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 700… a step up from the Smart Soundbar 300.
Now regarding pricing, the Smart Soundbar 700 has a retail price of $800. And 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 700 is also going to be better suited for a larger room…
Now for simplicity sake, this review is going to only focus on the Smart soundbar 700. 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 700 has a very subtle design to it. Just like with all of Bose’s other Soundbar’s, the 700 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 700 mostly disappears when you are watching content in a dark room. Which is good, soundbars should be heard, not seen.
However, I say the 700 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 700 has a length of 38.5 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 10.5 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 700… 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 go od 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 700 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 700. Because without ARC or eARC support, you are not going to be able to fully enjoy your audio content that is using an audio format that requires a higher bit rate that can’t be provided by an optical port. But also, you won’t be able to use ALEXA to control your tv with your voice.
Now you are also going to see that there is a micro usb port on the back of this sound bar… 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. However, I do have to admit that Voice4Video works very slow… it works, and it is robust… but personally I still prefer using my remote.
But now lets talk about what’s under the hood of this soundbar. The 700 has a single center mounted tweeter. Which is then flanked by a total of 4 frontward firing woofers. 2 on each side. And at each end of this soundbar, there are bass chambers. And for comparison sake… the 300 also has a center mounted tweeter… which is flanked by a pair of woofers… we’ve got our bass chambers… and at each end of this soundbar there is an additional woofer that is angled out at a 45 degree angle.
Overall, the 700 is a more capable version of the 300. It gets significantly louder, and it has a little more bass. However… one very important thing that I noticed about the 700 is that it sounds very bright. The highs on this soundbar are very exaggerated. So exaggerated that I had to go and lower the treble on this soundbar in order to get this soundtest to work. Nonetheless, in this sound test the TV I splaying at max volume, the 300 is playing at 85% volume with its stock EQ. And the 700 is playing at 70% volume but with its treble set to -20
So like you may have just heard, obviously any soundbar is going to sound better than your TV’s built in speaker. Your TV most likely just has a pair of downward firing speakers that bounce sound off of the table… they probably don’t get all that loud, and their bass becomes a rattling mess at higher volumes. Where as that isn’t the case with either of these sound bars.
Now from a performance standpoint… the 700 has the same instrument separation and clarity as the 300… expect it does get noticeably louder. However, like I mentioned earlier… out of the box, the 700 sounds very bright… much brighter than the 300, and it also sounds brighter than the Smart Soundbar 900. So with the 700, I definitely recommend that you lower the treble of this soundbar.
However, I also have to point out that at higher volumes… the highs on this soundbar do like to distort a little bit. And I feel this is very important to point out, because distortion is not an issue with my 300, and it also is not a problem with the 900 at higher volumes.
So overall, from a performance standpoint… the 700 is going to get noticeably louder than the 300. Making it better suited for a larger room. And at max volume, the 700 is going to get just as loud as the 900. The 700 also has the same amount of bass as the 900… which is a little more bass than the bass that you will find on the 300… but it is not a huge difference… and from an instrument separation and clarity standpoint… the 700 preforms the same as the 300… which also means the 700 does not sound as open as the 900.
So overall, what I am trying to say here is… the 300 is going to have no problem filling a small or medium sized room. And if you were to pair a bass module to it… it should be able to satiate most people. However, if you have a larger room then you will want to upgrade to the 700… because it gets louder. However, if you are planning on getting the 700… I highly advise that you spring for the 900. The 900 gets equally as loud and has the same amount of bass… however it sounds much more open than both the 300 and 700, and thanks to its additional upwards firing woofers… you are going to get a much better sense of verticality… and you are going to be able to fully enjoy Dolby Atmos content.
However, one thing the 700 does have that neither the 300 or 900 come close to having is this universal remote. And I have to admit, this is a very nice universal remote, and they layout of these buttons change depending on what you’re controlling. Now obviously you can use this remote to control your soundbar… but you can also connect it to your TV, cable box… if you still have one of those, or you can connect it to your blue ray player.
Now even though I really like this remote… and it is way more capable than the remotes that come included with the 900 and 300… I am still going to prefer and recommend that you skip the 700 and go straight to the 900 cause of the better sound quality.
And personally I never really use the remotes that come included with my soundbar… I always just use the app. Now through this app you can adjust the volume, change the source, and you can also adjust the EQ to your liking. And like I mentioned earlier… it is super important to lower the treble on the 700. Now after I have lowered the treble on this sound bar… I do like to raise the center channel so that dialog is more pronounced… and I also like the raise the bass.
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.
So with all of that being said, the Bose Smart Soundbar 700 is just a louder version of the 300 with a little more bass. It also has an ethernet port and it comes included with a universal remote. But personally for me, the ethernet port and universal remote on this sound bar will not influence my purchase decision here. The most important thing here for me is sound…. And unfortunately, the 700 has the same instrument separation as the 300… now that isn’t a bad thing… but if you were to step up to the 900… you are going to notice a big difference.
So like I mentioned earlier, if you were to use the 300 and pair it with a bass module… it should be able to satiate most people. However if you have a larger room and need a larger soundbar… I highly recommend that you skip the 700 and go straight for the 900. I truly feel that you are going to get a much better bang for your buck, cause the 900 has much better instrument separation, and thanks to its dedicated upwards firing woofers… this soundbar sounds much more spacious. Combined with a bass module… the 900 is going to immerse you in you content… much better than the 700 can.