So for the past year, the Bose Smart soundbar 300 has been my favorite soundbar to use and also recommend. You really can’t go wrong with this soundbar. It sounds great and it can easily fill a small or medium sized room with sound… but more importantly it also has a ton of bass all by itself which really helps to add the extra level of impressiveness when you’re watching movies with this soundbar. But I thought it would be fun to explore what else bose has to offer. And today we are going to checkout the Bose Smart Soundbar 900… a serious step up from the Smart Soundbar 300. 

Now regarding pricing, the Smart Soundbar 900 has a retail price of 900. Pretty reasonable for a soundbar of this size. But for comparison sake, the smart soundbar 300 has a retail price of $450… unfortunately, a $50 price increase from the last time we covered the 300. Nonetheless, you still can’t go wrong with the 300 if you want a soundbar for a small or medium sized room… where as the 900 is also going to be better suited for a larger room… and it does have those super important upwards firing speakers which we will get into in a minute. 

Now for simplicity sake, this review is going to only focus on the Smart soundbar 900. However you can go ahead and add either one or two external bass models or extra surround sound speakers to these sound bars. But in this review, we are going to only focus on the soundbar itself… and if it is worth upgrading from the 300. Nonetheless, if you want to pick either of these soundbars up, they will be linked down below. 

Now first lets talk about the design of this soundbar. Now the 900 has a very subtle design to it. Just like with all of Bose’s other Soundbar’s, the 900 has a metal grill on the front and there is a very subtle indicator light on the front that only lights up when you are adjusting the volume, going through the set up process, or if you are interacting with your voice assistant. Other than that… the 900 mostly disappears when you are watching content in a dark room. Which is good, soundbars should be heard, not seen. 

However, I say the 900 mostly disappears because depending on your set up… the glass top on this speaker can cause a reflection. Now I know this is a very minor detail… but I thought it was worth mentioning because it can be distracting to some people. 

But when it comes to overall dimensions… the 900 has a length of 41 inches, it has a hight of 2 and a quarter inches, and it has a thickness of 4 and quarter inches. And it weighs in at 12.7 pounds. And for comparison sake, here it is compared to the 300… the 300 has the same thickness and hight… but it is not as long. Now you can wall mount the 900… but the wall mounting kit is sold separately. So don’t go looking for it in the box. 

But now lets talk about what does come included in the box. Now obviously you’ve got your power cable. Now the good thing about this power cable is that there is no external power brick that you have to worry about hiding. Which is great especially if you’re thinking about wall mounting this soundbar. However, this power cable is pretty short. Coming in at only 5 feet. So weaving it through your home theater set up could be a challenge. 

Now you also get a high speed HDMI cable included in the box. Which I feel is important to point out cause the 300 does not come included with an HDMI cable. Now the 900 also comes included with an optical cable… just incase your TV doesn’t have an HDMI port that doesn’t ARC or eARC. But just to be blunt… if you’ve got a TV the doesn’t have ARC or eARC support… you should probably upgrade your TV before you get the 900. Because without ARC or eARC support, you are not going to be able to fully enjoy Dolby ATMOS audio… and you are also not going to be able to use ALEXA to control your TV. More on that later. 

Now you are also going to see that there is a USB C port on the back of this sound bar… but don’t get excited… this port is only used for service. And ideally you will never have to use this port. Now on the back you will also find the audio jacks in which you will plug in your external bass module or surround speakers if you buy them… but more importantly… one port that is here that isn’t on the 300 is an ethernet port. 

Now you don’t necessarily have to use the ethernet port on this soundbar, because it does have wifi… but if you plan on using this soundbar in an area of the house with spoty wifi… and if you plan on streaming to this sound bar using Airplay or casting to it on a regular basis… or if you plan on using the voice assistant on this soundbar a lot… then it will might be worth using that ethernet cable. But again, if you are suffering from spotty wifi… I would recommend that you upgrade your wireless network… cause if you have a solid wireless network, it will improve your streaming experience. Your content won’t buffer if you’re streaming it. 

But you don’t have to use wifi on this soundbar if you don’t want to. If you want to use this soundbar as a normal speaker and simply listen to music… you can also connect with it using bluetooth. But personally I would recommend that you connect this soundbar to wifi so you can use Airplay or simply cast to it. 

Now like I mentioned earlier, this soundbar has ALEXA support… and it also has google assistant support. So you can use this soundbar as a smart speaker. However, only ALEXA allows you to control your TV using Bose’s Voice4Video. 

So if you are someone that is looking to add voice control capabilities to your TV… you can do that through ALEXA. 

But now, lets talk about what’s under the hood of this soundbar. The 900 has a center mounted tweeter, which is then flanked by a total of 4 woofers, which they themselves are flanked by bass chambers… and at each end of this soundbar there is an upwards firing woofer. And thanks to these upwards firing woofers… you are going to be able to enjoy Dolby ATMOS audio. 

