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My current living room setup consists of a Playbar, and a Play:1 / Symfonysk stereo pair, I think set up as a surround setup in Sonosequencer (but I can’t remember, as I no longer have an iPhone).  The Playbar is connected to my TV via optical, and the living room setup is mostly used for TV audio.   

My room isn’t enormous.  

I’m wondering if changing my Playbar for a Beam v2 would be an upgrade, downgrade, or just different?  Despite mines being pretty new, the Playbar does feel like it’s being quickly superseded.  I can’t justify an Arc (feel I’d be better getting a Sub of somekind before I went to an Arc if I was spending that kind of money). 

I know the general consensus with the Beam Gen 1 was that the Playbar was still markedly better, but is that still the case with the Gen 2?    

The Beam is a 5.0 sound bar. The Playbar is a 3.0 sound bar. So the Beam will give you better surround performance.

The Beam (Gen 2) can play Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos audio from popular streaming services. The Beam can also play lossless audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD and multichannel PCM (if your TV is equipped with HDMI eARC). Lossless audio is primarily used on Blu-ray discs. The Playbar is limited to lossy Dolby Digital.

The Beam is compatible with AirPlay. The Playbar isn’t.

The Beam has a built-in microphone and voice assistant capabilities. The Playbar doesn’t.

So if any of the things mentioned above is important to you, then upgrading to a Beam (Gen 2) might be worth it. If nothing I mentioned above matters to you, then keep the Playbar.

Ok….  I get that performance is better, is quality?  (and I also understand that might be subjective, but I’m after the experience of people who've tried it).  Given I don’t have a sub, is base better or worse?  

I don’t know enough about about, and so far have been massively underwhelmed with any attempt I’ve made at home surround, be it  with an old Sony surround hi-fi, a more modern Sony surround amp, the playbar and 2 x Play:1s or the Playbar / Play:1 / Symfonysk combo I’m running at the moment.  I get that this most likely means I’ve got it wrong, my combo configured as surround through Sonosequencr isn’t working (or ever going to work) right,  or am watching the wrong stuff without the wrong encoding, format or surround channel setup. 

It doesn’t mean it’s not important to me, I just don’t know it yet maybe… ;)  I’ve not consciously experienced Atmos so have nothing to base any experience on.  I don’t watch Blu Ray, I’ve got no device to play any of my old optical media on - I almost exclusively stream now.  I’ve just got FTTP so bandwidth shouldn’t be a problem but had a 50-60mbps connection before that anyway.

TV is equipped with eARC I believe, though it’s a Samsung and a brief check suggests there might be known problems.

I don’t use Apple devices.

An ability to play uncompressed audio is important to me.  

My phone and my Move both have voice assistance if I need it - I’ve not found a compelling need yet, other than changing tunes.  

So really, I guess it’s down to quality, and whether I’m more likely to get compelling surround that might change my mind on home surround sound with the Beam, either on its own or combined with the Play:1s, compared to the Playbar?  

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