The Sonos Arc is a pricy but peerless home audio package. Sonos' first-ever Dolby Atmos soundbar is more than just a pretty (and tubular) face. This powerful hunk of well fashioned plastic is loaded with 11 individually powered drivers, including dual speakers pointed upward to bounce off your ceiling, creating an impressively potent example of the hemispheric immersion for which Dolby's Atmos sound format is so highly praised. Its well-tuned drivers offer a rich and smooth sound signature that's fantastic for anything you play, from sitcoms to streaming music. Speaking of streaming, like all Sonos speakers, the Arc offers WiFi connection through the Sonos app, along with the ability to connect with other Sonos speakers, either in a group, or as part of a surround sound setup. This allows you to add dual surround speakers and a Sonos subwoofer if you want, though the Arc offers impressive bass response even without one. Like the Sonos Beam, it also sports built-in microphones and your choice of Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa support, making it both a soundbar and a powerful smart speaker. The drawback of all these features is, of course, the price of $799, which puts the bar beyond the average budget.

You could say that the Magnifi 2 is the soundbar-iest soundbar. The 2.1-channel system pulls out all the stops to pull off a multi-speaker experience from its compact design, fully embodying the soundbar creed. To that end, it does as well as could be expected with the tools Polk has provided, and the combination of sheer brute force and clear detail the bar musters from its limited armory is impressive. Nearly every rival at this price adds at least a center channel for dialogue. What's more, the Magnifi 2 can't decode high-end audio formats like Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio (let alone popular 3D formats like Dolby Atmos), leaving it to dwell somewhere in limbo between entry-level bars like Vizio's V21 and multi-channel Atmos powerhouses like the Sonos Arc.

Polk Audio manages to tease some relatively impressive virtual 3D audio out of its 2.1-channel MagniFi soundbar, which makes the speaker's subpar bass response all the more disappointing. Equipped with built-in Chromecast and Google Assistant support, the MagniFi 2 is easy to set up, and Polk Audio's custom digital sound processing delivers subtle surround and height effects without undue harshness. The $499 MagniFi 2 also comes with three HDMI inputs, a pleasant surprise for a soundbar in this price range. But while it's unquestionably an upgrade over standard TV speakers, the MagniFi 2's otherwise crisp audio is undermined by muddy bass from the wireless subwoofer, robbing the sound of punchiness. Polk Audio has three lines of soundbars.