Now basically, what Dolby ATMOS is… is that its an audio format where sounds can be placed in a 3D dimensional space. So basically, lets say you’re watching a movie… and there is a helicopter flying… it is going to sound like that helicopter is above you. Where as with lets say the 300… the helicopter is going to sound like it is coming at you. Or at the same level as you. 

Now all content doesn’t automatically have Dolby Atmos… Dolby Atmos has to be used by the creators themselves… But even if you are not watching Dolby Atmos content… the 900 will automatically up sample whatever content youre watching… and try to add some verticality to your content. Simply put, the 900 is going to help better immerse you in your content because it is going to add a verticality aspect to your audio…

Where as with the 300 it is not going to be able to have as much verticality because it doesn’t have those upwards firing woofers. What the 300 does have is a center mounted tweeter, which is then flanked by a pair of woofers, and at each end there is a 45 degree woofer. Which allows this soundbar to cover a very wider area with sound. The 300 is defneitly going to get the job done… but it is not going to sound as immersive as the 900. 

Now in this soundtest, both of these soundbars were playing with their stock EQ’s… and when it comes to volume, the TV was playing at max volume, where as the 900 was playing at 70 percent volume and the 300 was playing at 85 percent volume. Now obviously, any soundbar is going to sound better than your TV’s built in speakers. Your TV mostly likely just has a pair of downward firing speakers that bounce sound off of the table… that don’t get too loud… and at higher volumes, the bass just becomes a rattling mess. 

Now from a performance standpoint, the 900 is going to get noticeably louder than the 300. And the 900 also has more bass than the 300. Now the 900 doesn’t have a whole lot more bass than the 300… but nonetheless both of these soundbars are going to give you a decent amount of physicality in your bass to help immerse you in your content. But definitely if you want more bass out of your home theater set up, then you will want to get a bass module. 

However, where you will notice a big performance difference between the 300 and 900 is going to be instrument separation.  The 900 sounds much more open than the 300. By comparison, the 300 does sound rather narrow. So just the better instrument separation… along side the upwards firing woofers on the 900… its just going to give you much better immersiveness when you’re watching a movie. 

Now don’t get me wrong, the 300 sounds great and if you were to attach a bass module to it, its also going to do a great job of immersing you in your content. However, the 900 is going to do a better job of placing individual sounds and make stuff sound more realistic… the real question is… is it worth paying a premium for slightly better immersiveness. Personally for me, it is. 

But next up, lets talk about the app. Now for starters you can control your sound bar through this app. You can adjust the volume, see what’s playing, adjust the volume, and change the source. And you also get a physical remote included with the 900. Which is a nicer version of the remote that you’ll find with the 300… and it also has some additional number buttons which you can set preset stations to. To be blunt, I almost never use these remotes. 

However, through this app you can also go in and adjust the EQ on this sound bar. Now personally I do like to raise the center channel on this sound bar so that dialog is more pronounced, I also like to raise the bass a bit on these sound bars, and I also like to raise the hight channel  on this sound bar so that the vertical effect is more noticeable. 

But also through this app, you can set up the adaptive EQ on this soundbar. And this is something that isn’t found on the 300. Bassicly you plug in this thing into the soundbar, you then put this on your head… which is not big head approved… and then you’re going to sit in different places around your room while the soundbar pumps out a found sounds… and then it will calibrate it self. 

Now even though this isn’t something that is unique to the 900… and I feel you should just be able to use your phone’s microphone instead of this microphone… this is certainly a process that you want to do when you first instal this sound bar, and it is something you want to do again if you move your furniture around in the room that this soundbar is in.

But finally lets talk about pairing this soundbar up to other speakers. Now if you have multiple bose smart soundbars or bose smart home speakers… you can pair them up together and get them all to play in sync. 

But also, thanks to Bose’s simple sync… you can pair a Bluetooth device to this speaker and also get them to play in sync. Now if you want to can pair a portable bluetooth speaker to your sound bar… or you can also pair a pair headphones… so this way you can watch your content late at night, and not have to worry about waking people up. 

Now simple sync is supposed to be product agonistic… so it works with more than just bose products. However I have found that it works best with bose products… because not all brands will work with simple sync. Because for example, I just can not get my Sony 1000XM4’s to connect with my 900. 

But with all that being said… the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is definitely a great sounding soundbar. Thanks to its upwards firing woofers you are going to get a great sense of verticality in your audio, and thanks to the sheer instrument separation of this sound bar… your content is going to sound very life like and you are also going to get an incredible amount of immersivness when you are watching movies with this sound bar. And even if you are not explicitly watching Dolby Atmos content. The 900 will automatically upsample your content. 

Overall, if you are thinking about upgrading from the 300 to the 900… the 900 is going to have was better instrument separation, its going to get noticeably louder, and its going to have a little more bass. Now the 300 is going to have no problem getting the job done, and if you attach a bas moduel to it… it should be able to satiate most people. However, the 900 is going to do a better job of immersing you. And if that is important to you, then I say yeah go ahead and upgrade. However, with the 900, I would recommend that you pair it with a bass module so that the added bass can compliment the added instrument separation.