The best surround sound systems in 2025, tried and tested

CNN

28-01-2025

The best surround sound systems we tested
Best surround sound system: Sony Bravia Theater Bar 8, SA-SW5 Subwoofer and RS5 Speakers
Best budget surround sound system: Vizio 5.1 Soundbar SE SV510X-08
Best splurge surround sound system: Sonos Arc Ultra, Sub (Gen 4) and Era 300 Speakers While we all spend plenty of time choosing between the top TVs, picking the best surround sound system to complete your home theater might have skipped your mind. You're not to be blamed for hoping your TV's speakers are sufficient because that TV was pricey enough as it was.
Fortunately for you, I've wanted to upgrade the audio for my favorite shows, music and movies, as I build my perfect home entertainment setup. In that process, I've learned you need more than just one of the best soundbars, as compatible rear speakers (and possibly a subwoofer) are required for the complete package. And that's part of why I spent the better part of a year testing all of these surround sound system components to guarantee compatibility.
Over those months, I put some of the top competitors through their paces with a checklist that included streaming music, TV and movies, physical media and video games. I also used them off-hours as my personal home theater setup to ensure they're worth your time and money.
With testing (and troubleshooting) in the rearview, I've landed on three across various price points I consider the best at enabling quality surround sound audio. As much as I love going to the cinema, the convenience of a proper home theater is hard to argue with — so let's dive in to see which is right for you.
Sony BRAVIA Theater
This is the surround sound system most people will be happy with, regardless of their needs and preferences.
Vizio 5.1 Soundbar SE
Shockingly affordable for a whole surround sound system, Vizio's 5.1 system punches way above its price.
Best splurge surround sound system
Sonos Arc Ultra
The best solution for an ever-expanding home audio setup, Sonos packs awe-inspiring sound quality into its pricey gear.
Sonos Era 300
The Sonos Era 300 is a dream that helps complete this surround sound system package. It offers crystal clear audio, theater-like surround sound and a sleek aesthetic.
Sonos Sub 4
You can truly feel your home theater rumble with the Sonos Sub 4. It's expensive, yes, but it's the cherry on top of this excellent surround sound system. While surround sound audio decisions can be personal, Sony's kit does everything well enough that nobody would be disappointed. Combining this soundbar, subwoofer and rear speakers, you get strong, bassy audio out of the box, though your TV shows and movies still sound clear and immersive thanks to spatial audio. Whether I was fighting the reptilian Materia Defender in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on the PlayStation 5 or watching Joel snipe out a threat in HBO's 'The Last of Us,' this Sony system ensured I heard 360 degrees of action.
The Sony speakers impressed on my audio testing playlist, producing clear strings and accurate vocals on Frank Ocean's 'Thinkin Bout You' ballad, crisp drums on Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross' 'Brutalizer' from the Challengers score and thumping, sturdy bass on everything from Steve Aoki's remix of Kid Cudi's 'Pursuit of Happiness' to the Talking Heads' 'Once In A Lifetime.' If that low-frequency audio is too much by default, you can easily lower the bass (or adjust any number of audio settings) using Sony's mobile app.
Design-wise, the Sony soundbar, speakers and subwoofer are all on the larger side, at least compared to Vizio, Bose and Roku's current offerings. Sony's soundbar is nearly as wide as the Sonos Arc, and its rear speakers are the second largest (again, right behind the massive Sonos Era 300).
This tech looks the part, too, as it will fit into your home setup elegantly provided your under-the-TV space is wide enough.
It's also my top overall pick because it supports every way I can listen and watch, with eARC HDMI (for your TV, streaming boxes and gaming consoles), AirPlay 2 for iPhones and other Apple devices and Bluetooth for everything else. It also won a fair bit of points for the simplicity of its setup, as it cuts the additional cords required to connect the rear wireless speakers for the Bose and Vizio setups.
