Customer Ratings & Reviews

This legendary Bose Product rocks. For those consumers who are unfamiliar with the Bose name, you've found of one of the best products on the market today. Bose is an awesome company which produces some of the wickedest products. The Bose soundbar 500 will not disappoint. Its wireless capability, its simple setup, and awesome sound are truly hard to beat. If you are not convinced with my review, I urge you to go out and listen to it yourself. I coupled my soundbar with the Bose Bass Module 500 which not only complements the soundbar, but will simply rock your world with a concert-hall experience. I am the owner of another high end soundbar which has two additional speakers and prices in at a similar level as this Bose product. I did a side by side comparison and Bose meets or exceeds the sounds of the "other" unit. The Bose highs are much crisper, and the lows are more like a theater experience. Bose is a winner in every way. The remote control for this unit is small and compact and fits into your hand nicely. The button side of the remote control easily picks up lint, dust and dirt particles and is difficult to keep clean. The back of the remote has a differing material which does not pick up debris nor does it show dirt. In this reviewers opinion, the remote should have been made with the same material. Bass and treble are controlled via the Bose App and can not be tweaked with the supplied remote control. The Amazon Alexa is a nice bonus for this unit. PURE LISTENING PLEASURE is how I rate this product. Hearing is believing. Bose is the absolutely the best

Have to be a techy to work this. I wish they had told us all this in the store before buying it

Have not been able to set it up. Even with help from BOSE troubleshooting.

Bose home audio has a well known reputation for delivering spacious sound. The Soundbar 500 continues that legacy. Unfortunately, by focusing on sound dispersion, they left out clarity. This may be a rectangular peg in a round hole which doesn’t fit either niche well. The basic sound bar provides a relatively wide sound stage in a true 180 degree pattern. You’ll hear the music identically no matter where you are in that area. Unfortunately, the stereo separation in music suffers in this wide dispersion design. Movies suffer from the same issue. All the sound seems like it’s coming from the same spot. The key aspect of any sound device is its sound. This is where the Soundbar 500 falls flat...literally. I played a mix of pop music and classical music from Amazon’s service. In all cases it sounds rather compressed. The vocals were often drowned out by music. I have a Bose system in my car and a rather nice pair of their headphones. This sounds nothing like those well balanced options. It does sound better than my TV’s speakers and better than my Amazon Echo, but those are not high bars to cross. It sounds somewhat like listening to music from a cassette tape, instead of a CD. Set up is a little more complicated than it could be. You must use the app to have it join your network and connect to streaming music services. Before you can connect it asks you to create a Bose account. Only after that’s created does it give you the opportunity to link Amazon Music, Spotify, and Pandora accounts to your soundbar. These each require their own separate login. The company notes you’ll soon be able to add Google Assistant and Apple Play 2. The nice aspect is you can set any service as 1 of the 6 presets on your remote. The downside is having to re-enter all your login credentials into your phone. There’s no option for a web based set up unlike Amazon and Google offer. Bose offers an optional subwoofer module for the Soundbar 500, which nearly doubles the price. Adding it in does add significantly to the sound quality. The bass module connects wirelessly with setup handled through the app. With it enabled, the frequency response gets the kind of boost you’d expect. Since it’s wireless, you can set it up anywhere that’s convenient and has an outlet nearby. The wireless connection is fantastic with all the music played in perfect synchronization and with no distortion, not an easy task. While it adds much, the sound quality still does not match a mid level component system. This is the first soundbar I’ve owned. Based on this experience, I can’t imagine getting another one. You can hear muddy music for a lot less.

The powerful soundbar is amazing. I live the Alexa and apps, plus the crystal clear sounds it generates. Bose has pa led a powerful punch in this baby and you can't be anything but pleased with it's size, power, sound clarity, and design. This is a must have for that total enjoyable music movie, and television sound enjoyment. Simply OUTSTANDING!

Bluetooth is very poor . I think 700 is better in Sound aswell .

