Review: Bose SoundTouch 300

SoundTouch 300 is the latest addition to Bose’s multi-room family, an easy-to-use soundbar, where one can also purchase a wireless subwoofer if you want, and even supplement with wireless back speakers. But it also works well on its own.
The SoundTouch 300 has a HDMI output, but interestingly enough no corresponding input. This is because it has an audio return channel (ARC) and should therefore be connected to a corresponding ARC input on the TV. This speaks both ways, so one HDMI cable is all you need.
Connecting to the network is easily done with the SoundTouch mobile app, and there is a bit of magic surrounding the product on the whole. There is built-in support for Spotify Connect and Internet radio. For everything else (Tidal, Deezer, Apple Music, etc.), one needs to use Bluetooth. This is a rather scant offer.
It comes with a measurement microphone in the form of a headband, which you must wear while moving from place to place in the room and running the calibration. This is not scary, and the process is easy. Just follow the instructions from the voice coming out of the speakers.

Sound quality

With our Sony TV, we experienced the fact that the optical digital input had too much delay in sound, so the sound from the dialogue on the film didn’t match the lip movements of the actors. HDMI was therefore the only real connection for film.
Without room correction, the dialogue on film sounds boxed and unnatural, with a hump at the top of the chest voice region. It’s almost as if the actors have a bubble in their throat when they speak. After room correction, a lot of this is resolved, and the dialogue becomes clearer. The advantage of room correction is that a soundbar which initially sounds mediocre can quickly work better in a given room, than another soundbar that originally has better sound quality.
The soundbar still doesn’t sound very engaging. The sound is bigger and fuller than from the TV, but it doesn’t handle the bass very well on its own, and there isn’t much timbre here. You can amplify the bass, but then it masks too much of the dialogue. We keep it in the middle range.
Music in stereo suffers from the bass area masking the midrange, and female voices sound too woolly to engage. Music with a lot of dynamism and bass also soon begins to get on your nerves.
We also got hold of the subwoofer Acoustimass 300 to test it. This doubles the price and provides a more powerful bass experience, but it does not remove the tonal weakness of the soundbar, and Bose never becomes a threat to its rivals.

Conclusion

Bose SoundTouch 300 is very easy to connect and use. It also has automatic room correction, that reduces some of the room’s negative impact.
The sound quality itself is unfortunately nothing to get excited about, neither for film or for music, It sounds too closed in and woolly. Better than TV sound, but no more than that. The system also has limited support for streaming services.