I love to be surprised during testing, so I'm excited to say how good Vizio's $250 surround sound system is — and that it often gets discounted to just under $200. Yes, Vizio offers a soundbar, rear speakers and a subwoofer for less than most standalone soundbars. Call me paranoid but I was almost expecting to open the box and find the sound of crickets with a note saying, 'The joke's on you!' Instead, I got gear whose performance is better than expected, as it even supports Dolby Atmos, the spatial audio standard (more on this below). This four-piece kit proved capable for a recent weekend of watching TV, movies and pro wrestling, and it provided adequate bass from its diminutive subwoofer.
For example, I noticed how pop punk band Charly Bliss' single 'Nineteen' sounded alright and that Daft Punk's live version of 'Touch It/Technologic' provided notable bass and immersed me in the sounds of the audience reacting to the beats. Watching George Miller's 'Mad Max: Fury Road' off of a Blu-ray in my home theater, I noticed that this Dolby Atmos-enhanced cut allowed the thumping drums, whirring blades and punchy explosions hitting throughout the caravan scene to all be heard from different places around me.
There are downsides, though, as you might expect at this price. During setup, I was a little annoyed to see how its rear speakers connect via wires to the subwoofer, leaving you with two long cords to tidy up to avoid an eye sore. Also, its sound isn't as strong as the Sony or Sonos, though you might not notice most of the time unless you've been spoiled by better surround sound tech before.
The biggest audio issue I encountered happened when my air conditioning unit was blasting and the dialogue was slightly hard to hear. The fix was to raise the dialogue setting in Vizio's app but at one point, the app had an issue with this dialogue clarity slider resetting. Thankfully, this issue has been fixed since I first encountered it.
Setting everything up and getting it to work was fairly straightforward. Vizio's hardware is smaller than most of the rest of the testing pool, which makes it great for those with limited space. You'll just want to find a way to get those wires out of your way so you can continue to be impressed by the value of this surround sound setup.
At $250, this setup has a shocking regular price for a surround sound setup that performs as well as this set does and it's the kind of product that makes you rethink what Vizio is capable of.
While Sony and Vizio can get the job done at two distinct and different price points, Sonos' pricier take on surround sound home audio has its own merits. First of all, I need to give Sonos the win on sound quality overall, as the massive Arc Ultra soundbar and Era 300 speakers earned their space by immersing me in full and pitch-perfect renditions of everything from rockers Screaming Females' power ballad 'Swallow the World' to a waves-soaked scene from FX's prestige series 'Shogun' where our heroes barely made it through the storm. The Arc Ultra and Era 300 also feature convenient touch controls for volume, pause/play and voice commands, so you don't always need to hunt for your remote.
And while I was pleased when I originally tested the Sonos Arc — which is increasingly unavailable, as the Arc Ultra replaces it — I've truly been wowed by the Arc Ultra. One of the Arc Ultra's main improvements is in low-end sound, thanks to Sonos' new Sound Motion Woofer that improves bass without making the soundbar much larger or heavier than the Arc. I heard that added bass throughout my testing, from explosions and drums in 'Mad Max: Fury Road' to the beats in Daft Punk's live mashup of 'Touch It/Technologic' and Frank Ocean's 'Thinkin' Bout You.'
While the Sony surround sound kit never stumbled either, Sonos just earned a bit more love from its impressive performance, including when I watched the LCD Soundsystem concert film 'Shut Up and Play the Hits,' and felt like I was back in the pit at Madison Square Garden during their performance of 'All My Friends' (and, yes, I was there). The Arc Ultra and Era 300 speakers allowed for strong guitar riffs and roars of the crowd, and the soundspace gave plenty of separation to hear Nancy Whang's keys and Pat Mahoney's drums clearly.
Sonos does have some downsides, primarily the prohibitive price of this kit (you could opt for the less expensive Era 100 rear speakers and Beam soundbar, though). It's also missing the DTS:X audio standard, which the Sony Bravia Theater Bar 8 offers. Thankfully, Sonos seems to have fixed much of what has plagued some of its hardware in the past. For instance, the Arc Ultra finally has the option to connect via Bluetooth, which is great for Android users. Android users also have the ability to use Sonos Trueplay to adapt their speakers to the acoustics of their room.