The Bose Soundbar 500 is a great mid-range soundbar with many capabilities to interact with today's smart homes and solid audio performance. Over the past few weeks, I have been able to test it with many different types of music and find it to provide great performance for the price. It is able to fill large spaces with sound, and I never have to use it at full volume. It is also great as a standalone speaker with Alexa capabilities when not connected to a TV. Setup: Connecting the product and any additions is extremely easy, and I had no trouble installing and navigating the app. It is clearly organized and has many streaming services to choose from, including Amazon music and connections to Bluetooth. The setup for Alexa is very easy through the Alexa app. Sound: The soundbar provides clear, crisp sound in most registers, but I find that it is lacking a bit of substance in bass. The AdaptIQ calibration tool helps to a degree, but the next generation could use some work. The Alexa microphone works well Value: At $550, I feel like the product is lacking some more refinement that a product this price would warrant. Simply having the Bose name is not an excuse to charge more. Overall: This is a great product that I would recommend to anyone looking for a medium level home audio system with connected capabilities. On a budget, I think there are some better options but this is a great start to a new product line from Bose.

It has amazing sound quality and Alexa is an amazing addition! The sound bar makes me feel like I am watching my shows at the theatre. The design is very sleek, and looks great with my TV. It seems very durable. It was quick and easy to set up straight from the box, and I had absolutely no issues with setup. Sometimes Alexa does not respond, and for that I marked off 1 star.

I received my Bose Soundbar 500 about three weeks ago. I continuously use it to play music from my Alexa, my phone, and Pandora. I love this Soundbar 500. The sound quality is perfect. The set up was fairly simple, I had to plug it in and download the Bose App. Then there were several steps to follow, and now I am completely connected. Hooking it up to my TV was a little tricky, as I didn’t have the correct audio cord. Now everything works perfectly. This is a great companion for the Bose Bass Module 500 as well. Together the bass and sound output doesn’t compare to any other I have purchased in the past. The one thing that was a little tricky at first was getting music from Alexa to only play on the Soundbar, and not both the echo dot and the Soundbar. Now I make sure I only speak to Alexa close to my Soundbar. That has alleviated both devices playing music at the same time. Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves pure sound and likes to jam to music. Once again, Bose has developed another device which lends the best sound quality amongst competitors.

This is by far the best soundbar I have ever owned. Not only is the sound clear, accurate, and full, but it's incredibly easy to set up and works flawlessly with my iPhone and Spotify. Also, the built-in Alexa works beautifully. If you want to take your TV audio to the next level, buy this.

Setting the soundbar up took no time at all. The system adjusted and optimized itself and sounds great. I am less happy about the mobile phone interface, which seems to have plenty of features, but a not-so-intuitive way of maneuvering from feature to feature. I am sure that once I work out how to use the interface, it will be smooth sailing, but I really wish that Bose had given more thought to how people are going to access the settings and other features.

This is a great soundbar. The sounds is crisp and clear and the soundbar is not too large to look out of place on a media cabinet. Pros: - Easy setup through the Bose Music app. Took me about 15 minutes to set up and calibrate sound - Great sound in a small package - Bose Music app makes it extremely easy to calibrate audio settings - Sliding your hand across the soundbar to increase or decrease sound is a neat feature, though I do not use it often Cons (these would not dissuade me from purchasing) - I wish the indicator light on the front above the speaker grill was a bit brighter. It can be difficult to tell if the soundbar is on or not - I've experienced a couple times where bluetooth has disconnected while audio was paused. It is extremely simple to reconnect, but it's a minor annoyance Overall, I would absolutely recommend this if you want a sleek, great sounding, easy to set up soundbar.

