Bose Solo 5 Soundbar Review
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Bose Solo 5 Review


The Bose Solo 5 soundbar has a simple design. It’s compact, lightweight, and the casing is made of rigid plastic with an embedded metal grid to prevent damage from wear and tear over time. Measuring at only about 21 inches long, this small soundbar fits under most TVs without taking up too much space or obstructing your screen viewings in any way.

If you like, you can also purchase the wall mounting kit, which will save some time during installation as it comes with all necessary hardware for hanging on walls securely.

Bose Solo 5 TV sound system review

If you decide to place the soundbar on your entertainment unit, this product isn’t too tall and will sit very nicely in front of your TV screen. However, since the input connections are located at the back, please make sure there are a few centimeters between it and any wall for optimal performance.

Design & Build Quality

The Bose Solo 5 TV sound system is a great, simple addition to your home theater system. It sits underneath the TV and doesn’t take up much space or add any extra noise that many other speakers may bring with them.

The Bose Solo 5 is a soundbar that doesn’t have any displays or buttons on it. Instead, it comes with remote control, and the only thing to look out for are black grilles at the front and top of this bar, which makes it easy to blend into your home’s decor.

Bose Solo 5 TV Sound System

The soundbar features two drivers that are angled to deliver a broader and more immersive listening experience. But, unfortunately, there isn’t much stereo separation, and the soundstage is very narrow, which means you don’t get enveloping audio like more prominent speakers can provide when watching films or videos.

The LED indicators let you know that the soundbar is enabled or disabled, plus they also signal when volume changes are made.

Channels

The Bose Solo 5 Sondbar is a 2.0 soundbar, which means it’s challenging to achieve surround sound as there are no subwoofers installed. This product has only two channels, and the first number (2) refers to how many speakers your sounding bar comes equipped with. In contrast, the second digit (0) represents how many subwoofer systems come included.

Bose Solo 5 TV Soundbar

We can see that this particular soundbar model does not have any additional woofers or frequency response enhancements inside the unit for users who prefer their music more bass-driven than normal and would like more depth in playback quality overall.

You need at least five channels (left, center right, and two at the rear). That results in a lack of stereo separation and directionality because audio is coming towards us from just one location.

Controls

The Bose Solo 5 is equipped with a remote control that can act as the universal TV/Soundbar controller since there are no controls on the bar itself. Once you make changes to settings via this device, an LED light behind its grille will flash to indicate your command was registered successfully.

Bose Solo 5 Soundbar control

The remote control is a device that controls other devices. For example, it can be used to change the channel on your television or turn off/on both your TV and cable box with its power button (among others).

In addition, Bose Solo 5 has buttons for controlling almost anything, from turning down the volume of all those speakers you have hooked up throughout your house to changing settings on certain types of equipment like TVs, DVD players, or Blu-ray players.

Connectivity & Inputs

The Bose Solo 5 soundbars have limited connectivity options with optical, coaxial, and auxiliary input. It comes with Optical cables, which is excellent if you want to connect your device that does not have an HDMI port. Unfortunately, there is no HDMI port included which means devices that do not have either of these outputs will be incompatible with using it.

Although the Bose Solo 5 TV sound system supports Bluetooth wireless, it does not support lossy codecs such as aptX. There is also no NFC for quick-pairing your device with a single tap of both devices on each other to establish a connection.

Bose Solo 5 Home Speakers

Even so, this TV soundbar from Bose can still deliver extraordinary audio quality and minimal data losses when transferring between compatible devices through Bluetooth connections.

You can freely stream your favorite tunes and podcasts from any mobile device to the Solo 5 TV soundbar with Bluetooth connectivity. In addition, with a wireless connection, there will be no messy cables for clutter in the living room.

Bose Solo 5 TV Soundbar Sound System

Sound Performance

Despite its small size, the Bose Solo 5 Soundbar is powerful enough to fill rooms more significantly than 20 square meters with sound. Good midrange reproduction is most important in such a compact speaker, and this model has that covered well.

The tweeter seemed hidden behind the rest of the spectrum, though we were happy with its sound. We didn’t expect much bass to come out of such small dimensions, but it was big and strong at higher output levels without losing any control. The left/right ratio in stereo sound is relatively narrow, but there’s still a decent stage size for compactness’ sake.

Bose Solo 5 Soundbar

In conclusion, users should not expect a big surround scene from the Bose Solo 5 since it is neither equipped with any virtual mode nor have front stereo output. Therefore, all of the sound experience will be coming from one speaker itself in particular.

The sound quality was pretty good when watching movies. Dialogue without the specific mode turned on was crisp and easily understandable. The dialogue mode will be helpful for anyone hard of hearing as it not only emphasizes spoken word but also decreases bass to improve intelligibility.

When listening to music, the Bose Solo 5 soundbar performed well. Mids and trebles were nice and crisp, but you might find you’ll want to adjust the bass from its factory setting as lower frequency sounds lack presence otherwise. That was also true when watching movies; turning up bass for movie explosions will give them more impact if they lack in this area.

Conclusion

The Bose Solo 5 TV Sound system is an excellent soundbar for those looking to upgrade their TV speakers. While it may seem small at first glance, the size works in its favor as you can mount this under any diagonal of your television without worrying about blocking any ports or cables.

Bose Solo 5 TV Soundbar reveiw

In addition, its simple design makes setting up and using this device very easy. All functions are controlled by an included remote control with minimal buttons- perfect for people who don’t want too many bells & whistles on their remotes.

The design of the Bose Solo 5 soundbar is elegant and straightforward with its matte black body. It can be mounted on the wall or placed on a table. The soundbar has an internal amplifier that provides precise audio performance with minimal distortion. It is a good choice for small living space and a limited budget.


Bose Solo 5 Specifications

  • Speaker:7.0 cm H x 54.8 cm W x 8.6 cm D (1.69 kg)
  • Remote control:10.4 cm H x 4.0 cm W x 1.1 cm D (141.7 g)
  • Inputs/outputs: Optical audio input (digital),Coaxial audio input (digital), 3.5 mm aux input (analogue)
  • What is in the box: Bose® Solo 5 TV sound system, Universal remote control, Power supply and cable, Optical digital audio cable