Best Dolby Atmos soundbar: Maximise your immersion in the object-based surround-sound format | Expert Reviews

How to choose the best Dolby Atmos soundbar for you

While it’s great news that there’s a huge range of Atmos soundbar options out there vying for your attention, it also makes tracking down your ideal option more difficult. So here are a few tips on what to look for and think about when trying to home in on the Atmos soundbar that suits your specific needs the best.

How much should you spend?

Soundbars come in all shapes and sizes and can cost anywhere from £30 to thousands of pounds. Options that support Dolby Atmos are typically more expensive than those that don’t, however, so you’re looking at a minimum spend of around £200. Bear in mind while settling on a budget that with soundbars (as with most things), spending more usually gets you better quality.

How big is your TV?

If you’ve only got a fairly small TV it probably won’t make sense to partner it with a really big soundbar. Partly because it won’t look right, partly because it may raise issues with fitting the soundbar under the screen (especially if you need to place it between a pair of TV feet), and partly because it may be too powerful for your potentially relatively small living room. Pick a Dolby Atmos soundbar that matches your TV; most work best with 55in sets.

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How big is your room?

Connected to the previous point, if your living room is particularly small, a very large and powerful soundbar may be overwhelming, or you’ll find yourself only using a small fraction of its capabilities, meaning you won’t be getting good value for money. On the other hand, if you’ve got a big living room you don’t want a small soundbar that doesn’t have the power to project its sound far enough to fill the space.

Should you buy an all-in-one Atmos soundbar or a modular system?

How much space you have will also likely dictate whether you go for an all-in-one Atmos soundbar that crams multiple audio channels into one structure or a system that incorporates a discrete subwoofer and rear speakers. The latter option results in a more immersive experience and convincing sense of sonic envelopment, but typically costs more and means you’ll need to find room for the additional speakers.

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What inputs do you need?

Write a list of what sources you want your soundbar to work with, and start thinking about what this means for the connections your soundbar needs. Soundbar connection options include HDMI ports, optical digital audio inputs, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi networks, but not all soundbars support all of these options. So make sure any soundbar you buy carries the specific connections you need for your sources.

Things are complicated on the HDMI front by two things: HDMI passthrough and ARC. If you want to loop an HDMI-based source through a soundbar, so that it strips the sound out for playback before passing the video on to your TV, you’ll need at least one HDMI input and one HDMI output. Some premium soundbars offer two HDMI inputs so you can loop two devices through them.

Note, too, that even if a soundbar carries an HDMI loop through, it may not support all the video features you want. For instance, some soundbar HDMI passthroughs won’t support Dolby Vision HDR or HDR10+ HDR, while most won’t support the 4K/120Hz feeds now output by the latest games consoles and premium PCs.

This is where ARC (Audio Return Channel) support can be helpful. This lets you pass sound from your TV to your soundbar using the TV’s ARC-capable HDMI port (assuming it has one). This way you can connect all your sources directly to your TV, and have the sound that’s output to your soundbar change depending on which TV input you’re watching.

While ARC can support output of Dolby Atmos (and the rival DTS:X) sound formats, it can only deliver these formats in a compressed form. Your TV’s and soundbar’s HDMIs will both need to support the newer, higher bandwidth eARC form of ARC technology to pass lossless Dolby Atmos soundtracks to the soundbar.

Your TV will also need to actually support Dolby Atmos and DTS:X passthrough as designated features for them to pass through one or both of these formats to your soundbar correctly via ARC.

One last thing to note about ARC is that it can cause audio delay issues with some setups so that voices don’t sync up with lip movements in the picture. As a result, if you’re thinking of using the ARC system it’s not a bad idea to think about getting a soundbar with at least a single HDMI passthrough as a backup, or else make sure that your TV or video sources have options for adjusting audio delay.