I bought a new tv so I told myself that I have to push it a little bit by buying a soundbar. I didnt know which soundbar should I take so I bought two : Bose 500 plus the base $900 and I bought Klipsch RSB11 (it comes with base) for $400 (was on sale from $600). I have both for few days and I was trying everything possible just to get my mind clear. 1. I will start by saying that Bose looks amazing, small, compact, stylish. Nothing to say about that, compared to a bulky much bigger RSB11. 1-0 Bose. 2. Connectivity: both were kind of easy to set up, but for BOSE I had to download the app. That's a minus because it took longer than RSB11. 1-1 3. Bluetooth: on the Bose i had a problem that I did't find on RSB11. Connecting the soundbar to my Mac, playing anything on it (music, listening live tv, youtube) every 5-6 minutes i was having 1-2 second gaps, where the music stopped. On the Klipsch, the bluetooth connection just went continuously with no gap. Both had delays image-sound but I think it is normal for a Bluetooth connection. 2-1 Klipsch. 4. The most important, SOUND: Maybe I had better expectations, maybe all the fame of BOSE brand made me believe in the beginning that the sound SHOULD AND WILL BE CRYSTAL CLEAR. It is not. And here is where I get very very DISAPPOINTING. Not loud enough, not clear enough, the base not powerful enough. I tried movies, 4k movies, music, youtube. It's not CLEAR. On the other side, Klipsch convinced me with a better clarity of the sound, clarity of the dialog, better base and louder even. 3-1 Klipsch. 5. Connections: I like the fact that Bose got HDMI, optical and they give you the chance to add wired speakers on the soundbar. Klipsch doesn't allow that. 3-2 Klipsch. 6. Price: $900 BOSE vs $400 Klipsch. For nothing in the world BOSE 500 doesn't value (except for the fact that you PAY THE NAME) double that Klipsch RSB11... it's impossible. The easiest comparison ... 4-2 Klipsch. I will return the BOSE in the next days, it is just NOT WORTH IT to spend so much money for so little to offer. If you just want to show off in front of your friends that you have money to spend on a BOSE, that buy BOSE soundbar 500, but if you care about your budget and the better quality soundbar, Klipsch RSB11 offer what you need. (not that Klipsch is not a good name brand). p.s. I bought a BOSE QC II headphones, but these are incredible, amazing. 5 starts with no questions. Just to show that I am very objective about this review. BOSE might have some great products but not the Soundbar 500. Sorry.

Say goodbye to subtitles! haha. The sounds produced by this beautiful elegant soundbar are just the most crisp and unequivocal to the listener. I was slightly disappointed that there was no instruction manual, but there is a Bose app you can download and it will find your sound bar (and other Bose components) and guide you step by step. The addition of Alexa makes it just more convenient if you are an Amazon/Alexa user, though it'd be nice if it had a Google option too... As far as music, yes your ears will melt at the beautiful sound engineering that is produced by the soundbar. Why is it so great? Well besides the sound, it is SMALL, but produces a BIG, CLEAR sound. That is hard to do! Soundbars typically compensate with size, but Bose does it with amazing engineering. The soundbar is sleek and unobtrusive, even being inconspicuous to the person who isn't looking for it. Your friends will ask "Where is that big sound coming from??" and you will grin and point to your beautiful soundbar. Pair it with your wireless subwoofer and you've got yourself a great setup.

