JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam soundbar offers rare Amazon Multi-Room Music support
Harman
This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.
JBL has unveiled its latest all-in-one soundbar?ahead of CES 2021, the JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam, which offers Wi-Fi streaming including Amazon MRM and simulated Dolby Atmos effects.
The soundbar uses JBL’s proprietary beam-forming technology, MultiBeam, to bounce surround channels off your side walls while Virtual Dolby Atmos gives you height effects (it lacks height speakers). It uses an “onboard” subwoofer with four passive radiators for “deep and punchy bass,” JBL says.
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The Bar 5.0 offers voice control via both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, although it lacks an onboard assistant. There’s also Apple AirPlay 2,?Chromecast?built-in and?Bluetooth.?
Notably, JBL says the Bar 5.0 MultiBeam will be compatible with Amazon’s Multi-Room Music?protocol, which lets you group Echo speakers together. The only other non-Amazon product to support it so far is the Polk Command Bar.?
The JBL Bar 5.0 follows the excellent JBL Bar 2.1 Deep Bass, which came out last year and offered excellent sound for the money. Given the new bar lacks a sub, I expect the Deep Bass model to sound better, especially with movies.
The JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam will be available in spring 2021 for $400 (￡350).