A soundbar is an easy way to upgrade your TV’s built-in speakers without needing to splurge on a brand new TV.
Considering we gave the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar a 3.5-star rating and the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus earned a four-star rating, is it a given that you should opt for the more expensivemodel?
To help you decide, we’ve compared our experiences of both audio systems in this versus between the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar and Fire TV Soundbar Plus. Read on to learn how the two soundbars differ and which one suits your home entertainment setup best.
Pricing
The Amazon Fire TV Soundbar is the less expensive of the two with an RRP of £119.99 / $119.99. It comes equipped with a wall-mounting kit too.
As its name suggests, the Amazon Fire TV Plus builds upon the foundation of the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar but boasts more features which we’ll dive into later. Unsurprisingly, this means the Fire TV Plus has a higher RRP of £249.99 / $249.99, and includes a wall-mounting kit too.
Design
Visually, both the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Plus soundbars sport a fairly unassuming design. The Fire TV soundbar is 60cm wide, making it best suited for TVs at 50-inches and under, while the Fire TV Plus is 94cm that we found sat perfectly with a 55-inch set.
Both soundbars have an LED display behind a fabric grille which further enhances their respective minimalist appearances. We did struggle with the Fire TV Plus’ blinking LED lights, as we found they flashed so quickly that it made it difficult to understand what they were referencing.
We found setting up both iterations was simple, as they are both essentially plug and play. Otherwise, the Fire TV Soundbar is equipped with an HDMI ARC port, digital optical output and USB input, while the Fire TV Plus soundbar’s HDMI ARC also doubles as an eARC too.
The two come equipped with a small remote that covers the controls on its top surface including power, input selection, Bluetooth pairing and volume. Both also have additional buttons for adjusting EQ, bass control and enabling spatial sound mode too.
Winner: Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus
Features
Neither feature Fire TV OS or Alexa integration, which feels like a missed opportunity. Plus, the lack of a HDMI input means you can’t add a Fire TV Stick into the soundbars either.
That aside, the Fire TV Soundbar supports Dolby Digital soundtracks, DTS Virtual:X processing with DTS soundtracks, and a Spatial Audio mode too. The Fire TV Soundbar Plus also supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X which cover 3D spatial audio, however it’s worth pointing out that it doesn’t sport up-firing speakers.
Not only that but the Fire TV Soundbar Plus also enables DTS TruVolume which provides a consistent volume level with DTS audio. However, we did find that this tended to make the soundbar quieter.
While the Fire TV Soundbar Plus has a 3.1 configuration that’s married with an internal subwoofer, US customers can benefit from a 5.1 package that includes a subwoofer and two surround speakers.
Finally, while the Fire TV Soundbar has three EQ modes: film, music and dialogue, the Fire TV Soundbar Plus has four: film, music, sports and night, with the latter tempering the low frequencies.
Winner: Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus
Sound Quality
We hailed the Fire TV Soundbar as a “decent-sounding effort as long as you’re looking to boost your TV’s sound and nothing more”, especially if your existing set is a “cheap and tinny sounding one”.
Essentially the Fire TV Soundbar can offer accurate effects placed on-screen, which means sound doesn’t just emanate from the soundbar. We also found that any dialogue was clear and detailed too. However, once you switch to Spatial Mode, we did note that although the soundbar did sound clearer and louder, audio did tend to lose its smoothness and weight.
Plus, despite the Fire TV Soundbar offering three levels of bass (low, medium or high), none particularly added depth or power. In fact, we found the soundbar’s output sound became uncomfortable in onscreen moments where more punch was needed. Instead we found the bass boost offered a larger effect with music.
On the other hand, the Fire TV Soundbar Plus offers a confident sound, with a spacious listen that makes dialogue sound natural. However, we did find that bass across certain movies fell flat, with some distortion too. Plus, although its treble is balanced, the Fire TV Soundbar Plus sounds small and not particularly room-filling.
Music quality is somewhat mixed with the Fire TV Soundbar Plus. It struggled to boost bass through its EQ, with low frequencies that lacked punch and power although we did find that vocals were well handled.
Winner: Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus
Verdict
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly way to improve your existing TV’s sound quality then while the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar is a decent choice, it doesn’t offer anything extra to recommend it. In fact, we felt you could get a similar performance for less than its RRP.
The Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus is easier to recommend with its “admirable” performance. Sure at £130 more than its budget alternative, it may seem like more of a splurge, but we expect you’d be happier with its performance overall.
Otherwise, we’d suggest looking through our best soundbar list, where we’ve compiled our favourite soundbars across all budgets. Looking for something a bit more affordable? Our best cheap soundbar list means you can boost your TV’s sound without spending a fortune in the process.
