Sonos Beam (Gen 2) Review (2026): 8 Months of Listening on the Soundbar Most Living Rooms Should Buy

Why you should trust this review

I’ve spent 13 years reviewing audio and video gear, including 7 years at What Hi-Fi (2017–2024) and 5 before that at Stuff Magazine. I’m an ISF Level III calibrator (yes, video, but I share a lab with our audio editor and have 19 soundbars on the test shelf right now). The Beam Gen 2 is the 14th soundbar I’ve put through our 30-day-plus protocol.

We purchased the Beam Gen 2 at full retail in September 2025; Sonos did not provide a sample. It has been our reference $500 soundbar for the past 8 months in a 14-by-22-foot living room with our long-term LG C4 OLED test unit. I also benched it against the Sonos Arc, a Samsung HW-Q800D, a Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus, and a $149 generic Bluetooth soundbar to anchor the bottom of the comparison.

For our full lab protocol, see our methodology page.

How we tested the Sonos Beam (Gen 2)

Our soundbar testing protocol takes a minimum of 30 days of mixed daily listening, plus bench measurement. For the Beam Gen 2, we extended that to 245 days. Specifically, we measured:

• Frequency response: Calibrated UMIK-1 measurement microphone at the listening position, sweep tones from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, REW (Room EQ Wizard) software. Pre- and post-Trueplay measurements.
• Dialogue clarity: Reference dialogue tracks from The Mandalorian, The Crown, and Top Gun: Maverick played at moderate volume, with and without Speech Enhancement engaged. Measured SPL at speech frequencies (300 Hz to 3 kHz).
• Atmos virtualization: Listening tests with reference Atmos demo content (Dolby’s “Amaze”, “Leaf”, and “Spaceship” trailers) and Top Gun: Maverick afterburner sequence. Editor panel scoring blind for height effect.
• Music quality: A/B blind testing against the Sonos Arc and Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus on 20 reference tracks across genres.
• Trueplay: Re-ran calibration in three different room positions, measured the resulting EQ correction.
• Long-term reliability: Logged Wi-Fi dropouts, app crashes, and Sonos S2 firmware events over 8 months.

Who should buy the Sonos Beam (Gen 2)?

Buy the Beam Gen 2 if:

• Your TV is 50 to 65 inches and your living room is normal-sized.
• You want a soundbar that disappears under your TV but meaningfully outperforms its built-in speakers.
• You already have or plan to add Sonos speakers around the house. Multi-room is a real advantage.
• You watch a lot of TV and dialogue clarity matters to you.

Skip the Beam Gen 2 if:

• You want true overhead Atmos. Step up to the Sonos Arc or a soundbar with up-firing drivers.
• Your TV is 75 inches or your room is large and open-plan. The Beam will sound undersized.
• You need Bluetooth as a primary input. Sonos still does not support it on the Beam.
• You have an Android-only household and want to use Trueplay. Trueplay requires iOS to run.

Dialogue clarity: the feature that sells most living rooms

The single biggest reason most people buy a soundbar is to fix the bad dialogue on a thin TV. We measured dialogue audibility by playing reference TV speech (a calibrated -23 LUFS scene from The Mandalorian) at moderate listening volume and recording the SPL at the listening position with a UMIK-1.

Results:

• TV speakers (LG C4 default): dialogue measured 66 dB SPL at the seat, with notable drops in the 1 kHz to 3 kHz range where consonants live.
• Beam Gen 2, default mode: 70 dB SPL, much flatter response in the consonant band.
• Beam Gen 2, Speech Enhancement on: 72 dB SPL, with a measurable +6 dB boost in the 2 kHz to 4 kHz range over the TV speakers.

The Speech Enhancement mode is the single feature I would not give up on a Sonos soundbar. It is the best dialogue-clarity setting in the category, and it does not introduce the harshness that some soundbars’ similar modes do.

Atmos virtualization: subtle but real

This is where the Beam earns its only meaningful caveat. There are no up-firing drivers; the Beam simulates height through DSP. We tested with Dolby’s reference Atmos demos and Top Gun: Maverick in Atmos, then ran the same content on a Sonos Arc (with up-firing drivers) and the Samsung HW-Q800D (also up-firing) for comparison.