In general, my listening purposes are very wide spread. I listen to mostly Hip-Hop/Rap, and a bit of EDM, but of course when I have friends over I listen to Pop and Billboard hits in general. Besides my music habits, my watching habits consist of the local channels (I don’t pay for cable). I watch either the local news or Sports broadcastings. All of my other watching habits happen on my streaming device. The SoundBar was kind of a pain to set up because I just unboxed it and just tried connecting everything and assuming it just started up. What I should have done was read the manual! Downloading the iOS app walked me thru the whole process. Unfortunately there was a moment when the speaker disconnected and I had to start over. I also had to update sound bar right out the box. About 2 weeks later I tried setting it up so that I can control the SoundBar volume with the TV remote. It’s not very reliable of a set up. I ended up switching back to using the Bose remote. With the setup I opted to use the ADAPTIQ feature. This allowed the sound bar to adapt to my room by sitting at certain spots, where I’d most likely sit and watch TV. I honestly can’t tell the difference this feature makes. The SoundBar looks very clean. While it’s a minimalist design, it’s still very sleek. Not bulky at all, very lightweight, surprisingly for the sound quality it puts out. The app is very nifty and I’m mind blown technology has come this far since my original stereo is outdated. It takes only a few seconds to boot up. It’s great that I can adjust the volume, treble, and bass right in the app and the change registers basically immediately. The convenience of this system is great. I have an Apple TV and when I turn it on, the Sound bar and TV all turn on. When I turn off the speaker, the Apple TV and TV turn off. With that being said, if I forget to turn off the speaker and instead turn off the TV only, it messes up the connection with the SoundBar or something. One thing that confused me in general about this Bose experience was the use of Presets in the app. I'm capable of figure things out but couldn't figure how to create presets to use with my Bose system. If there was a tutorial or FAQ in the app for that and other features, that would be very helpful. All other aspects of the app were great. It is easy for others to connect to the Bose speaker, easy to adjust the Bass & Treble. It’s easy connecting Bluetooth devices as mentioned. Once a device is initially connected, you just toggle it to connect it or disconnect it. I wish the app would let you disable some tabs or something. Like you can play Amazon Music, TuneIn straight from the app. I don’t care for either of those. This SoundBar really fills up the room without obnoxious bass or any sort of distortion, and the sound quality as you should expect from Bose. As a Sound Bar alone, it might not produce enough bass for your major house party, but for casual entertainment and movie night, it is enough, or even for a board game night! For movies, it’s nice to know there’s no delay in audio with this SoundBar like some others in the market. Sometimes, I like to turn on the news partly just to hear current events going on and partly just to have background noise. So with dialogue mode, it makes so easy to hear the narration of the news without the sound effects overpowering and startling me. One other gripe I have about this product, with how high-tech everything else about this SoundBar is, I expected a fancier remote.

Picked this up with a subwoofer and WOW. It's a tad bit confusing getting it setup as you have to use the Bose app to get it going, but once it was tuned with the included headset, it was superb. The added sub really puts the cherry on top of the whole solution. Make your adjustments on this unit and that's where it really shines! The sound is so clear and tight it puts my previous Samsung Sound bar to shame and I paid good money for that as well! Big sound from a compact design. Well done, Bose!

The Bose Soundbar 500 is a well-built, compact soundbar with average sound. For reference, I use a full 7.2.4 setup comprised of Martin Logan and Rythmik speakers in my living room and a Sony HTST-5000 soundbar in my bedroom. While I don't expect the Bose Soundbar 500 with Bass Module to compete directly against either system at nearly $1k I do expect above average performance. Let's start with setup. The Soundbar 500 comes well packed and is a very straightforward installation. The soundbar is very thin and fairly short so it will fit better with smaller TVs. It comes with an external power brick and the Adaptiq mic for basic room correction. It also comes with a small remote that provides necessary control for volume and source selection. The important thing to note about this soundbar is that it has a single HDMI input (eARC capable). It has no switching capability whatsoever and is meant to be fed from the ARC input on your TV. It also comes with an optical input if you are connecting to a TV without ARC capability. For my installation I simply connected an HDMI cable from the ARC input on my TV to the HDMI input on the Soundbar 500 and plugged in the power. I then installed the Bose Music app on my iPhone and followed the setup steps. This brings me to the Adaptiq step. I have used a lot of different room corrections (Audyssey, YPAO, RoomPerfect, Anthem ARC), but this was the first one that had the mic installed in a headband and required me to sit in different positions around the room. In fact, the app requires you to sit in at least 5 different locations before you can continue so you may find yourself sitting in places you would never sit, but without the ability to skip additional locations that is the situation. Once that was done it was time to see what this system could do. I decided to start my audition with music. My immediate impression was a tad underwhelming. The soundbar has nice highs and the bass module helped to fill in the lower registers, but the mid-range was muddy. It just kinda gets lost and quickly overpowered. This problem only gets worse with more volume so that wasn't exactly the experience I was hoping for out of the gate. I then decided to try movies. Here the experience changed a bit. First, the soundbar has a great soundfield. It is very enveloping and definitely gives the impression of a larger 5.1 discrete package. Just like music though voices tend to get lost at higher volumes as they are quickly overpowered by the highs and lows. At this price I really expected better. Also of note, this soundbar only supports Dolby Digital 5.1. This was probably the point that struck me as the oddest. Why offer eARC (which is designed to handle Dolby Atmos and DTS:X) and then only offer Dolby Digital 5.1 support? The Soundbar 500 also throws in Alexa support, as well as, several music services such as Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music. Nothing exactly groundbreaking, but are nice to have. Overall, the Bose Soundbar 500 is a tough recommend. While it provides an adequate experience it is simply too expensive for the performance delivered. I would be more inclined to seek out the Sony HTST5000 on sale as it supports Dolby Atmos/DTS:X (including built-in upfiring speakers) and eARC. It also has HDMI switching and a more capable wireless subwoofer. At close to $1K for the Soundbar 500 and Bass Module 500 I feel like you might be paying more for the name than the performance.

