If like me you aspire to the finer things in life but don't quite have the funds, you're going to love this deal on one of the best soundbars for high-end audio. Bowers & Wilkins' Panorama 3 is usually £899, the same price as the Sonos Arc. But right now it's down to just £499 on Amazon (opens in new tab) and at Peter Tyson (opens in new tab). That's a whopping £400 off the usual price.
In our review, we said that it is "the best bar for music at this price" with a "full-blooded, confident and absorbing movie sound." It's the first B&W soundbar to make it into our best soundbars guide.
What's so good about the B&W Panorama 3 soundbar?
B&W have an enviable reputation among high-end hi-fi fans, and this soundbar lives up to it with absolutely stellar sound quality, particularly with music. It uses upwards-firing drivers for Dolby Atmos instead of digital sound processing, and it includes a pair of subwoofers to deliver impressive low-end punch. There's 400W of Class D amplification here and it supports AirPlay 2, Bluetooth with aptX and Spotify Connect.
In our review, we said that "here’s real dynamic power here, and the soundbar can switch from ‘near-silence’ to ‘enormous earth-shattering explosion’ and back again in an eye-blink. It’s equally adept with the second-stage dynamics of overlapping speech, revving engines or anything else that carries minor harmonic variations within it."
We concluded that in a head to head between the Panorama 3 and the Sonos Arc, the Arc was better for expandability – the Panorama doesn't enable you to add wireless rear speakers – and the Panorama better for music and one-box cinema thrills. At full price we thought it was a brilliant buy; with £400 off it's a sonic steal.