Beam (Gen 2)

I don’t understand why sub mini is so much better than sub 4. I was perplexed. Sent sub 4 back to Amazon right away and kept the mini for my small room and my beam gen 2

I started with the beam 2 sub mini and era 100s. I just got an arc on Black Friday

Sonos beam gen2+sub mini is most reccomended best buy and goes perfect with Sony tv's. I'm personally big fan of this combo. If You wanna premium sound than Sonos Arc ultra and sub 4.

When I tried Arc Ultra with Spotify Very High, the sound felt richer. Two Era100s hit wider than Beam Gen2, but I prefer Arc for deep, detailed tracks.

100% the answer is Sonos. The Beam Gen 2 soundbar is a solid soundbar that offers decent atmos sound. The next step up to the Sonos Arc or Arc Ultra will hit different if you're not worried about cost. Add a Sonos Sub and that's all you'll need. I say this as someone that has a Klipsch Reference Premier 5.1.2 setup with a Denon 2800h receiver in my living room. I use the soundbar setup in my bedroom and it has pretty good quality. Does it hit quite the same as Atmos in a true home theater setup? Of course not, but it's still a damn good soundbar choice that gives you the Atmos you want.

For what it's worth, I picked up a Beam 2 after recommendations from here given my use case in the bedroom. It's a decent soundbar by itself, but I didn't feel like it was good enough to warrant the price tag. But then I added a sub mini even though I swore I didn't want or need one for the bedroom, and let me tell you that is really made a massive difference in sound quality. Meanwhile, the sub mini doesn't put out booming base that will rattle your walls unless you crank it up in the app, and that is exactly what I was hoping for as I live in an apartment. In all, I'd say my experience attests to the fact that these soundbars desperately NEED the sub to sound anything resembling the price tag. I'd bet the Arc and Arc Ultra are no different in that regard. If you have a set budget, you can get the Beam and Sub Mini for less than the cost of the Ultra and still have very good sound quality. Would I but another Sonos soundbar? Yes, but ONLY with a sub to pair it with. Otherwise, it will disappoint you.

Great job! I would say soundbars have their place though. I run a Sonos Beam gen 2 with Sub mini in our very small lounge and I find it to be perfect for that.

Wait for a sale, u can get the beam 2 new for $350, I liked the beam but ended up returning for an arc ultra when it was on sale for $800 soemthing, highly recommend the 300 or 5’s for music. For your over all system, I would start with a beam, then over time get a sub, and then rear 100’s or 300’s. I tried a beam + era 100 rears set up and didn’t like it, ended up getting arc ultra + sub 4 + 2 era 300 as rears and just ordered a pair of 5’s for fronts. You really only need rears if you listen to a lot of atmos content, and if you do, get the 300’s over the 100. For just music, get a 5 over a 300

Wait for a sale, u can get the beam 2 new for $350, I liked the beam but ended up returning for an arc ultra when it was on sale for $800 soemthing, highly recommend the 300 or 5’s for music. For your over all system, I would start with a beam, then over time get a sub, and then rear 100’s or 300’s. I tried a beam + era 100 rears set up and didn’t like it, ended up getting arc ultra + sub 4 + 2 era 300 as rears and just ordered a pair of 5’s for fronts. You really only need rears if you listen to a lot of atmos content, and if you do, get the 300’s over the 100. For just music, get a 5 over a 300

Honestly for me, the arc doesn’t sound that much better than the beam, there’s a little more depth, but if you played both back to back and I was blind folded, I might struggle to know which is which. The beam is great for the price, I just got a good deal on the ultra+sub4 so I decided to get that instead