Customer Ratings & Reviews

This exceeded what i expected. The sound quality is amazing even without the extras. The only complaint is the headset that comes with it to calibrate doesnt work.

Western digital gaming SSD 1TB fast easy to setup!

Around month 10 of owning I began to have audio issues. Presumably after a system update. Since then I’ve had nothing but headaches due to frequent/constant issues with this product (e.g, connecting, disconnecting, updates and finally solid red service light). Unfortunate. Probably won’t buy anything “high-end” from Bose or Best Buy.

The soundbar worked once for my Samsung TV during initial setup. After both the TV and soundbar automatically turned off with a 20 minute idle setting, it never worked again. I did all the troubleshooting by changing CEC settings to no avail. The sound is amazing the one time it woked. Perhaps the firmware update did something.

Sounds pretty good but the HDMI arc randomly stopped working after like a couple weeks, and the Optical link doesn't work either (tried multiple cables). Bluetooth is the only thing that works, and almost every time I turn the device back on I need to manually reconnect the bluetooth. There is also a slight delay because its bluetooth and it cannot use the dolby atmos functionality and quality is reduced. So why is it that these speakers are so awful at any hard connection? Praying the bluetooth dongle doesnt bust as well. Like wow I just want to plug my speakers in jesus....

Absolutely great sound. Love the Bluetooth feature. Even when she plays her music loud it is still great

Bose isnt ready to compete with Sonos. The aound is great, when it works. I am on my 2nd unit, both disconnect from the HDMI ARC connection to a 2020 model Sony TV every 20 minutes of stamdard TV watching, Grab the remote and fiddle until it randomly works... $1400 well spent. I have always been a Bose fan, though they may not make it going forward if they continue to gauge customers for now-standard tech thay does not work.

I wanted a movie theater in my Living Room .and with the sound bar 900 from Bose I have achieved it you’re completely encased in a bubble of sound.

Sound drops-I have to "reset" the sound bar by unplugging the cord every week or so. Going to try to get it replaced/fixed. Keep you posted, might be a TV issue. LG OLED C8 Series

I was extraordinarily excited to get the Bose 900 Soundbar. Right out of the box, this soundbar has issues. Sound bar has been successfully updated and adaptiveIQ set. However, every time my television shuts off, I have to unplug the sound bar for a minute and plug it back in for sound too work. If I do not do that, there will be no sound from the tv, Bluetooth nor airplay. I’ve tried for 3 days getting ahold of Bose customer support, but I do not think they actually have any customer support. It is incredible how such an expensive product is so insanely difficult to use with no interest in helping customers.

Great sound! Makes ALL the difference. Strongly recommend if you’re shopping for sound bars!!

