Bose Solo 5 TV Soundbar Sound System with Universal Remote Control, Black

I searched around Amazon and the internet for a one speaker (with no separate bass or satellite speakers) system that we could use in our living room. My wife gave me very CLEAR orders about having something that would fit into our entertainment center without being an eye sore while still sounding good enough to watch tv shows or movies. Well, now that she has pretty much told me that I might be sleeping with the dog, and trust me the dog doesn't like it either! Anyway, I watched youtube videos on the Bose system and the competitors. I chose the Bose Solo 5, praying that I didn't need to buy a larger dog bed too. This speaker is great! It has good bass but not overpowering the spoken words or the sound effects in whatever we are watching. WHEW! It has a well rounded sound, and can get loud enough that we can find the right volume for whatever we are watching! I haven't yet needed to max out the volume yet, except to drown out the wife's voice!!! I have other Bose speakers and have been satisfied with the quality of their products. Luckily for Bose, I didn't need to buy bandages, because, if I am honest, the dog and the wife both bite! So great job Bose! Don't get me the wrong, I still can't sleep in the bed, but at least I am in the a/c!! I am very satisfied with the Bose Solo 5! I just wished Bose made replacement wives?? (I am not concerned, because the wife won't read this! :) The universal remote that comes with this system is so good, that we have it as our primary remote for the living room. It controls that sat box, the tv, and the Bose speaker. I love that remote. The instructions were clear and replaced the tv and sat remote. Nearly worth the buy for the remote. So we are very satisfied with the remote too. Easy to hook up and setup. Great!

I had wanted to upgrade our family room TV to a soundbar for years. I was seeking something that was smaller but could still deliver some bass, but I didn't want to have to deal with a subwoofer. I researched a ton! At first I looked at the Roku Soundbar, but I realized that wouldn't work if I wanted to have great sound while watching DVDs -- and that soundbar was huge! It would take up my entire TV entertainment center. Then I looked at a compact Polk audio system. Well, my TV does not have an HDMI-ARC input - only HDMI. I have Bose computer speakers that I love and enjoyed a Bose speaker for an old school iPod about 10 years ago. I trusted the brand so I did some more delving into what they had to offer. I ended up going with this Bose 5 system over their Bose TV Speaker because of the promise of the bass; reviews of the Bose TV speaker said that system was more for enhancing dialogue clarity (and it was ~$80 more). The Bose 5 delivers! It took only a few minutes to set up; I use the optical cable. Make sure you completely follow the instructions when programming the remote. When I first programmed it, I got it to sync to the settings but didn't do the last step to finalize it, so the sound would go in and out. Once I realized my mistake and went back through programming the remote, I haven't encountered any issues. You can program the universal remote to work with your cable, which I did, but I chose not to sync the power on/off of the Bose remote with that of cable, because I don't always want to use the Bose speakers when watching TV, especially early in the morning when I'm the first one up. Turning the system on and off is super easy -- even my elderly parent can manage it. And boy does the bass deliver! It's so nice to watch some movies at home and have a semi-movie theater experience. And syncing to my phone through Bluetooth was a snap. I will say I've had to play with the sound settings. Once I realized that my TV's speakers stay on even when I turn the Bose on, I've learned to turn the TV speakers down a bit (but not muted) and the Bose speaker up for the best quality output and to not get a weird echo, which is particularly noticeable with news. I highly recommend this system for its size, quality of sound, and ease of use!

Update: 9/4/19: Here's what I learned, since I'm not much of an instruction reader: You have to put your TV on mute to get the best sound from the sound bar. I skipped over that particular point, but since I figured that out, I have grown to love this sound bar. It has great audio, great bass, the tinniness is gone, since I don't have sound coming out of both my TV and the sound bar. Solid purchase, and I'm upping my rating to a five. I live in a small apartment, so I wanted something that would enhance the sound of my new TV without ticking off my neighbors. This sound bar does the trick on may levels. On the physical side, it's the perfect size for a small space. It's not a mile long, but only 21.5 inches, and it's super-simple to hook up. Power cord, optical sound cord, BOOM! you're done. The remote control, on the other hand, is... special, shall we say... it's HUGE! It's designed to be a universal remote, and Bose does include device codes to allow you to connect your TV, Roku player, DVD player, etc. to it, but I don't have the time or the patience to muddle through that, so I just kind of ignored it. Now for the sound. I am a fan of the deep bass tones. When you get those rolling drums, those low bass chords that come thundering through, it will make you do a double take - it's got that much power and it is fulfilling. On the quieter, dialogue scenes, I'm kind of up in the air, although I'm still testing. This is the first sound bar I've ever had, so I have nothing to compare it to, and it's my first attempt at building a home theater-like experience in my apartment, but even so, those smaller scenes feel distant and/or tinny, almost like you're hearing them through a PA system. That being said, a lot of incidental background noise is amplified, which creates an immersive effect that is enjoyable, at least for me. Overall, it's something I can live with - the price is right, it's the prefect size and I'm sure I'll get used to the sound. The other sound bar I was considering was the Sonos Beam, but I didn't want to drop $400. I think the Bose Solo 5 is a good middle point (which sounds weird to say about Bose).

