has a reputation for excellent sound quality and they more then earn that here. First off the bar itself is very well made and more then thin enough to fit under most TVs. In my case this is under a Sony OLED. Just for clarity this is combined with the Lifestyle Sub and Ultra speakers as a combo. The app setup makes things so easy if you just follow step by step. Its very well thought out and makes what can be somewhat overwhelming to some a breeze. But just the soundbar alone will more then do for most people. The sound is something hard to explain in words, but all I can say its its basically perfect. Highs and lows are so crisp and accurate. The streaming is great as well. It all just works and works well. Doing all the adjustments and settings in the app works great. It also has Alexa but Im not part of that so I just use my music library from my phone when listening to music. So if you are looking for amazing sound, features, and quality Bose is the way to go. Combined with the Lifestyle woofer and speakers its almost like your in a theater. Couldnt recommend more!

With the Lifestyle naming Bose took a different approach with this sound bar. Its slightly bigger than the previous Bose ultra soundbar and has a new look. Its now wrapped in mesh with some glass on top which also matches their subwoofer design. I like that they kept the glass which I think gives that premium stylish look. Volume and touch controls are now on the right side. There is also a small led in the center under the Bose logo. Overall I think it looks great sitting in front of my TV. Setup was really easy. The soundbar seamlessly connected to the Bose app on my phone. It does connect to wifi using the old 2.4GHz which I thought was odd. The app said if you tried to use anything else it could cause issues so I went ahead did what it suggested. Again with this new Lifestyle model its only got 1 HDMI eARC port and no DTS support for older movies. They also dropped the remote so you will need to use the Bose app, touch control, or TV remote to adjust. I see this as a non-issue because I've never used the Bose remote anyway. It comes with Alexa+ voice assistant if you want to enable it but no others. I'm hopping that Bose and Google work together and bring Gemini to this thing as I would personally prefer that over Amazons Alexa. One really nice upgrade is that it comes with what Bose calls CustomTune which uses your phones mic to auto adjust the sound to your room instead of relying on a wired mic like they did with previous models. It makes a lot more sense sense and I found it easier to use than the traditional wired mic. It will ask you to sit in 3 different places in the the room while each speaker plays some tones. Takes about 5 min to complete depending on how many speakers you have connected to it. Once complete you can flip the tuning on or off (back to default) or run again. I highly suggest running this after setup. I've run it a few times now and during my testing I noticed it made a noticeable difference. Here is my take on the audio quality and I'm going to do some comparisons to the previous model. Out of the box the sound didn't immediately impress me, but running CustomTune after install fixed most of it. It has better bass and overall a deeper sound as you would expect with it being larger. Sounds sooo much better than my built in TV speakers. My one issue with this is that the speaker (I think the center speaker) that produces the audio for voice doesn't sound as good when watching TV shows/Movies. Everyone in my household made the same comment. I'm still tweaking eq but compared to the ultra/900, voice just sounds more hollow on this in comparison. There's a Speech Clarity feature designed to improve dialogue, but it addresses volume rather than tone, so it doesn't resolve the underlying quality issue. I'm still experimenting with EQ to see if I can dial it in. On the bright side Movies with Dolby Atmos sound phenomenal. The upward firing speakers earn their keep, and the app confirms it's genuinely rendering Atmos not just simulating it. We stream a lot of music through Spotify, and once the speaker is connected to Wi-Fi you are able send audio directly to it from the Spotify app. Music sounds clear and full-bodied, and it handles higher volumes well without any distortion. That said, I did need to tweak the center speaker again to get the balance right. Eventually I completed the setup by adding the rest of the Lifestyle speakers (the two rear speakers and the subwoofer) and the transformation was significant. The bass dropped noticeably deeper, and the surround sound went from implied to genuinely immersive. Overall I was extremely impressed. I don't think you will have any issues using this soundbar as a standalone unit for small to larger sized rooms. But I would suggest adding the optional speakers and subwoofer as well to take it to that next level. It a powerful, customizable system that requires a little tuning. Once fully set up, it delivers a truly immersive listening experience.

I've had multiple soundbars in the past and actually ended up switching to a receiver home theater setup a year or so ago so I could have a little more control over the sound delivery. I've got several Bose products (headphones and Bluetooth speakers) so I was anxious to get my hands on the new Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar from Bose. For review purposes I'm going to cover the 4 components as a system since the subwoofer and speakers are reliant on the soundbar for connectivity giving you a good 5.1 system. I received the following - - Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar - Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speakers (2) - Bose Lifestyle Ultra Subwoofer Out of the box it was really easy to use but I do have a complaint. Bose is pushing everything to phone apps and my wife doesn't really feel comfortable using apps. For the most part the setup went well, using the phone app on my phone I was able to get 2 of the 3 sound zones dialed in for listening levels about the room but for some reason the last one I could never get locked in. That really doesn't impact the performance of the soundbar, only the fine tuning for that zone. I also received the optional subwoofer and 2 surround speakers (all wireless except you do need a wall outlet for power). Linking everything in the app was painless, it recognized each speaker and the sub. You don't even need to worry which surround speaker is left or right because that swap is easily done via the app. Connecting is easy with a HDMI cable to the HDMI-ARC in/out on the TV to the HDMI-ARC in/out on the soundbar. You can also link via Bluetooth from a smart phone and it supports Airplay from Apple devices. I only wish it had an optical connection option. The app allows control of overall volume and an equalizer. We have DirecTV and using their remote I was able to add the soundbar to the remote via the DirecTV on TV settings. I have had issues with the soundbar not responding to the remote and sometimes even powering everything off and back on won't fix the issue so it's to the app to see if I can get the soundbar to respond to it. Unfortunately, my biggest gripe is that no remote is provided by Bose so if the TV provider remote isn't doesn't control and I'm not home at the time my wife will just have to do without and use the anemic TV speakers. I've scoured the internet to see if there is a better universal remote that I can use but haven't found one yet. Now on to the sound... paired with the Lifestyle speakers and subwoofer you get a really wonderful sound stage. I've had to knock down the subwoofer a bit due to it being a bit much for some shows, mainly action movies, rattle the windows but in a good way for my taste but not so much my wife's. The Lifestyle Ultra Speakers as surrounds provide very good response with very rich sound providing that really good engulfing sound. The only thing I can knock, besides no remote in the box, is the price. Individually purchased if you grab everything you are looking at around the $2500 mark. You could just get the soundbar now and then add the subwoofer if you really like the thump you get from them and you could get the surround speakers later unless you are good with just a 2.1 system (soundbar and subwoofer). Once I tackle the remote control issue I'll be 100% perfect but for the price a remote for convenience if nothing else should have been a no brainer.

I have to say, I am really loving the Bose Lifestyle Ultra products, specifically the Ultra Soundbar. I have used this to replace my apple home pods which was my Atmos sound. The Ultra Pro Atmos brings a whole other level of sound amplitude to my movie watching experience. Linking it together with the subwoofer and the speaker....OMG these things create a whole new dynamic for me. The design of the soundbar is really aesthetically pleasing. It is incredibly sleek and fits my space perfectly well. The spatial technology that is inside of this device is incredible and hearing blasts or gunfire in a war movie with the atmos cranked up, it is as if you are there. it is incredibly immersive. While i do not use it, it has Amazons Alexa smart feature built into the device which is useful for anyone who wants to turn it into a smarthome. I did however test apple airplay casting with the soundbar and both music and youtube sounded fantastic. Overall, i really couldnt be happier with this device(s) and I really recommend it. Bose to me is a top tear company.