Bose’s previous soundbar, the Soundbar 700, was good but missing a few items. The Smart Soundbar 900 sets out to fix these issues. This is the first Dolby Atmos soundbar I have owned but I also have a dedicated media room (7.2.4), with Atmos height speakers to compare. The soundbar comes well protected in the box and includes an optical cable, HDMI cable, remote control with batteries and Adaptiq headset. Once the unit is removed from the protective bag, it is an attractive black rectangular box, with a glass top and protective grills on the front and sides. There are two cut-outs in the top for the new upward firing height speakers. The unit looks good on a console but for someone like me who wall mounts, it did not come with any hardware or mounting instructions, so I will need to track down and buy the correct mounting hardware for this. The unit does not have much of a visual display for reference – the only obvious sign when you use the remote is that a white LED lights up to show something happened. You are expected to rely heavily on the Bose Music app to manage the soundbar. I would have preferred some sort of visual reference for volume but it is not a deal breaker - a lot of current TVs will let you mute the TV speakers but show on screen when you change volume on the soundbar. Using Alexa on the soundbar will also trigger the white LED as a listening response before the Alexa voice speaks. A sub woofer is not included and neither are surround speakers. Bose make compatible equipment to complete the full 5.1.2 Atmos set up but I currently only have 3.2, relying on the soundbars internal woofers for bass. Bose Music Application Once the unit is set up and plugged in, you can use the Bose Music app to do the full setup. It takes you step-by-step through connecting and then tweaking the soundbar to match your room and equipment. I found this part to be simple but thorough and got me up and running quickly. One minor complaint – I had plugged in an Ethernet cable as I had one ready to use and the soundbar has an Ethernet port. However, this deactivated the Wi-Fi connection and I then the app informed me I couldn’t complete the setup. I had to unplug the Ethernet cord and then all was well. I’d rather use the Ethernet if that becomes available in the future but the Wi-Fi connection appears strong and robust. Performance Ok, now for the part we’ve all been waiting for – just how good is the sound? For reference and testing purposes, I streamed “Mad Max Fury Road” from Movies Anywhere, via Roku Ultra. I find this a good test of Atmos and the stream is almost as good quality as the 4K disc, in terms of video and sound. If you are wondering, can it do the Atmos height effects, then the answer is yes. In fact, I was quite amazed at how it placed the sounds about where they should be, compared to my dedicated height speakers in my media room. I’m not sure how the soundbar fools the ear and it probably just bounces the signal off the ceiling with the correct delay and echo cancelling but it definitely works. In this instance though, the surround channels were missing and the bass was a little disappointing. This can likely be fixed by purchasing the extra surround channel speakers and the Bose sub woofer that is compatible with this soundbar. Still, the phantom voices that use Atmos height in the opening sequences of “Mad Max Fury Road” were placing exactly where I expected them and the similarity to my media room setup was impressive. I tweaked the sound settings within the app and was pleased with how you could start to dial in the soundbar to match your taste. The Adaptiq process seemed to nail down angles, heights and delays for the upward firing speakers and it was surprising to see that I did not need to tweak the height speaker volume and the Atmos effects worked great from the outset. It is nice that you can tweak the center channel, as well as the height, if you feel the need. I tested the sound with TV (YouTube TV) and it was a noticeable improvement on my previous sound bar which I thought was good before. The sound was a little sharper and dialogue seemed clearer, without needing to turn on the dialogue function in the app which would boost the center channel over the other channels. TV did not seem to make use of the upward firing speakers (YouTube TV does a maximum of 5.1 sound) but apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Movies Anywhere and HBO Max all should when the shows have Atmos sound available. The soundbar has Alexa and Google Assistant built in which is a nice addition. I set it up with my Alexa account and within seconds, was able to raise or lower the volume and control Spotify, my music player with my voice. It worked well, fading down whatever was playing while Alexa did her magic and then putting the volume back to the original position, whether I was watching TV or listening to music. I actually found the experience better than with our dedicated house Alexas, which can be a bit fussy sometimes, although they are not the latest models. It is possible to integrate all your other AV devices to the soundbar so you could literally control everything by voice command, through the soundbar Alexa, if you wanted. Bose call it Video4Voice but I use a Roku and not a cable box so didn’t think it worth adding as the Roku is quite picky with voice control within apps. You can connect to the soundbar via Bluetooth if you want to stream music directly that way. The Bose Music app offered to pair with Spotify which I opted for as my primary music source and it was very good at starting to play what I asked, via Alexa or directly from the app on my phone. The Spotify app identified the soundbar as available, even when off and played as expected. The Bluetooth connection confused me a little as I thought it would be automatic but I actually needed to put the soundbar into Bluetooth mode – either from the Bose Music app or from one of two buttons on top of the soundbar. The other button is to turn off the Alexa microphone, for privacy. Once I figured that out, it streamed music from my phone with no issues. I tested Apple Airplay and it was simple, quick and played my music flawlessly. In fact, I should comment that once I had adjusted a couple of the sound settings in the Bose app, music sounded fantastic and we will likely remove a dedicated kitchen Alexa device and just use the Bose TV soundbar for Alexa/music playback as it handles it very well. Considering there is no separate sub woofer, the soundbar still has a good bass response for music and the other frequencies were excellent too – I genuinely enjoyed listening to music through the soundbar and did not notice any distortion, even at high volume. Uncompressed tracks were super-detailed and sounded very pleasant while compressed tracks were still enjoyable to listen to. Maintenance The glass top looks nice but is a complete fingerprint magnet. I did not see a microfiber cloth included but it would have been useful. Otherwise, the soundbar should be fairly maintenance free and any future firmware updates should be handled automatically from the app. I looked to see if there were any updates available but as of me writing this, there was nothing new. In Closing This is an attractive soundbar with equally great sound. The fact that it competently handles Atmos soundtracks is very impressive and even without a sub woofer, it is possible to boost the bass up to good levels for watching TV and listening to music. For a truly home cinema feel though, most people will want to look to add the Bose sub woofer which will add a bit more “oomph” to the overall package but obviously increase the total cost. I’m led to believe that the more expensive of the two sub woofers that are compatible is very impressive but as I don’t currently have one, I can’t review that. Bose should probably be congratulated for not forcing users to buy both soundbar and sub at the same time. I was skeptical that the soundbar would be adequate out of the box without a sub woofer but have to admit that other than missing some room-shaking effects and a bit of thump in music, the soundbar alone is impressive, especially as you can tweak all the channels, including bass, to match your taste. I would have liked to have some wall-mounting hardware included but accept it would have again boosted the price and I am probably in a minority of people who always wall-mount soundbars, so why force it on everyone? I would definitely recommend this soundbar based on its looks, overall sound quality and the way it decodes and handles Atmos effects. It certainly eclipses my previous soundbars and once I get around to pairing it with the appropriate sub woofer, I think this will be a very impressive, living room Atmos-capable soundbar that also meets the wife-acceptance-factor.

Sound is delayed in one room so soundbar seems defective. Will be returning.

Great sound however recommendations for adjustments would be great. Bose leaves you out in the cold on this.

Not what expected. But will suffice for now until we do something different.

Great sound quality. Really equals out the voices that are drowned out on tvs. A bit of a pain to set up.

Amazing Sound, worth the money! I have a pretty big living room and this along with the sub makes an amazing sound. Buy it!

This is one of the worse audio devices I have ever purchased. Besides sounding like a tin can tied to a string, it constantly does not have sound output when turning on the tv. Has to be unplugged and plugged back in. Trust the bad reviews on this overpriced brick of bad experiences. For the price, I expected better. From the name, I expected reliability.

Works when it wants to. Thought for the price it would be good quality.

I don't like the fact that the phone won't stay connected to the Bose music app.