Bose takes a swing at Sonos with its new dwelling audio system

Last Thursday, in a staged dwelling on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I sat on a sofa that was a bit too low and a tad too deep in entrance of a small, beige-colored sensible speaker sitting on the center of a trio of arched midcentury storage cupboards. On both facet of the sensible speaker sat two tall curved white screens.

The speaker was the brand new $299 Lifestyle Ultra, Bose’s reply to the Sonos Era 100. Alongside a $1,099 Ultra soundbar and $899 subwoofer, it’s considered one of three new dwelling audio merchandise the corporate introduced at the moment, all of which appear to be gunning immediately for Sonos — hopefully minus that firm’s current missteps. I heard all three at Bose’s New York occasion, and the speaker specifically impressed me.

The $299 Ultra Speaker is essentially the most attention-grabbing and most distinctive-looking of the bunch. It has a front-firing woofer and tweeter, an up-firing driver — in contrast to the Era 100 — and a bass port on the again. (For music, Bose makes use of its personal processing for the upward-firing sound, somewhat than Dolby Atmos.) On the highest of the speaker, behind the up-firing driver, are capacitive controls for energy, Bluetooth pairing, microphone mute, quantity management, and a play/pause button. The quantity and play/pause are in a round melancholy, which you’ll hint along with your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to additionally management the quantity. The Ultra Speaker and soundbar assist Alexa Plus.

The speaker sounds impressively massive with nice vocal readability, and with out the cruel highs current on audio system just like the SoundLink Plus. In reality, when listening to the primary pattern — “Man I Need” by Olivia Dean — I believed there have to be extra audio system taking part in from behind the curved white screens.

I used to be partly proper: The screens had been hiding two extra Lifestyle Ultra audio system, however they weren’t taking part in throughout that monitor. Instead, they had been there for a later demo of a stereo pair. Playing Leon Bridges’ “Peaceful Place” and Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” they demonstrated good stereo sound separation.

I did discover that the Ultra speaker can sound overly punchy on the subject of issues like snare hits (I seen this most throughout Chris Stapleton’s “Bad As I Used To Be”), not less than on the volumes we listened to. This is likely to be all the way down to the shortage of room correction, a shocking omission from the Ultra Speaker at launch. Especially when being utilized in a stereo pair, I anticipated there can be some technique to tune the audio system to the room and compensate for any placement points. I used to be advised that Bose is trying into the potential of including room correction at a later date for each single-speaker and stereo setups.

Instead of placing all streaming app playback management within the Bose app like Sonos does with its app, Bose as a substitute depends upon the grouping and playback performance inside apps persons are already utilizing repeatedly, akin to Apple Music and Spotify. The Ultra speaker can stream music over Wi-Fi by way of Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect, and it may be added to AirPlay and Google Cast speaker teams, together with these with non-Bose audio system. When Wi-Fi is unavailable, you may stream to the Ultra through Bluetooth. The speaker is Auracast succesful, however is not going to be Auracast enabled when it’s launched on May 15. Raza Haider, Bose president of premium client audio, advised me Auracast shall be turned on as soon as that ecosystem is extra mature.

I used to be anticipating Bose to unveil its personal Sonos app competitor, however this extra open possibility — permitting you to broaden what you presently have whether or not it’s Bose or not — is intriguing. It additionally bypasses the problem of housing all of these particular person streaming apps throughout the Bose app, and getting it to work correctly. “We deliberately are trying to be more open and app-less in our experience,” stated Haider. In addition to Spotify Connect, I’m hoping Bose will embrace companies like Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect sooner or later.

Upstairs from the Ultra Speaker was a demo for the $1,099 Ultra Soundbar, which is Bose’s first main soundbar redesign in years. It has two up-firing drivers, two wide-set drivers for left and proper channels, two Bose PhaseGuide drivers — proprietary designs that direct the sound out to the perimeters — and two extra drivers flanking a middle tweeter. The capacitive controls are just like these discovered on the Ultra Speaker.

We started the soundbar demo with the spice harvester evacuation scene from Dune, and it was a bit underwhelming. That’s considered one of my go-to scenes for testing film sound, so I’m very acquainted with it. While the soundscape had nice width to it and I might really feel rumble by way of the ground, there was a gap the place the bass frequencies ought to meet the midrange, inflicting the sound to really feel hole. Vocal readability was crisp, and the soundbar did a good job with the Atmos channels, however I couldn’t get previous the absent higher bass frequencies.

Fortunately, together with the Ultra Speaker and Ultra Soundbar, Bose is releasing the Ultra Subwoofer, and it’s what the soundbar must fill the frequency gap I heard. Instead of simply feeling some vibrations from the low finish, on Jacob Collier’s “Mi Corazón” the bass sounded full and supportive. It was a big distinction, however at $899, it additionally turns the soundbar/sub combo right into a $2,000 system (the identical value because the Sonos Arc Ultra paired with a Sonos 4 sub).

For a full Atmos system, two Ultra Speakers can be utilized as rear channels, making a 7.1.4 configuration. Wembley Stadium, from the Live Aid live performance portion of the film Bohemian Rhapsody, surrounded and stuffed the room effectively. The Atmos peak was good, though a bit of vague at occasions in its placement. That might have been as a result of room design and my sitting place — although curiously, in contrast to the sensible speaker by itself or in a pair, the total system has room calibration.

Based notably on my expertise with the Ultra Speaker, there’s nice potential for the brand new Bose Lifestyle Collection. “There’s lots more to come. This is the start of the new platform of the Lifestyle series,” stated Haider once I requested him about the potential of a battery-powered model or a bigger speaker. “The next one won’t be smaller.”

Photography by John Higgins / The Verge