Credit:
Reviewed/Jackson Ruckar
The Best Dolby Atmos Soundbars in Canada of 2026
Products are chosen independently by our editors. Purchases made through our links may earn us a commission.
Credit:
Reviewed/Jackson Ruckar
Why trust Reviewed?
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
Learn more about our product testing
Samsung HW-Q950A
Samsung's HW-Q950a soundbar with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X is a pricey but potent all-in-one surround system, featuring excellent sound and musicality. Read More
Pros
- Powerful, seamless immersion
- Great musicality
- Good app and feature set
Cons
- Useless visual display
- Hefty size and price
Sony HT-A7000
Sony’s new Dolby Atmos soundbar doesn’t disappoint, especially when it comes to virtual surround sound. But its price is a serious cause for pause. Read More
Pros
- Excellent virtual surround
- Tons of features
- Stylish design
Cons
- No included subwoofer
- Weak-sauce app
Sonos Arc
The Sonos Arc is among the best sounding new soundbars you can buy, offering thrilling Dolby Atmos audio in a singular system that's also upgradeable. Read More
Pros
- Rich, powerful sound
- Hands-off interface
- Sonos style and versatility
Cons
- Dolby Atmos limited to newer TVs
- Short on inputs
- Big and heavy
Bose Smart Soundbar 900
Bose's Smart Soundbar 900 takes on the Sonos Arc and other top bars with expansive sound and plenty of features wrapped in Bose's signature design. Read More
Pros
- Sleek, minimalist design
- Versatile features
- Sweet, expansive sound
Cons
- Short on bass
- No spare HDMI input
- Missing some A/V extras
Samsung HW-Q800T
Samsung's latest Dolby Atmos soundbar offers clear and powerful sound, along with plenty of extras. But you'll want to look closely before you buy. Read More
Pros
- Clear, powerful sound
- Plenty of features
- Impressively slim design
Cons
- Stunted overhead effects
- Buggy Alexa performance
-
Samsung HW-Q950A
-
How We Tested Dolby Atmos Soundbars
-
What to Know About Buying Dolby Atmos Soundbars
-
Other Dolby Atmos Soundbars We Tested
-
More Articles You Might Enjoy
The Rundown
- Our favorite Dolby Atmos soundbars are the Samsung HW-Q950A and the Sony HT-A7000.
- The Samsung HW-Q950A delivers brilliantly immersive 11.1.4-channel audio with 22 drivers, offering a thrilling Dolby Atmos and DTS:X experience with great musicality.
- The Sony HT-A7000 provides exceptional virtual surround sound and effective Dolby Atmos from a single bar, boasting extensive features like HDMI 2.1 inputs and smart assistant support.
Dolby Atmos is one of the coolest and most sought after sound formats around. It brings a new dimension to surround sound (literally) that allows supported TV shows and films to engulf you in sound. But a traditional speaker setup, including ceiling-mounted or upward firing speakers to add the “height” element of Dolby Atmos, is not only costly but may require a dedicated theatre room. That’s where Dolby Atmos soundbars come in, providing an all-in-one solution for exhilarating home audio.
Not all Dolby Atmos soundbars are created equal, of course, and just how far you want to go to surround yourself in dimensional audio may depend on many factors, from space limitations to budget. If you want the very best Dolby Atmos experience in a soundbar, the Samsung HW-Q950A is the best we’ve tested, offering tons of features and great performance. But there are several other good choices on our list. Follow our list below to find the perfect Dolby Atmos soundbar for your home.
The system creates a clear and immersive experience for music as well as film and TV content.
How We Tested Dolby Atmos Soundbars
The Testers
Reviewed staff have spent years evaluating soundbars—everything from simple 2.1-channel value models to the huskiest Dolby Atmos 'bars—in order to narrow down the picks and find the best soundbars for every buyer. Our soundbar testing is spearheaded by Reviewed's experienced team of home theatre and tech experts, including Lee Neikirk, Nick Woodard, and Ryan Waniata, and backed up by a rigorous rubric of testing data to ensure accuracy.
