You can use ant Sonos soundbar with your Play 1s as surrounds except the Arc Ultra, according to Sonos' support site:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/surround-sound-guidelines-and-limitations

But there are posts where users have gotted Play 1s to work with the Ultra.

If your TV has an ARC or eARC connection, the Beam or Arc would be good choices.

If your TV has an optical audio connection, the Ray would be the choice for you. But you can also purchase an optical to HDMI adapter and use the Beam or Arc with your TV:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/optical-audio-adapter

Since Sonos does not include a remote control with any product you will need to teach your TV remote or Apple TV remote to control the the sound. This can be done inside the settings for the room.

I had connectivity issues with my Sonos Beam. It sometimes lost the connection with my TV, which was really annoying. Ended up returning it.

Look, you're always going to get what you pay for. I'd recommend upping your budget a bit and investing in something that's going to last and give you great sound quality. Don't skimp on audio; it makes a huge difference to the viewing experience.

I'm using an LG SK9Y, and it's been pretty awesome. Has Dolby Atmos and the sound fills up my living room beautifully. Also, it's within your budget. Check it out

Don't forget to consider the type of content you watch most frequently. If you're into action movies or live sports, you might want something with a stronger bass. On the other hand, if you mainly watch talk shows or dramas, clarity might be more important.

Hi, I’m Vetted AI Bot! I researched the Sonos Beam Smart TV Sound Bar you mentioned in your comment along with its brand, Sonos, and I thought you might find the following analysis helpful.

Users liked:

• Beam provides high quality audio for small spaces (backed by 3 comments)
• Beam integrates well with streaming services and voice assistants (backed by 3 comments)
• Beam is easy to set up and control (backed by 2 comments)

Users disliked:

• Sound quality is lacking for the price (backed by 1 comment)
• Issues with hdmi-arc and optical cable connectivity (backed by 2 comments)
• Hardware failure within 18 months (backed by 1 comment)

According to Reddit, Sonos is considered a reputable brand.
Its most popular types of products are:

• Soundbars (#3 of 43 brands on Reddit)
• Bluetooth Speakers (#5 of 50 brands on Reddit)
• Smart Speakers (#1 of 8 brands on Reddit)

If you'd like to summon me to ask about a product, just make a post with its link and tag me, like in this example.

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Yes, I have a TCL TS8132 3.1.2 I got from Walmart for $197. Sounds good, much better than tv or projector speakers. Center channel helps with dialogue along with some presets to help more. It has 3 front channels, a sub and 2 upward firing drivers for Atmos. Not the best Atmos, but does help open the soundstage a bit for content that supports it.

USUALLY any $200 will be better than TV by its self.

My 5 year old Yamaha yas109 is better then most tv’s. I use it as a Bluetooth speaker now.

My small bose soundlink mini from way back when is much better than my Samsung TV speaker.

$99

900+ reviews

https://www.samsclub.com/p/vizio-2-1-m-series-soundbar/prod24932454

Sonos ARC

Sonos arc seems to be a favorite 😱 is just the soundbar alone enough? Or which package would be best for a condo sized living room?

Sonos upgradeable later and different price points.

Sennheiser AMBEO Max with 12" REL sub

I second the Sonos arc , absolutely blows me away.

You’ll be recommended the Samsung Q990d, or Q990c. I just recently installed the Q990d. It’s fantastic - for a price to value ratio it’s very good. My kids and wife were blown away with it. For a non audiophile, it’s a damn good system.

Sony has amazing options, this post will help you

Sonos is great, you should look on amayon

Affiliate marketing and blatant use of links to specific sites or stores (irrespective of commissions or kickbacks) is not conducive to the community that r/soundbars is attempting to build and maintain.

Best of the best would be q990c or d BUT if you want a very solid one for MUCH cheaper, you can look into its older iteration or the 900x series.

Q990c/d are 1000-1500$ sound system. Their price is quite inflated because the biggest improvement they have over previous gen is some features like auto EQ, nightmode, Alexa built in etc… but not much purely sound wise.

I personally got the Q900A + 2x SWA9500S rear speaker for 320$.

The sound difference is minimal. If the q990d is a 20/20, the q990c is a 19,5/20 and my q900a is a 18,5/20. And its 70% cheaper lol

The Q950T can also be a great choice if you have good deals since it is from 2020. Lacks some features the others have but it’s probably top 5 Samsung in terms of sound quality. Very good one!

Check out Never enough Tech on U tube.