The Beam’s height effect is subtle. Rain in a movie scene feels slightly diffuse and overhead, but it is not the discrete “above me” effect you get from real top-firing drivers. The Arc’s height channels are clearly elevated, the Q800D’s are positioned but slightly disconnected from the front bar. In a blind A/B with three editors, all three rated the Arc as having clearly more convincing overhead, with the Beam and Q800D ranked similarly behind it.

If you want to feel rain, a helicopter overhead, or footsteps on a ceiling, the Beam Gen 2 is not your soundbar. If you want a meaningful upgrade over your TV’s speakers in a normal-sized room, it is excellent.

Music playback: pleasing and surprisingly competent

Sonos has been an audio brand for 22 years and it shows in the Beam’s music tuning. Stereo imaging from a single 25.6-inch bar is necessarily limited, but the Beam’s separation between the left and right elliptical mid-woofers is well-judged. We measured useful low-end down to 56 Hz in our living room before Trueplay; after Trueplay, response was smoother in the 200 Hz to 500 Hz range where most rooms have suckouts.

Across our 20-track A/B reference set, two of three editors preferred the Beam to a comparable Bose Smart Soundbar 600 on most material, while the Sonos Arc was preferred over both for its meaningfully larger soundstage and lower bass extension.

For a $499 soundbar that doubles as a Spotify Connect, AirPlay 2, and Tidal Connect endpoint, the Beam is one of the best music-first single bars you can buy.

Trueplay: still the killer feature on Sonos

Trueplay is Sonos’s room calibration system: walk around your living room with an iPhone, the Beam plays test tones, and the bar adjusts its EQ and time alignment based on your room’s acoustics. We ran Trueplay in three different room layouts (TV against a wall, TV near a window, TV in a bookshelf alcove) and measured the EQ correction in each.

The system noticeably flattened bass node peaks (a +5 dB lump at 75 Hz from the rear wall was reduced to +1 dB) and tightened response in the 200 to 500 Hz range. Subjectively, untrue-played sound is muddy in our room; Trueplay makes the bar sound noticeably more open. Of every soundbar I’ve tested, only Sonos’s calibration is reliable enough that I run it instead of relying on a generic “music” or “movie” preset.

The catch is iOS-only. Sonos has been promising an Android Trueplay path for years. As of May 2026, it still does not exist. If you have no iOS device in the house, you are missing the calibration entirely.

Build, size, and integration

The Beam Gen 2 is 25.6 inches wide, 2.7 inches tall, and 3.9 inches deep. It fits under any 50-inch or 55-inch TV without obstructing the screen, and most 65-inch TVs with the bar centered on the stand. Build quality is among the best in the category: a polycarbonate top grille and a soft-touch sides feel solid, and the bar weighs a hefty 6.2 lbs.

Setup with eARC was the smoothest in our test, our LG C4 OLED detected the bar over CEC, switched to it as the audio output, and forwarded volume to the Sonos remote in roughly 30 seconds. The Sonos S2 app then guided us through Trueplay and an iCloud account link.

The single HDMI eARC input is the only video connector. There is no HDMI passthrough; if your TV is short on HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming consoles, that may matter. (The LG C4 and Samsung S95D both have four HDMI 2.1 ports, so this was not a problem in our testing.)

The Beam Gen 2 vs. the competition

I tested the Beam Gen 2 side by side against the Sonos Arc, the Samsung HW-Q800D, and a Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus. Quick verdict:

• For living rooms with 50- to 65-inch TVs: the Beam Gen 2 is the right choice for most households. Buy it.
• For 75-inch TVs or large rooms with real overhead Atmos: step up to the Sonos Arc or the Samsung HW-Q800D.
• For Samsung TV households that want Q-Symphony: the HW-Q800D’s tight integration with Samsung TVs (using the TV speakers as additional channels) is meaningful.
• Skip: any sub-$200 generic Bluetooth bar if you have $500. The performance gap to the Beam is large; you will hear it.

For more in this category, see our wider work on soundbars and the lab protocol on our methodology page.

Sonos Beam (Gen 2) vs. the competition

Full specifications

Frequently asked questions