I love the sound quality that comes from such a sleek soundbar. As a musician and music educator, quality, balanced sound is a must. Bose is definitely at the top of my list when it comes to my audio components. The size of this unit is misleading at the very least. The signature Bose sound quality is not sacrificed one bit. The wireless connectivity and built-in applications compatibility are features that truly enhance user experience. The Bose 500 Soundbar includes a single HDMI input (eARC capable). It has no switching capability whatsoever and is meant to be fed from the ARC port on your TV. It does feature an optical input (cable sold separately) if you are connecting to a TV without ARC capability. I connected an HDMI cable from the ARC input on my TV to the HDMI input on the Soundbar 500 and plugged in the power. I then installed the Bose Music app on my iPhone and followed the setup steps. This brings me to the Adaptiq step. I have used various room corrections, but this was the first one that had the mic installed in a headband and required me to sit in different positions around the room. In fact, the app requires you to sit in at least 5 different locations before you can continue so you may find yourself sitting in odd places without the ability to skip additional locations. I ended up skipping this because the process kept timing out. Since my immediate impression was that the sound would be fine, I decided to start the experience with my music library. The soundbar has nice highs and the bass module completed the lower registers. I spent much less time critiquing the balance and sound quality, and more time simply enjoying some much-needed entertainment time. The only downside is that the Bose bass module is sold as a separate unit. They do pair quite easily. I look forward to this becoming compatible with iOS (Siri), too!

I found this a good looking soundbar that fit nicely under my television. Great sound, sounds like I'm at the theater. You can control the soundbar in one of 3-ways: Alexa, the App, or the remote. Once the update was done it wasn't too hard to set up. I'm a newbie to this stuff so I needed the handy help page and that did take some extra time to set up. I also put the Bose 500 Bass Module with it. Awesome sound! Nice looking, nice sound and a great looking set.

I’ve hooked the Sound Bar 500 to my family room TV along with the Bose Bass Module 500. The set up was pretty quick and easy with just an HDMI cable, the Bose app, and a wifi connection - took minutes. It’s also easy to operate - can control the sound bar with the remote, the app, or voice command (it’s paired with Alexa). I stream music through it just as i would Alexa - it still picks up voice commands over the loud music. The sounds are rich and pick up those subtle details that give music and movies more of a real feel. It certainly fills the room and more. It’s a low profile unit measuring at about 31” long by 2” tall and 4” deep - so it doesn’t take up room and doesn’t stand out. It’s a sleek matte black finish and feels sturdy (not hollow or flimsy). While it doesn’t draw attention with its low profile it’s also hard to tell what it’s doing (there’s no display at its front). The ADAPTiQ calibrator is an interesting feature that customizes the unit to your room, so the sound is even anywhere you sit - and anywhere you sit you can hear the details of the music or movie. The experience is definitely richer.