The Tests
For years now, Reviewed has listened to, loved, and argued over standalone soundbars, soundbar/sub combos, and a few home-theatre-in-a-box products to find the best soundbars you can buy.
Testing mostly involves using them as any consumer would, using each bar as an audio substitute for a TV (via either HDMI ARC or optical connection), testing its streaming and Bluetooth functions, and analyzing its sound modes, voice-boosting modes, and individual proprietary features.
We also conduct back-to-back analyses of sources like Netflix/Blu-ray movies, surround sound and Dolby Atmos demo discs to ensure accuracy for height speakers and object-based 3D-sound mixes, Spotify over Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi, and occasionally, 3.5mm aux sources and USB audio.
While the best soundbars all have different combinations of drivers, tweeters, woofers, and external subwoofers, generally, audio quality was respectable in most cases across genres and sources. Performance features like surround sound speakers and, of course, Dolby Atmos/DTS:X height speakers' ability to create an effective 3D dome of sound are at the top of our list, as are factors like usability and especially value.
Other factors that set soundbars apart in like price ranges include setup and operational pain points, design aesthetics, and overall responsiveness—where the day-to-day rubber meets the road, so to speak.
What to Know About Buying Dolby Atmos Soundbars
In short, the point of a Dolby Atmos soundbar is to either replace a home theatre speaker system with a less obtrusive device or, more simply, to replace your TV's built-in speakers with something that takes advantage of today's 3D audio formats. Dolby Atmos (and DTS:X) soundbars are designed to offer a more immersive and cinematic audio experience, adding height channels that bounce sound off your ceiling to create a vertical element of sound alongside the horizontal. How well they do this, and how easily they are to incorporate into the average home are extremely important factors.
Soundbars aren't your only option for improving your living room/home theatre audio, but they're by far the most affordable and convenient. If you don't have the ability to build out a dedicated home theatre room, or simply don't want to shell out the considerable funds it requires to install a surround system complete with a receiver and mounted speakers in your home, a Dolby Atmos soundbar is a way to greatly improve your audio experience.
What Determines a Dolby Atmos/DTS:X or Surround Sound Bar?
Soundbars that support true surround sound may offer separate "satellite" speakers that can be set behind you in a multi-channel configuration. There are also bars that offer "virtual surround" that use digital processing and acoustic trickery to make it sound like there are speakers all around the room, but, in general, the more speakers that "surround" you, the better the effect. In some cases, such as with bars from Sonos, Sony, and Bose, satellite surround speakers can even be added later for an additional cost.
The soundbars on this list support 3D audio formats like Dolby Atmos and the less common DTS:X to take things even further, usually adding upfiring speakers in the bar and potentially in the surround speakers (either 2 or 4), which can bounce sound off the ceiling so that it appears to be coming from above. The goal? Immersing you in a hemispheric globe of sound.
While they only reach their full potential when fed content mixed in 3D audio formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, these soundbars offer the most immersive sound field, bringing you even closer to what you'll experience in a high-quality theatre. It's also important to note that some soundbars may be Dolby Atmos or DTS:X compatible, without offering upfiring or surround speakers, meaning the 3D audio is virtualized with digital signal processing or even wave-guide technology to varying degrees of efficacy. Again, dedicated speakers for each audio channel make for the best experience
Either way, you will pay a premium for this technology, and if you want the best experience you'll likely have more speakers to spread around your TV room, so these concessions must be considered before making your choice. Those who don't want to deal with separate surround speakers may be better with single-bar solutions such as the Sony HT-A7000 or Sonos Arc (though, again, you can add surround speakers to these bars later for a fee).
HDMI ARC and HDMI eARC Connection Explained
HDMI ARC and HDMI eARC are the preferred soundbar connection options, not only because these connections allow for newer TVs (around 2017 and later) to pass advanced audio formats like Dolby Atmos, but also because they usually allow you to control the soundbar's power and volume with your TV remote—without the need to program said remote. (To do this, you may need to turn on HDMI CEC in your TV's settings.)
