Bose Soundbar 700 offers ecstatic music, but it costs time and money

The soundbar lightens up guitar riffs in classic rock, keeps distortion low and delivers clear vocals

Let's start with who should buy the Bose Soundbar 700. That would be anyone who is looking for great music in a large, undivided indoor space. A large living room — not the standard 10 ft x 12 ft bedroom — would be ideal. It works best with a TV, which should be at least 55 inches. Anything smaller will look puny in front of this 16-inch-long audio bar. If you find yourself capable of spending Rs 70,000 on a soundbar, read on. 

Design 4.5/5

The long, rectangular bar comes in pure black or pure white, with a tempered glass top and a 5-cm-high speaker grille in front. The Soundbar 700 doesn’t just blend in with modern interiors, it enhances them. You can either mount it — ideally below the TV screen — or place it on a table top. It's a single unit and the wires going through its back are easily hidden.

The glass top has nothing but a Bose logo at the centre bottom and two touch controls — one for mute and the other for Alexa — on the bottom left. It's a clean, no-frills design, and at less than 5 kg, is easily moved around the house.

Performance 4/5

In the era of plug and play devices, setting up the soundbar is a task. It reaps rewards in the long run, but the initial labour is frustrating, especially since it looks so easy. Best to put in a request to have the device installed. But if you must DIY, make sure the TV you are buying it for has an HDMI port with ARC (Audio Return Channel), or HDMI and ethernet ports. 

Once connected, Season 8 of Game of Thrones, despite its bizarre writing, will be an experience. The shrieks of the dead will be crystal clear, the blue dragon’s roar will have scary depth and you will be able to hear the frightened babble of innocent people at King’s Landing as they are being hunted and burned (I just gave away the penultimate episode).

The Soundbar 700 lightens up guitar riffs in classic rock, keeps distortion to the minimum and delivers clear vocals with a mean thump to old-world drum bass. The sound quality of this speaker is a work of art.

Overall 4.5/5

Connecting to a TV was relatively straightforward, but the Bose Music App struggled to find the device wirelessly. I ended up spending at least an hour repeating as instructed on the help page to finally get it to work. Apart from a buggy Alexa who did not respond correctly more than three out of five times, there is absolutely nothing to complain about with this speaker. It comes with a competent, touch-sensitive universal remote controller with keys that only light up when you need them. 

Unless you want the whole house to hear the soundbar sing, you won’t need an external sub-woofer or satellite speakers. It’s a beast of a gadget and the steep price is for the quality you get.