I purchased this with the intention of giving my gaming experience a little more depth. I just purchased an Insignia Fire TV and liked the sound but felt it lacked a lot of bottom/bass. This sound bar makes up for that a bit. Let's talk about INSTALLATION first: Despite it taking me the better part of an hour to get the sound working correctly this is an easy set-up. The box comes with an optical connection so first check to see if your device has an optical input as well. If not purchase an HDMI as well. The Sound Bar comes with ONE HDMI port so it will need to be the primary connection if you use HDMI. The optical connections are easy but be sure that you hear the *CLICK* when connecting them or it means its not connected correctly, no matter how snug the wire feels. Be aware of your TV's current sound settings too. I had to turn OFF my TV's speakers before I could get sound to come from the sound bar so before purchasing or arrival be aware of what that may be. The physical aspects of it are great. It's medium sized. Tall enough to cover he space between my TV and its stand but it doesn't cover the screen at all and wide enough so that the sound doesn't feel like its on one side but not taking up a ton of space. SOUND QUALITY: It's good! Not going to give you a home theater experience and that probably shouldn't be expected for this price. This will make your sound feel more robust and deep but not immersive. The sound is akin to if my TV had come with really good speakers. It does get LOUD though (check out the video for the increasing volume). So great for if you're watching a music video or concert or streaming from the TV. Bluetooth connection was pretty easy to set up and I had no hiccups. This will probably become my preferred way of listening to music around the house or in this room. It's great for a music speaker. REMOTE the remote is is a universal Remote and it comes with the codes for a ton of Television types. It's a very easy setup my only complaint is that the remote is MASSIVE. As you can see it dwarfs my TV's normal remote in both width and length. All in all I like this sound bar especially for the price point. One may find themselves upgrading though if/when a more expensive model goes on sale or feels like a better purchase. If you want some good sound from your TV but don't need cinema style audio I'd say go for this. If you're looking to upgrade your experience to something that is very fancy and elaborate probably take the next price level up!

I have been having more difficulty understanding the dialogue in TV shows and movies lately... I am getting older and yes, I did listen to loud music in the 70's. I have tried a couple of different solutions like a bluetooth transmitter & headphones, which worked ok but I don't like to have the headphones on for long and it has to be kind of loud for me, and with a different sound bar which really didn't help much over the TV's own speakers. So I ordered this Bose Solo 5 system since it mentioned improving the clarity of dialogue. Well I have to say that it does. It first turns on in a "standard" mode and sounds pretty "regular" in that mode; really no big difference between it and my prior sound bar. But once you press the "dialogue" button on the remote, you can definitely hear a difference in clarity. I was pretty skeptical, but it really does help me understand much better what people are saying. It is an obvious improvement. I am adding a photo of the button on the remote you need to push to enable the dialogue mode since it wasn't obvious to me. When the dialogue mode is on, the green status light on the sound bar changes in color to amber, but you will be able to hear the difference, or at least I could. I should mention that some of the bass seems to be reduced when in dialogue mode but it also seems to me the voice frequencies are enhanced and not just pumping up the treble. I gladly give up some of the bass for the clarity. You can always just press the dialogue button a second time to toggle back to the regular sound settings if you prefer. Truthfully, I thought I would send this system back if it did not make a big difference since it is a bit pricey, and I am definitely not sending this back. You know how some people get stuff free to review? Well, I wish I got this for free, but didn't. I paid the full price. Just thought you might want to know.