The optical audio connection that also comes standard on virtually all soundbars can carry 2.1-and 5.1-channel surround sound, but that's where it tops out. For more advanced soundbars with Dolby Atmos (which usually includes upfiring speakers), you'll have to use HDMI ARC or eARC to pass these high bandwidth formats.
Nearly all modern Dolby Atmos soundbars have an HDMI eARC connection rather than HDMI ARC. As pointed out in our HDMI ARC and eARC guide, eARC stands for "enhanced Audio Return Channel" and is designed to provide high-quality, uncompressed audio from your TV (including the highest quality Dolby Atmos) as well as address any sync issues between on-screen video and the soundbar's audio. As HDMI eARC is becoming more common, it’s important to note its most important functions: to allow for high-resolution audio to be passed down from any device plugged into your TV, as well as to quell any sync issues that may arise between the soundbar and TV.
One last note. As touched on above, Dolby Atmos comes in two primary versions, one of which is higher bandwidth and, as such, higher quality. To learn more about how this works (and what it means to your system), check out our Dolby Atmos guide. Otherwise, if you're concerned about getting the highest quality audio possible (including the best Dolby Atmos possible), you'll want to look for soundbars with decoding for the highest quality formats like Dolby TrueHD and, for DTS content, DTS-HD Master Audio (the latter of which is only available via physical media).
What to Look For in a Soundbar
The major things to look for when shopping for a soundbar are price, audio output, and connectivity, the latter two usually being directly related to the first. If you don't want to shell out the extra cash for Dolby Atmos, satellite surround speakers, and/or a huge range of decoding/pass-thru options for advanced or lossless audio modes, you may want to check out our versatile list of the best soundbars for any budget for other options.
Tweeters refer to smaller speakers (drivers) assigned to the high-mid and high (treble) frequencies of the audio spectrum. Woofers and subwoofers refer to speakers (drivers) assigned to the midrange and bass/sub-bass frequencies of the audio spectrum respectively.
What About a Subwoofer?
Soundbars that offer what is known as a 2.1-channel configuration or higher usually include a separate subwoofer to handle lower frequencies (which makes up the ".1" of the equation). Others may simply have a dedicated subwoofer “channel” with larger speakers built into the bar itself to handle low frequencies. This is, in almost all cases, not as effective as a separate subwoofer. A soundbar without a subwoofer or one that has built-in woofers, rather than a separate cabinet, may even be preferred in smaller apartments.
That said, if you're looking for cinematic rumble—whether for movies, TV, or video games—you'll want to seriously consider a soundbar that includes a separate subwoofer. This will greatly enhance action scenes and other dramatic moments, while also helping thinner bars fill in some of the gaps in the frequency spectrum created by their smaller drivers. There are a few cases where low-frequency sound is well-handled without a subwoofer, such as in Sonos' Arc soundbar or Sony’s HT-A7000, but for the most part, you’ll want a subwoofer to add cinematic power.
Other Dolby Atmos Soundbars We Tested
More Articles You Might Enjoy
- The Best Soundbars
- [The Best Amazon Echo Smart Speakers](https://www.reviewed.com/canada/home-outdoors/best-right-now/best-amazon-echo-speakers-canada
- The Best Wireless Earbuds
Meet the testers
Lee was Reviewed's point person for most television and home theater products from 2012 until early 2022. Lee received Level II certification in TV calibration from the Imaging Science Foundation in 2013. As Editor of the Home Theater vertical, Lee oversaw reviews of TVs, monitors, soundbars, and Bluetooth speakers. He also reviewed headphones, and has a background in music performance.
Hailing originally from Montana, Ryan parlayed his time working as a musician and audio engineer into a career in digital media in 2012. Since then he's had extensive experience as a writer and editor, including everything from op-eds and features to reviews on TVs, audio gear, smart home devices, and more.
Nick Woodard is a tech journalist specializing in all things related to home theater and A/V. His background includes a solid foundation as a sports writer for multiple daily newspapers, and he enjoys hiking and mountain biking in his spare time.
Checking our work.
Our team is here to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and experts obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.
Shoot us an email