Bose Soundbar 700 Review

The Bose Soundbar 700 is a premium-looking 3.0 soundbar with a distinctive design. Because of its more neutral sound profile, it outperforms the comparable Bose Soundbar 500. This soundbar features side-firing speakers that can bounce sound off your walls, creating a large soundstage.

It can become loud enough for most uses, unlike the Bose Soundbar 500, and there isn’t much compression at the maximum level. Although it lacks some low-bass, you can increase its bass performance by adding a subwoofer and satellite speakers, such as the Bose Soundbar 700 with Speakers + Bass Module.

The Bose Soundbar 700 is the perfect solution for those who want to fill their room with sound without having large and bulky audio equipment like other brands. It can also be used as an Alexa device or streaming speaker, but primarily this product will help you improve your TV viewing experience by increasing dialogue clarity.

Design

What’s in the box

The Bose Soundbar 700 is elegant and well-packaged in the box. It comes with remote control, four AAA batteries, a cleaning cloth for your convenience, and a universal remote controller that can also function as an ordinary TV Remote Control.The included optical cable connects you to all your digital media devices. In contrast, HDMI cable sends video signals from different sources such as games consoles or smart TVs straight into this unit’s HDMI socket without any loss of quality at 1080p resolution (HDMI 1&2). 

Unboxing

I was impressed by the polished build quality of the Bose soundbar 700 after unboxing it. A dark-gray perforated metal grill sits over the glass with minimal touch controls. The SB700 is much smaller than conventional soundbars, measuring 2.25″ H X 38.5″ W X 4.25″ D. It’s about the size of a 43-inch TV, which is ridiculously little for a high-end soundbar.

The Soundbar 700 offers a quality appearance and feel. It’s also sturdy and weighty, implying that the insides are well-made. Its tempered glass top edge is stylish, and the front left corner includes a couple of touch-response buttons. Rounded corners and a wrap-around grille soften the impression it has on your living space.

The Soundbar 700’s remote is another high-end feature. Are you tired of figuring out which remote controls which devices? That’s something Bose understands. As a result, Bose created a remote that you’ll want to use. The Bose Soundbar Universal Remote is included with your soundbar purchase and allows you to control all of your entertainment with a single button press. It has six presets and only illuminates the buttons you need at the time, making it even easier to locate your favorites.

Connections

The Bose Soundbar 700 has a recessed breakout for I/O, but, notably, they dropped the second HDMI port (video passthrough) from their earlier model in favor of only one eARC connection. Unfortunately, at this time, I can’t confirm what formats will be supported with future updates by way of an improved onboard AptX decoder and optical audio outputs on connecting cables.

However, Dolby Digital5 and DTS are confirmed as available via TOSlink connections included standard within these speakers themselves.

You have a lot of choices when Bose Soundbar 700 comes to what you want to hear. You can wirelessly stream whatever you want, whenever you want, thanks to Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, and Apple AirPlay 2 compatibility. Play anything from your phone or tablet, or browse your favorite music services like Spotify®, Amazon Music, or Apple Music. You can listen to it through the Bose Smart Soundbar 700 to download it on your device. Music services are subject to change.

With the Bose Music app, you can quickly browse through all of your music in one location and smoothly switch between stations, playlists, and services. It’s also another straightforward way to use the Bose Smart Soundbar 700. It’s simple to set up presets on the app so that you can listen to your favorite music with just a few taps. Furthermore, numerous users can customize their content and experience. Moreover, the app simplifies the setup process by guiding you through each step.

The Bose Soundbar 700 SetUp

The ARC (Audio Return Channel) is a new technology that will control all your HDMI devices with ease. A quick web search tells you everything about it and its benefits, so I highly recommend using this system to “tune” the room before sitting down for an event or two nights in. Every home has different sizes making this step necessary when setting up rooms accordingly.

It was simple to connect the soundbar and then repeat the process when adding a subwoofer. To pair a subwoofer:

1. Go to the bottom right corner of the dashboard and click the 700 soundbar’s circular symbol.
2. Select “Accessory Speakers” from the “Settings” menu.
3. Click “+ Add Bose Accessory Speaker” to begin the search.

There is no pairing button on the 700 subwoofers. However, it will show up automatically if it is plugged in. (Note: The 500 requires you to press a button near the power wire on the bottom.)

There are many reasons why I was able to get rid of so many speakers. One, because with this two-piece system, you can hear great sounds from anywhere in the room. It sounds like an entire surround system! Another reason is that my listening space may not have been huge before, at least for me personally. Once everything was optimized and appropriately tuned, each seat had its newfound magic soundtrack without losing quality on any channel or speaker configuration imaginable.

Other Features

The use of phase guide technology creates the illusion that sound is coming from all directions. It includes a headset device for AdaptIQ calibration, which allows you to customize the soundbar to sound like your “favorite spots.” It asks you to choose four or five areas in the room where you would sit to listen to the sound. It includes instructions on the screen, so you must connect the HDMI cable to the TV for it to work.

This gadget can be used with a Bose 700 Bass Module and some Bose surrounds speakers. The software makes pairing simple, and I’ve never had any issues with disruptions between the devices.

The personal assistants Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are built-in, so you can speak your orders without lifting a finger. In addition, a handy light indicates whether the personal assistant is listening, thinking, or speaking, so you’re never in the dark about what’s going on.

