Ready to upgrade from your TV speakers or step into the world of home audio? You don't have to break the bank to get there, especially these days.
We're taking a look at the SB-300 soundbar from Monoprice, which is priced below $200 and offers a 2.0 speaker system with Dolby Atmos, eARC, Bluetooth connectivity, and more.
Is it worth checking out this holiday season? Let's find out.
Design
There's not a ton to talk about when you're looking at a soundbar, especially a simpler 2.0 system. You get a pretty standard long bar that does its best to blend into your home theater setup. There are a few control buttons on top for controlling volume and switching inputs, but that's about it.
On the face of the soundbar is a simple LED display that shows you what input you're currently connected to, whether that's Bluetooth, HDMI 1 or 2, or eARC to pull sound from a compatible TV. It's useful at a glance, but it's fairly bright for a home theater device and can potentially be distracted in some setups. There doesn't seem to be a way to keep it turned off after a reboot, either, which makes sense so you can figure out how to navigate back around the soundbar, but again, might be an annoyance in some instances.
The remote's fairly standard as well, with buttons to control inputs, navigate settings, change the volume, and adjust some EQ settings. You can turn the bass and treble up and down to your liking, and there are a few preconfigured modes for sports, movies, music, and an EQ to emphasize voice channels.
And, of course, the vertical surround, which allows Dolby Atmos to do its thing by making sounds seem as if they're coming from above you for a much more immersive home theater experience.
Big sound
So the SB-300 checks all the boxes on paper, but how does it perform? For its price, honestly not too bad at all.
Monoprice doesn't waste the size and price of its soundbar, and it can immediately deliver big sound that's perfect for explosions, loud music, and all kinds of energy. Even without touching the EQ it has a pretty well balanced sound signature, even in the low end. The soundbar has to punch out bass without any help from a subwoofer, but it generally delivers on that promise. It's not going to shake the walls or mimic your local movie theater, but I don't think anyone would complain at this price point.
Dialog was also dialed in well, and it was rare to need to turn the volume up or rewind just to hear something. It still a 2.0 system, and it's always tough to compare these to full setups with a dedicated center channel for voices, but the SB-300 handles the task and even offers a voice-calibrated EQ mode for anyone that happens to be picky.
Dolby Atmos is another area that's always hit-or-miss on cheaper and smaller speakers. Obviously the soundbar doesn't have real Atmos speakers, so it tries to convert any Dolby Atmos content on the fly and fling it into the room so it “sounds” like its above you without the dedicated hardware to do it. It's decent, but does add a lot of depth to the sound in a room. I wouldn't buy the soundbar if you're chasing a cheap way to get Atmos, but it's nice to have.
Extra stuff
The SB-300 checks a lot of extra boxes to slot into your home theater without holding anything back. It's simple, but you get a lot of newer standard features like eARC, 4K HDR passthrough, and the aforementioned Dolby Atmos.
When connecting the soundbar you'll have a few options to get things going. The soundbar has two HDMI ports that pass through to your TV, and these do 4K HDR. You can run your preferred streaming stick or game console here and take advantage of all of its features, and expand your connectivity with the two ports. Additionally, the HDMI out to the TV is an eARC port, which means compatible TVs will be able to send audio back through to the soundbar without needing an optical cable or anything. It all runs through the single HDMI cable. This goes hand-in-hand with HDMI CEC, which means turning the TV on and off will toggle the soundbar with it so you don't need to keep up with multiple remotes.
If you're just wanting to listen to music, the SB-300 also connects to devices via Bluetooth and has a USB port for plugging up a flash drive with your music files. You still have optical ports and 3.5mm connections for other devices, too.
Monoprice includes a high-speed HDMI cable in the box, along with some mounting hardware to get this on the wall if you so choose. It's a good bit of extra stuff considering the price and quality of the soundbar overall.
Worth it?
At its $199 list price, the SB-300 is an excellent upgrade over any TV's speakers, and a good foray into real home theater hardware. When it goes on sale, it's a killer deal.
There's not a ton of bells and whistles, but you're getting a very solid soundbar that does its job well. There's no internet connectivity for Google Cast or AirPlay, but the Bluetooth handles some of that workload and sounds great doing it.
This one's tough to beat at this price.
