Editor’s Note: This product has been removed from our side-by-side comparison because it has been discontinued. You can still read our original review below, but Top Ten Reviews is no longer updating this product’s information.
One of the most difficult tasks for a sound bar is recreating surround sound, simply because the speakers are directly in front of the listener and not surrounding them. The Bose SoundTouch 300 not only simulated surround sound, it did so very convincingly and with crystal-clear quality. It is one of the most expensive sound bars we reviewed, but it’s worth it for the surround sound quality.
We watched a handful of movies and listened to a number of different songs to evaluate each sound bar system. The first movie we watched was Mad Max: Fury Road, which is basically one non-stop car chase with constant explosions and big, loud action scenes. During the movie, the first thing we noticed about this sound bar was the lack of an additional subwoofer.
Without a subwoofer, the Bose really struggled to produce the same type of room-rattling bass that other top-rated sound bars provided. When cars would crash or big, fiery explosions would take place, the SoundTouch 300 didn’t provide that deep, room-filling low-end that submerges you in the action. As such, this home theater subwoofer would greatly benefit from the addition of a separate subwoofer.
The Bose sound bar has Wi-Fi connectivity – a feature only found in a handful of the sound bars we reviewed. This allows you to connect the SoundTouch 300 to your home Wi-Fi network and stream music and other content. This is better than Bluetooth connectivity for a couple different reasons. Wi-Fi isn’t limited to a 33-foot connectivity range like Bluetooth, and it allows you to stream audio to the sound bar as long as you are within your home network’s range. Also, you can stream higher-quality audio with Wi-Fi than with Bluetooth, so your music sounds better and less compressed.
We evaluated the remote that came with each sound bar. Although the Bose remote received a low grade compared to the rest, one of this system's best attributes is that you can program the remote to be a universal one – with some extra time for programming, you can control your entire home entertainment center with the Bose remote alone. It is huge with a ton of buttons that are all clustered together, and it is also much heavier than the rest of the remotes we evaluated. It is simply overwhelming, especially for a sound bar.
What the SoundTouch 300 lacks in bass production, it makes up for in clarity and surround sound simulation. Adding a subwoofer to this sound bar would greatly improve the bass production and round out the sound quality. Without the subwoofer, it still boasts one of the best surround sound simulations we experienced.