Sound Quality

The Bose Soundbar 700 excels at a few tasks. First, while going much, much louder than you’d anticipate from such a small design, it manages to avoid almost all distracting distortions.

Bass does not phut or stop playing. Trebles only sound harsh or strident under the most extreme circumstances. And, no matter how hard it’s worked, the well-built bodywork never buzzes or rattles.

Next, the Soundbar 700 produces a sound that extends well beyond its small size. There’s enough left and right dispersion to cover an entire living room wall, evoking a feeling of cinematic scale well beyond what any TV’s built-in speakers can achieve.

Despite its tiny shape and lack of up-firing speakers, the Soundbar 700’s audio has a subtle sensation of verticality. This little verticality is very effective for making dialogue appear from the screen rather than the speaker.

Because of the sound system’s four forward-facing drivers and ‘PhaseGuide’ multidirectional beam elements, vocalists sound crisp and locked in place at the heart of the soundbar’s sound, despite the wide dispersion. There’s also no ‘leakage’ of undesired voice channels into the larger soundstage.

However, the soundstage isn’t always entirely seamless. Effects placement in cinema soundtracks can be a little hazy. As a result, the feeling of space can become muddy and one-dimensional at times, especially at the soundstage’s extreme left and right margins.

The acoustic architecture of the Soundbar 700 might also cause issues with music. The lead vocals are clear, energetic, and clean. There’s also a good sense of stereo separation, and oddly, the sound with music seemed even more free of the restrictions of the 700’s bodywork than massive movie mixes did. However, some components of the complex musical mixes lacked definition, clarity, and balance, in my opinion.

With large movie soundtracks, the Soundbar 700 also lacks a bit of bite and attack. For example, big explosions may lack impact compared to comparable high-end soundbars partly because the bass lacks to deliver unexpected forceful results (even with the optional sub), and somewhat because the drivers can’t find enough more gears to allow such powerful moments to grow and swell.

Movies Performances

When you watch movies, you’ll notice that the Bose Soundbar 700 is designed to provide a surround sound experience. The channel shift and surround effects are incredible considering this is a soundbar, from the bike chase sequence in “Fast and Furious: 9” to guns firing all over the place to the movies like “The Maze Runner” where you have the sound of the creatures all around you after a quiet moment. 

It does feel as if the sound needs to originate from your left or right. Of course, you know it’s recreated by sound bouncing off walls, but the fact that it’s coming from a single bar under your TV rather than surround speakers is astounding.

Music Performances

The Music performance of the Bose soundbar is what you’d expect from a high-end speaker. It has a clean output that can distinguish vocals and instruments. Still, it depends on the type of music for effectiveness since some genres require different qualities to make out all sounds, like electronic dance music with solid bases.

In contrast, classic rock doesn’t need any overpowering bass or low frequencies because everything else comes through loud enough without being overstated by default which sometimes happens when people listen back to earlier generations’ tracks.

If you like hard metal, though, the lack of a sub for the lows will be noticeable. If it’s classical music, the speaker should be able to reproduce the vocals. The speaker doesn’t distort at high volumes, and even though we listened to music at maximum volume for a while, you won’t need to go much higher than 70% in a typical living room.

With the Bose Soundbar 700, audiophiles will be able to enjoy both movies and music. The sleek soundbar has plenty of features that make it stand out as one good allrounder when combined with other home electronics like TVs or speakers for an immersive experience in your living room.

Gaming Performances

The sound of the wind and traffic as you swing from building to building, or even just someone running past with their footstep echoing off into your eardrums, highlights how immersive these games are through surround effects. In addition, the channel separation makes it so that more than one person can be playing at once without any confusion on which direction they’re coming from because there’s an added sense of depth created by all three channels working together seamlessly alongside each other.

Conclusion

The Bose Smart Soundbar 700 is suitable for a variety of applications. Its sound profile is well-balanced and neutral, making it ideal for a wide range of music genres and voice-oriented content such as audiobooks and podcasts. Because of the side-firing speakers, this bar can go loud enough for most entertainment and has a unique and broad soundscape.

It does, however, lack some low-bass, which can be rectified by purchasing a second subwoofer. Due to its 3.0 design, it also doesn’t deliver a very immersive hearing experience with movies.

You don’t simply want to listen to your favorite movies, music, or television shows. You want to hear the pounding footfall on the screen, hear the audience yell when the underdog’s triumph, and hear your favorite song’s heart-pumping, beat-stomping chorus.

That’s why, with the Bose Smart Soundbar 700, Bose set out to create the greatest soundbar in the world. This small soundbar is packed with technology that brings out the entire force in every moment of your entertainment, thanks to an unequaled blend of exquisite design and great sound. 

You can control your music, obtain information, and manage your day without lifting a finger with Google Assistant and Alexa embedded directly into the Bose Smart Soundbar 700. To begin listening, select your voice assistant. You may also make or take calls to Bose smart devices, Amazon Echo devices, and anyone in your contact directory using Alexa alone. Hands-free, phone-free, and cost-free.

But if the Bose Soundbar 700 can’t hear you, what good is voice control? A custom-designed eight-microphone array provides excellent voice pickup, even when the music is turned up loud. Additionally, a clever light bar will visually show if your voice assistant is listening, thinking, or speaking. Furthermore, it is continually improving. The new functionality will be included in future software upgrades.