The Best Soundbars of 2026

Nothing pairs with a great TV like an equally awesome sound system, but not everyone has time to set up a full home theater. If you’re looking for an improvement over your TV’s speaker and don’t want to deal with the hassle of wires and components, a soundbar may be your savior. Not only are they great for dialogue clarity, they can also vastly improve cinematic sound, bringing everything you watch (or play) to life. The best of them offer powerful punch, dazzling features like Dolby Atmos, and wireless music streaming in a simplified package.

We’ve spent hundreds of hours over the years evaluating soundbars, and right now the Sonos Arc (available at Best Buy for $899.00) is our favorite thanks to stellar performance, versatile features (including Dolby Atmos), simple operation, and slick design. If the Arc doesn't strike your fancy, though, we’ve corralled the very best options we've tested in one place to match any listening space and budget.

Other Soundbars We Tested

How We Test Soundbars

The Testers

Reviewed staff have spent years evaluating soundbars—ranging from simple 2.1-channel value models to the huskiest Dolby Atmos bars—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 theater and tech experts, 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-theater-in-a-box products to find the best soundbars you can buy.

Testing 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 and streaming services, surround sound and Dolby Atmos demo discs, Spotify over Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi, and occasionally, 3.5mm aux sources and USB audio. And since many of us have professional audio setups, we compare the bars to top-notch audio systems as well.

While the best soundbars have different combinations of drivers, tweeters, woofers, and external subwoofers, audio quality isgenerally paramount to our top choices across genres and sources, apart from performance features like surround sound and Dolby Atmos/DTS:X speakers, what often sets soundbars from major brands apart at similar price ranges are usability pain points, design aesthetics, and overall responsiveness—where the day-to-day rubber meets the road, so to speak. We test all of that too, over several days, to make sure the bars we pick will function properly.

What You Should Know About Soundbars

In short, the point of a soundbar is to either replace a home theater speaker system with a less obtrusive device or, more often, to replace your TV's terrible built-in speakers with something that actually sounds good. Because speaker (or driver) clarity depends so much on the vibration of moving parts within a confined space, modern super-thin LED and OLED TVs generally don't have very good sound. You might think your TV sounds fine, but when you hear your favorite movies, TV shows, or music through a good soundbar, your opinion will change.

Soundbars aren't your only option for improving your living room/home theater audio, but they're by far the most affordable and convenient. If you live in an apartment or smaller space, or if you don't want to spend the considerable funds required to install a surround system or mounted speakers in your home, consider other options. In that case, a soundbar is a great way to improve your TV audio experience.

HDMI ARC and HDMI eARC Connection Explained

HDMI ARC or 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. If you have a more advanced soundbar with Dolby Atmos (which usually includes upfiring speakers), you'll have to use HDMI ARC or eARC to pass Dolby Atmos content from your TV.

Most modern soundbars now offer HDMI eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel) connection rather than the more common HDMI ARC port. It is designed to provide high-quality, uncompressed audio from your TV (including top-quality Dolby Atmos) as well as address any sync issues between on-screen video and the soundbar's audio.

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're on a tight budget, you likely won't get extras like Dolby Atmos, satellite surround speakers, or a wide range of decoding/pass-thru options for advanced or lossless audio modes. However, you can expect to get multiple speaker drivers comprising at least a stereo (left/right) setup, and usually an external subwoofer.

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.

More often, when you spend a few hundred dollars or more, you'll also find options like the ability to connect with other speakers in your home for a multi-room audio setup. Sonos, Bose, and other brands offer such features, but they're almost always proprietary, meaning you'll need to stick with the brand of your bar to connect to different speakers. Also more common in recent years are standalone bars, which don't come with wireless surround speakers or a subwoofer, but offer the ability to add those components later for a fee—again, almost always confined to like-branded models.

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 have a dedicated subwoofer “channel” with larger speakers built into the bar itself to handle low frequencies. The latter is, in almost all cases, not as effective as a separate subwoofer. But a soundbar without a subwoofer or one that has built-in woofers, rather than a separate cabinet, may even be preferred in smaller spaces and apartments.

That said, if you're looking for powerful cinematic rumble—whether for movies, TV, or video games—you'll seriously want to 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, a subwoofer is preferred for cinematic punch down low.

Dolby Atmos/DTS:X and Surround Sound

Some soundbars also offer separate surround sound speakers that can be set behind you in a multi-channel configuration. When fed content mixed in surround sound, these soundbars better immerse you in your favorite format-supported shows and movies, especially when the different channels are balanced properly. In some cases, satellite surround speakers can be added on later.

Soundbars with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support take things even further, usually adding upfiring speakers (either 2 or 4), which can bounce sound off the ceiling so that it appears to be coming from above, immersing you in a hemispheric globe of sound. While only effective with Dolby Atmos and/or DTS: X-supported content, these soundbars offer the most immersive experience available, bringing you closer to what you'll experience in a high-quality theater. Some soundbars are only Dolby Atmos or DTS:X compatible, with the sound being virtualized with digital signal processing or even wave-guide technology to varying degrees of efficacy.

Either way, you will pay a premium for this technology, and you may also need more speakers to spread around your TV room. These concessions must be considered before making your choice.

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