[doggiehowser]

It really depends on what you want from the sound bar

I find those Yamaha/Sony/Samsung/LG surround soundbars to sound terrible. Especially when they claim to have Atmos.

The only way these soundbars can work is by bouncing sound off ceilings and side walls. They do create a pseudo surround effect - if you have a symmetrical layout. But the room that allows such reflections will also sound full of reverb and generally unusable.

Which leaves the next type - basically two or three active speakers wrapped up in a soundbar like form factor.

These sound better. But they don’t offer real surround. Just hopefully two good speakers powered by real amps.

In this camp, I count the older DALI Kubik soundbar. The Bluesound soundbar. And the Sonos.

But the Bluesound soundbar has an extra trick up its sleeve. You can add some Bluesound Flex speakers wirelessly to the rear and group them for Dolby Digital surround speakers - the TV’s output connected via the optical input on the main soundbar. This works because the Bluesound is a streaming speaker - like the Sonos. But designed for hires and lossless streaming from ground up.

Think the Sonos offers something similar but the surround format is the much older Dolby ProLogic surround rather than discrete Dolby Digital 5.1.