I’ve had an excellent Sonos Playbar for 10 years if you wanna look for preowned stuff since it’s not made anymore. Sooo much good noise in a bar which fit all your main things.

Fiddled with it maybe 3 times over the years. Connected to my Mac Studio through the tv and optical. You can experiment with having it standing up or laying flat depending on placement and maybe get a little more bass. The sound from Oppenheimer 4K bluray is astonishing from a bar in my opinion. Had parties here with Spotify that sounds great and loud.

r/Soundbars has some good discussions

FWIW, I recently did an analysis on Reddit data for soundbars. Basically ranked them by aggregated sentiment. Maybe you'll find it helpful https://redditrecs.com/soundbar/ You can filter by price or by specific use cases like dialogue, music, or movies and get a breakdown of what ppl have said about the most often recommended ones (disclaimer some links are affiliate they help fund the analyses)

Try Teufel Cinebar Pro :) i have it with sub and it's amazing. Without it every soundbar will sound just a bit better then tv speakers

Yes, never had an issue with dialogue. There is also a mode for clearing the dialogue, probably an equalizer setting. Again, I'm comparing it to LG C1 speakers and not the other soundbars. But you can still find plenty of reviews and maybe test them in a store.

I think you better post this in r/audiophile or somewhere more related.

Nevertheless, I only have experience with Samsung Q990C and it's very good all rounder. I don't have experience with the others.

Oh nice, hadn’t even looked into the Ambeo before. I’ll check out the Plus and Max and see which one makes sense for me, thanks!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/s/WAc9N55aZI

Samsung Q990D if you can snag it for a good deal. Woot had it for under a grand.

Ambio plus + your choice of sub. Tried several others at my house, hands down beat them all

Ambios plus is amazing , it's very clean and clear sounding imo

Q990D is exceeding all expectations at the moment for me. Just got it two days ago. Snagged it for $815 on eBay!

I did a lot of research and drove all around southern California to go to various retailers and hifi shops to listen to various sound bars and the one I went with is the Sennheiser Ambeo Max.

It's not small and it's not really reasonably priced but as far as soundbars go, it has the best sound, clarity, crisp highs, robus midrange, and has the power to fill a large room without leaving anything to be desired. It has support for ATMOS, comes with a calibration mic (makes a HUGE difference) so you can calibrate the soundbar to your room, and has lots of input ports. I'm using it with eARC to my LG OLED, utilizing its built-in DAC to handle all of the bit-perfect decoding.

One small downside is it doesn't have wireless sub support but it does have a dedicated wired sub output. The smaller (newer) model Ambeo Plus does support wireless sub but not surprisingly, only their own Sennheiser sub. The fix was pretty easy though. I got the SVS wireless adapter (the better version, not the cheaper model) and have it broadcasting the wireless subwoofer output to two wireless receivers to SVS SB3000 subs in the two front separate corners of the room. The subs are about 12' apart (TV in the middle and subs in corners) and I've not noticed any lag at all.

The whole setup rocks the house, sounds excellent when using proper audio sources, and it's a clean setup. Everything is mounted to the wall and you don't see any wires at all.

The 990d without a doubt, yes samsung fucked the update but that's not the soundbars fault and if you want prove look how pissed everyone is without it. Samsung fixing it and even those getting next day replacements it's too long.

Even a day without it would be rage inducing I only got away it because I turn automatic updates because many years ago I lost data because data one started.

Sony HTA 7000 soundbar

Jbl 5.1.2

The .2 defines that it has two upfiring speakers. Although it doesn't define if it's in front or back.

In this case, it is within the bar, so 2 front firing speakers are there.

Another example, Q990D is of config 11.1.4

Here 11 defines number of speakers on flat level, then .1 defines the number of subwoofer and .4 defines the number of upfiring speaker.

I may have not used the right terms at places , but i hope you got the idea now.

Also it's best to check product description and videos to understand which side the upfiring is present.

Maybe not the best since I'm not rich and haven't tried a bunch, but I got my JBL Bar 9.1 open box at Best Buy and it has been excellent. I have very picky ears and recognize a soundbar is a soundbar, but after placing the sub and rears properly and turning the sub to 2 I love it and think it sounds great with all kinds of content (music, movies, games). Had it a couple years now and it's been great!

Great post!

People are not comparing Q990C with just the Sonos Arc bar. If they would, Sonos would not stand a chance.

They are comparing it with Sonos Arc + Sub (gen 3) + some rears (Era 100, Era 300). From a price perspective this whole package is usually about double of Q990C