Bose is pretty well known as a reliable brand, and this soundbar certainly lives up to that reputation. I used this to replace $400 dual Samsung tower speakers that are a few years old so that I could get some space back in my living room. This soundbar really delivers, maybe only the bass is a bit lacking but ONLY in comparison to tower speakers, which is not a fair comparison at all. Objectively, everything sounds great and there is plenty of bass for its size, and you can even turn up the bass, which I was happy to do. For reference I use the included optical cable to connect to my TV. There are some other features which I found really useful: -The soundbar has an auto-on feature. If it's on standby and it detects sound input it turns the soundbar. -It remembers the volume level it was left at. My old tower speakers reset every time they turned on and I always had to adjust the volume. -The REMOTE. I love this remote. Is it just a universal remote? Yes. However, I've been dealing with 2-4 remotes in my living room for years, and I got EVERYTHING on this remote. I feel like a wizard. It controls my TV, obviously the soundbar, my Xfinity cable box, AND my Roku Premiere+ (this one is what really impressed me). Overall this is really simple to setup, and easy to program. The sound is very good for the price and it's so tiny. My partner is very happy with the size of it because it doesn't take up a huge portion of our small living room. I highly recommend this soundbar.

Some fifty plus years ago I took Prof Bose's Network course at MIT, 6.01. Several friends and colleagues went with Amar to Bose. My wife and colleagues at MIT built Bose speakers which we still have. Thus I thought this would be a great little speaker. The sound is not bad for the price and the system works well as a separate speaker if you ignore all the directions. The problem: The manual control is incomprehensible and the instructions seem to have been written as some MIT Problem Set, with expectations that the "student" can find out how to solve all the problems, and there are a lot of problems. First, before getting a speaker to work, you have to sync up the TV set, the Cable sets, etc which is near impossible if the code is not there. So try this one on for an hour. Second, assuming you got past step one you try to figure out if this controller replaces your cable controller, which it does not, since you cannot change channels, period. Thus you have just added another controller to the already exploding pile. Hint, if someone can develop a real universal controller with all the codes internally set you could make a fortune. Third, a nit but make sure to buy a separate optical connector since what Bose provides keeps falling out. Worst optical connector I have ever seen. Fourth. well you get the point. Bose has a great product reputation but why burden the customer, and I am hardly typical with a PhD in EECS, to spend hours setting and resetting configurations which never seem to work. It is just a speaker, so make good sound, please. And try getting a writer for the install instructions. Please! So now it is two weeks later. I think it works most of the time. But beware, if the room is dark and you perchance his the wrong button then the sequential machine design sends you to an unknown state of this finite (hopefully) state machine and trying to get back to where you were is a long process. I know one button allows you to switch video source(cable off the air, etc), which works some times, and the other button apparently changes device source (TV, DVD etc) and one has no clue as to how this really works given the buttons at the top. Also it always starts on the cable converter home channel not on what you may have had it on before. Beware if someone tries to use it unaware of the pitfalls, it will take some tome to reset the random finite state machine. This control device reminds me of a final exam in finite state machines at MIT in my first year grad school. I still get nightmares! Now after a month, with two of these kluges, the sound is fine but the controller seems to have a mind of its own. It works for a few days then starts some probabilistic finite state machine action. The directions are useless, there is NO way to reset and no sequence worth following. Back to using the CATV controller. The engineers should be ashamed!

I bought this speaker for my 85-year-old grandparents because their old sound bar (LG) sounded like it was going out. TV speakers are not clear enough for my grandfather so external speakers are a must. There was a noticeable difference between this Bose speaker and their previous LG at its best. Here are their favorite features: Size - it fits between the legs of their TV so it tucks in nicely under the TV (their old one had to sit out in front quite a bit) No separate subwoofer - that’s right, it’s a perk. The sound is much more balanced from this one speaker than it was from their old soundbar with a subwoofer. You can also adjust the bass and the range is pretty good. - Sound - conversation is clear This soundbar doesn’t compare with high end surround sound but if that’s what you expect out of a single 24-inch single speaker, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. While it’s a Bose, it’s also under $200 so curb your expectations. My Bose bluetooth speaker cost more than this soundbar so that should tell you something. It’s a fantastic speaker, significantly better than TV speakers and better than most soundbars I’ve heard. I doubt you’ll find a better one at this price point. Added bonus - plenty of people complain about the bulky 90s-style remote included but that may be my grandfather’s favorite part, lol. He hates the dinky remote that came with his new TV, which doesn’t have numbers on it. It’s nice that the remote is universal and you can easily program it to all your other devices but yes, it’s unnecessarily old school.