When shopping for a soundbar, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by all the expensive options. Thankfully, you don't need to spend a fortune to find something that performs reasonably well. For less than $300, you can find a decent soundbar that meets your needs, whether you're watching the latest blockbusters with your friends and family or just listening to your favorite albums by yourself.
We've tested over 225 soundbars; below, you'll find the best soundbars under $300. See our recommendations for the best budget soundbars, the best soundbars under $200, and the best small soundbars.
Quick Look
Our recommendations are built upon our thorough testing and rigorous reviews. Every soundbar we evaluate goes through multiple testing stages with different teams to ensure accurate, authentic results. No cherry-picked units or data.
Curious how we've tested over 200 soundbars (and counting)? Look at our How We Test Soundbars article for a behind-the-scenes look at our lab and process.
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Best Soundbar Under $300
If you're looking to spend no more than $300, the best soundbar we've tested is the Samsung HW-B750D. It's the predecessor to the Samsung HW-B750F and, truthfully, you should just get whichever of these two bars you can find cheaper, as they're almost identical. The B750D is more often available under $300, making it our top pick for this article. Like most bars in this price range, it doesn't support Dolby Atmos, but it does support Dolby Digital, which is commonly found on streaming platforms and Blu-rays. It doesn't have dedicated rear satellites, but uses side-firing drivers to play back 5.1 audio without downmixing, giving you immersive sound for a relatively affordable price.
The balanced frequency response reproduces everything from punchy kick drums to high-pitched clashing swords well. Bass heads might wish for a little more low-end thump, but fans of dialogue-heavy period dramas will appreciate the dedicated center channel, which keeps speech clear and audible. You can tweak the bar's sound to your liking using the 7-band EQ and cycle through a few different listening modes, including a 'Voice Enhance' setting that helps you hear poorly dialogue better.
This soundbar gets loud enough to fill most rooms with ease. Latency, when connected via HDMI or eARC, is remarkably low and still pretty good when connected via the older Optical connection. Unfortunately, fans of wireless playback might be disappointed to learn that the bar only supports Bluetooth as a wireless setting. There's no WiFi, Chromecast, or Apple AirPlay playback here. Gamers might also bemoan the lack of FreeSync and G-SYNC passthrough, but for most people, this bar provides what you need at a pretty low cost, provided you're willing to forgo dedicated rear satellites.
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Best Soundbar With Satellites Under $300
The best soundbar with satellites under $300 we've tested is the Vizio SV510X-0806. It's a decently versatile soundbar that works for everything from movies to music to TV shows. Since it's a 5.1 setup with dedicated rear satellites, it offers a more immersive surround sound experience than our top pick, the Samsung HW-B750D. It's easy to track objects as they fly around you, and the discrete center channel keeps dialogue clear and audible even during busy fight scenes. The Vizio's sound isn't as balanced out of the box as the Samsung's. In our room, we found it to be quite boomy, so you may want to use the bass and treble controls to tailor the sound to your preferences and room acoustics. But once customized, it offers a generally balanced sound, so everything from dialogue in sitcoms to musical instruments is reproduced with clarity. The dedicated subwoofer packs a punch in the bass range but, like the Samsung, can't reproduce the lowest rumbles of an explosion effect.
Although it doesn't have dedicated up-firing drivers, the Vizio will playback Atmos content, which is a great bonus at this price since you'll usually find Atmos support only on more expensive models like the best soundbars under $500. That said, while the Vizio's Atmos drivers do convey some sense of height, it's not as immersive as the sound produced by bars with dedicated up-firing drivers. If the Vizio is out of stock or too expensive where you are, try the Hisense HS5100. Sound-wise, the Hisense performs very similarly to the Vizio, but it doesn't support Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. Still, it offers Optical support, unlike our pick, and you get a remote instead of an app to control the bar, which some people may prefer.
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Best Standalone Soundbar Under $300
No space for a subwoofer? No problem. Standalone soundbars are a great alternative to multi-speaker models, and the best we've tested in this price range is the Samsung HW-S60D. This 5.0 model has a sleek design with many of the manufacturer's premium sound enhancement tools built in and Amazon Alexa voice assistant support for hands-free control. You can adjust the bar's volume from the comfort of your couch, switch preset modes, and more. Of course, lacking a sub, it can't quite match the Samsung HW-B750D for low-end thump and rumble, but that's the tradeoff you usually have to make when going without a sub.
Don't let that deter you too much, though, because thanks to Samsung's SpaceFit Sound room correction tool, the bar's sound is automatically optimized based on the unique acoustic characteristics of your room. With a balanced sound out of the box, this bar is suitable for listening to many different types of audio content, and there's even Dolby Atmos support, though it has to downmix this content into stereo to play it. Those who prefer manually switching up the bar's sound can access a full 7-band graphic EQ and some EQ presets.
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Best Small Soundbar Under $300
Standalone soundbars are great for smaller living spaces or if you want something for your computer setup. If you're especially space-conscious, you'll want to look at the Bose TV Speaker. At less than 24 inches in width, it's smaller and more compact than the Samsung HW-S60D. You can set it up under your TV stand or computer monitor to enjoy a clean and clear sound. Despite its small size, the bar gets loud enough to fill your living room with sound.
Of course, this 2.0 setup doesn't bring as impressive a surround sound performance as 5.0 models like the Samsung. It lacks some low-bass, too, which is typical for bars without a dedicated subwoofer. While a bass adjustment feature is on hand, this bar doesn't offer as many sound enhancement tools as the similarly performing Sonos Ray, another stellar small soundbar available at a similar price. The Sonos' room correction feature automatically optimizes audio reproduction based on your room's unique acoustics, which is a premium feature for its price. It doesn't reproduce as much bass as the Bose, but it's worth a look if you want more customization tools.
Recent Updates
Sep 23, 2025:
We've left the Samsung HW-B750D as our top pick, as it's usually on sale for under $300. But we've added the newer Samsung HW-B750F as an alternative to it, since it also goes on sale for under $300, albeit less often than the older version. We've also added the Hisense HS5100 as an alternative to the Vizio SV510X-0806 for anyone who prefers a remote to app control, or who depends on Optical support. Finally, we've removed our best soundbar for bass pick, because our other picks cover that category.
Mar 10, 2025:
The Samsung HW-B750D is our new top pick, as the Vizio M Series M51ax-J6 is only in stock intermittently. The Vizio SV510X-0806 is now our pick for 'Best Soundbar With Satellites,' though we suggest you go for the Vizio M Series M51ax-J6 if you can find it in stock. We've removed our 'Best Soundbar Without Dolby Atmos' pick as our top pick also lacks Atmos and have removed the Vizio M Series M51a-H6 from our Notable Mentions as it's not in stock anymore.
Dec 06, 2024:
We've replaced the Samsung HW-S60B/S61B with the Samsung HW-S60D; the D model offers small improvements over its predecessor, but for less.
Sep 03, 2024: We've made small textual changes to this article to improve its clarity. There have been no changes to our picks.
Jun 06, 2024: We've checked our picks for product availability and accuracy, but there hasn't been a change in our recommendations.
All Reviews
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the top soundbars under $300 for most people to buy. We factor in the price (a cheaper soundbar wins over a pricier one if the difference isn't worth it), feedback from our visitors, and availability (no soundbars that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).
If you would like to choose for yourself, here's the list of all our reviews of soundbars under $300. Be careful not to get caught up in the details. No soundbar is perfect. Personal taste, preference, and listening habits will matter more in your selection.