Finally, the biggest reason to splurge on a Sonos system is its multi-room audio support. The ability to wirelessly sync the sounds coming from speakers in different rooms can make mornings a bit easier, as podcasts and tunes follow me from my bedroom to my living room (which is within earshot of my bathroom and kitchen), so I don't miss a beat or a word. Is that worth another $500 or so? That's between you and your need for convenience, but I think the Sonos sound system life's pretty sweet if you have the cash and the space.
If you're looking for somewhere to save a few bucks, the new Sonos Sub (Gen 4) wireless subwoofer doesn't exactly feel like as much of a must-have for the Arc Ultra as it did before when the original Arc's bass output wasn't as strong.
User experienceEase of use: Multi-channel sound systems may be intimidating, but that shouldn't be the case. We tracked of the ease of setup.
Special features: Surround sound systems may pack bonus options, so we tried them all out and give bonus points based on how easy it was to discover them.
Living with these speakers: For multiple days, and many hours of testing, we relied on these surround sound systems for our home entertainment.
Similar placement: We tested wireless speakers and subwoofers from the same place unless their cords are too short to sit in our preferred locations.
Multiple seating points: While we have our favorite 'spot' in our living room, we listened from multiple spots to make sure the speakers fill the room. TV and moviesDifferent audio standards: We watched shows with and without the immersive Dolby Atmos standard, making sure to consume a range of how content is sent to viewers.
Multiple services: Shows were streamed across different service platforms, including (but not limited to) Hulu and Max.
Streaming and physical media: We watched films from the Apple TV 4K and a 4K Blu-ray player, and on-device platforms in the case of the Roku Streambar Pro
Consistency: While we watched various content on these surround sound systems, we replayed the same scenes across all equipment.
Audio sync: The same dialogue-rich scene of a sitcom was played on all test systems, to see if there's any delays in audio sync. We also kept track of which services offer controls to adjust audio/video delay. MusicConsistency: We played the same playlist of songs through each set of audio equipment. Since most speakers don't have a native operating system, we used Apple Music over the wireless AirPlay standard to listen to those songs. There were two exceptions: the Vizio hardware tested doesn't offer AirPlay, so we used the Apple Music app on the Apple TV, and since the Roku hardware has its own app ecosystem, we used the same app there.
Variety: That playlist ranges from alternative rock to electronica, with hip-hop and pop. First, you'll want to think about your needs, whether you care about specific streaming standards or simply want your shows, music and movies to come at you from all angles.
If you want powerful, detailed sound behind you, go for the Sony or the Sonos — which provided the top sound quality in our testing. If you're simply dipping your feet and want sound coming from behind and below you, the Vizio package is hard to argue with considering its dramatically low price. All three setups offer Dolby Atmos, but only the Sony and the Sonos calibrate their sound to your space, though it's difficult to ensure you'll be able to hear the difference.
If you want to send audio to your speakers from your phone, you'll find much more convenience with the Sony and Sonos, because they support Spotify Connect and Apple's AirPlay — which add a lot of convenience. Whenever I wanted to play podcasts or music from my phone onto the Vizio setup, I had to manually enable Bluetooth connections in their app and select that speaker as a Bluetooth output.
Lastly, deciding between Sony and Sonos can be tricky because the price jump to the latter is so steep. Both offer Atmos and room-tuned audio, but Sonos' gear is designed for multi-room audio, so you can bump the same jams wirelessly throughout your home. You can enable and disable specific speakers, without turning them off and on the way I do with the Bluetooth speaker in my shower.
In our testing, we also covered competing options from Roku and Bose. Both were acceptable overall, but each had their annoying flaws.
For example, Bose's wireless speakers may connect to its soundbar and subwoofer wirelessly but each requires two cords to plug into the wall, creating a lot of mess. Or as my testing notes simplified the problem to a single word: 'convoluted.' Sony and Sonos' wireless speakers are much simpler, while we'll accept the wires of Vizio's rears due to their hyper-affordable price.
