Everyone wants immersive, cinematic sound in their living room, but not everyone has the room (or the outlets) for placing rear surround speakers. Folks in smaller apartments or with smaller living rooms or older homes will love the power of the new JBL Bar 500MK2 as much as they love how compact the main bar is.

This is probably the best-sounding smaller soundbar setup I’ve ever heard—the type of thing that actually benefits from a disc player and my newly eBay’d copy of Casino Royale. If you have a medium-sized budget but really want to jazz up the crappy sound of your massive flatscreen TV, this is a fantastic and reasonably affordable way to do that, and really get bang for your buck.

Nondescript Design

The best part about the Bar 500MK2 is that it is a small, oblong rectangle that easily fits beneath any modern TV. JBL doesn’t make its own screens, so it puts a lot of attention into making sure everything fits between various feet and pedestal designs, and the short, 2-inch high bar squeezes below the bezel (and IR input) of most TVs.

You get the bar itself and a large wireless subwoofer to place anywhere in your room. I find the best way to do this is to plug it in where you have a convenient outlet, then move it around until you like the sound best, but in my acoustically treated review space, that happens to be right next to my TV.

Photograph: Parker Hall

The subwoofer is no joke, at about 13 x 16 inches and 18 pounds, but it’s not something you’ll need to move once you get it set up, and it contributes massively (pun intended) to the depth and breadth of the Bar 500MK2’s sound. With a 10-inch driver, it’s more than enough to get to its claimed 40-Hz floor.

Controls on the bar are minimal, with volume and input buttons hidden in the center of the matte black bar, and an included remote that lets you adjust settings. There is a convenient LED screen hidden inside the right front of the grille that tells you in plain English what is going on, which is a nice departure from many brands’ variety of lights and colors.

Jamming On

The impressive 750 watts of claimed total output of the speaker and subwoofer really are a bold departure from any built-in TV speakers. In fact, for a small bar, the Bar 500MK2 filled my testing room with some of the most immersive sound I’ve heard from a bar that doesn’t include rear surround speakers.

It has an uncanny ability to bounce sounds around you in a way that makes it feel like they’re genuinely coming from the sides or rear, especially when playing Gran Turismo 7 on PlayStation 5 Pro.

Dolby Atmos effects in movies are equally impressive. While watching my 4K Blu-ray copy of Ford Vs. Ferrari, cars zipped by my head in such lifelike detail I sometimes felt like I needed to lean out of the way. When listening to music like Agave Fire Pit’s “Goodnight,” I was impressed by how cleanly it is able to render the vocal effects right in the center of the stereo image.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Likewise, folks who are a bit hard of hearing will love JBL’s excellent PureVoice 2.0 setting; it can raise dialog based on ambient sound in the scene and the current volume of the bar, helping you actually hear what the characters are saying without subtitles.

Bass response is full and warm, though this isn’t the speediest and most punchy I’ve heard; it does better with the THX intro sound than it does with speedy Outkast kick drums, but that’s not actually a huge deal to my ears. I prefer warmer, slower, bolder sub-100-Hz bass from a system this size, rather than the basic punchy low-mids that smaller woofers tend toward.

On the high end, the brightness is never too bright, and there is lots of definition. Rainbrother’s “Black Chemicals” showcases just how great it can be with stereo guitars; my aforementioned copy of Casino Royale showcases how awesome it can be with Bond-y bullet ricochets (shimmering, not ear-piercing).

Photograph: Parker Hall

I also love that the bar supports every major casting method: Airplay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Roon Ready. Basically, if you want to cast audio to this thing from your phone—any phone—it works flawlessly. It also includes HDR10+ and Dolby Vision pass-through, which makes it easy to pair with disc players or gaming consoles, if you don’t have enough inputs on your TV. JBL’s One app allows you to adjust bass and treble to your liking, and there is room calibration that helps it adjust settings to your specific listening environment.

As a convenient way to get proper-ish surround sound in medium-sized rooms or smaller, I am not sure there is a bar I prefer more that doesn’t come with rear speakers (and the associated hassle). The JBL Bar 500 has it where it counts: It’s under $500, it fits below most TVs, and the 10-inch subwoofer really provides the proper amount of bass, even with a smaller bar below the TV itself.

It’s a great solution to the problem that many bars have, which is a lack of proper low end, and a weird bump in the low midrange that affects the sound of voices on screen. The JBL bar has none of those problems, and it still fits in the vast majority of rooms. If you want a compact soundbar setup that actually performs well, this is a great place to start.