That said, I did like how the Bose's rear speakers were a bit small, providing decent sound without taking up a lot of space. Overall, this soundbar, speaker pair and subwoofer provided decent audio, immersing me in everything from my favorite songs to chaotic scenes in 'Shogun' and 'The Last of Us.' The Bose soundbar I tested has since been replaced with a new model, so I look forward to re-testing those speakers and subwoofers soon.
The Roku system I tested is no longer available, and that's for the better. Using Roku's since-discontinued Streambar Pro soundbar with its Wireless Bass subwoofer and Wireless Speakers was great until the rear speakers and subwoofer disconnected from the soundbar — which happened too often to recommend. I spent weeks troubleshooting this issue and found no real resolution.
In theory, Roku's value proposition is fantastic as it packs a 4K streaming device into the Streambar Pro (just like its Streambar SE and Streambar soundbars, though these don't support rear wireless speakers). When it worked, it worked well, with rumbling bass from the subwoofer and directionality in a gunfight on 'The Last of Us.' Oh, and the Dolby Atmos sound standard for immersive audio — which even the Vizio set includes — is missing. We hope Roku rolls out a new surround sound package that doesn't have the instability problem of the model we tested.
The following FAQs have been answered by the reviewer, Henry T. Casey, a veteran tech journalist who's covered electronics for over nine years.
What is Dolby Atmos and why does it matter?
What is Dolby Atmos and why does it matter?
Dolby Atmos and varying multi-channel surround sound specs aim for the same thing but in different ways. To best understand Dolby Atmos, let's first talk about multi-channel audio since it came first. Both of these standards seek to provide audio in ways that make you think the sound is coming from multiple directions, including the 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound specs that produce the main sound from multiple audio channels (the first number) at different parts of your room, while their low-frequency sound comes through the subwoofer, represented by the '.1' above). In your room, a soundbar could emit three to five (or more) of the audio 'channels' in the front of the room, while your rear speakers account for the other two. That's multi-channel audio, which is a system of fixed output points.
Dolby Atmos, however, is a spatial audio standard, where sound is mapped to many more points — think of a whole sphere of audio around you. Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, therefore, aren't as dependent or limited to setups with a specific number of speakers — it's more about how the sound moves to different points.
Where should I place my surround system speakers?
Where should I place my surround system speakers?
The best rule of thumb for a soundbar is to place it underneath the TV and have it centered and parallel to the bottom bezel of the TV. Not only is that the most visually pleasing position, but it will have your audio blasting from the position your eyes are drawn to, putting your ears in the right place to hear everything.
Rear speakers are tricky because we don't all have power outlets and room for cords that go everywhere. The best advice I have is to have the speakers at least a foot (if not two) behind you and at ear level. Your mileage may vary on what's comfortable for audio near your head.
Lastly, the subwoofer goes on your floor in the most convenient spot. I like to place mine right behind the couch, so the low-end rumble hits my seat.
Do I need a subwoofer?
Do I need a subwoofer?
While you might feel compelled to buy your system all at once — especially based on bundled discounts — not everyone needs a subwoofer, as soundbars begin to pack more and more low-frequency sound. You can answer this question simply by asking 'Have I ever tried to turn the bass up or down?' If you're bass-friendly, especially if you watch movies with booming scores and listening to music with tons of low-end, get that subwoofer. If not, spend your money on better soundbars and speakers.
CNN Underscored thoroughly tests all the products we cover, and we provide full transparency about how these products are tested — so you know they'll meet your standards. Our experienced team of writers and editors have many years of testing experience and work to ensure each article is carefully edited and all recommended products are properly vetted.
This guide's writer, Henry T. Casey, used this opportunity to figure out the right surround sound system for himself, and what to recommend to friends and family. This way, he can share the link when someone asks why a specific system is right for them. He's spent several years of experience testing all sorts of electronics, including headphones, laptops and phones. He is currently planning future updates, based on new versions of products he's tested here.