Roku Streambar Soundbar Review

The Roku Streambar is a very small soundbar with angled edges. Its front and sides are wrapped in tight fabric that almost feels like it's stuck to the soundbar's body, while the top and rear of the bar are made from hard plastic.

The Roku Streambar doesn't come with a subwoofer, but you can purchase a Roku Wireless Subwoofer separately.

The Roku Streambar doesn't have any satellites, but you can buy Roku Wireless Speakers separately.

This soundbar is small and can easily fit between the legs of most 55 inch TVs. It's not very tall, so it shouldn't block your TV unless it sits flush to the table.

The back of this soundbar has one opening for its inputs and power cord. There are also universal holes on its underside so that you can wall-mount it, but the mounting parts are sold separately.

The Roku Streambar has a good build quality. Its top and rear sides are made of dense hard plastic, while the front and sides of the bar are wrapped in a tight fabric, so it doesn't feel like it can easily rip. That said, dust and dirt may still collect on the fabric. There's rubber underneath the soundbar, which is a nice touch.

• Remote
• Batteries (2x AAA)
• Quick Start guide
• Optical cable
• HDMI cable
• Power cable
• Power adapter

The Roku Streambar has a mediocre stereo frequency response. It's ideal for listening to vocal-centric content like podcasts and TV shows, as its balanced mid-range can reproduce dialogue clearly and accurately. That said, voices can also be a bit veiled due to the underemphasized treble. It struggles to reproduce the thumpy and rumbling low-bass felt in bass-heavy music and action-packed movies, but this is typical for small standalone bars. You can always add on a separate sub if you want to improve its bass reproduction.

If you update the Roku Streambar to firmware version 11.0.0 or later, you get access to bass and treble adjustments to help you customize its sound to your liking. With its bass set to '8', you get a more balanced sound, with a bit more thump in the bass range to bring bass-heavy genres like EDM and hip-hop to life. The mids remain quite balanced, too, so voice and lead instruments are still clear and detailed in the mix.

The Roku Streambar's stereo soundstage is fair. The soundstage is a bit wider than the bar, which is quite impressive for such a small bar, but it doesn't do any tricks to make it sound larger. The soundstage's focus is okay, but sounds seem to accelerate towards the far sides of the bar. That said, the focus is much more consistent towards the center, so objects are perceived as coming from accurate, pinpoint locations.

The Roku Streambar has okay stereo dynamics. It doesn't get as loud as many other soundbars we've tested and won't be loud enough for a large or crowded room, but that's to be expected of its small size. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of compression when you push it to max volume, so sound quality isn't degraded.

The Roku Streambar has a decent THD performance. There isn't a lot of distortion at normal listening levels, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction. However, if you push the bar to its max volume, there's a jump in THD. That said, this may not be noticeable with real-life content.

The Roku Streambar has an okay center channel performance. This 2.0 setup uses its left and right channels to simulate a phantom center. Unfortunately, a phantom localization doesn't anchor voices to a pinpoint location like a soundbar with a discrete center. Its frequency response is quite neutral, though, especially in the mid-range. As a result, you don't have any trouble following dialogue in your favorite movies and TV shows.

The Roku Streambar has a poor surrounds performance. It has to downmix this content into stereo to play it, which doesn't sound as immersive as a setup with dedicated satellite speakers. Audio seems like it's coming from in front of you rather than from speakers placed all around you. You can always add on separate satellites if you want to improve its surround sound.

This soundbar has a few sound enhancement features. It offers four EQ presets: 'Standard', 'Dialogue', 'Movie', 'Music', and 'Night'. There's also a Volume Mode feature to quiet loud commercials, which you can set to 'Off', 'Leveling', or 'Night Mode'. There's also an adjustable Speech Clarity feature to make voices more crisp, and you can choose between 'Off', 'Low', and 'High'. If you update it to firmware version 11.0.0 or higher, you get bass and treble adjustments to customize its sound.

You can connect the Roku Streambar to your TV via Optical. Also, if your TV has HDMI ARC, you can connect it over an HDMI cable. Most TV come with this technology built-in; however, older TVs may not have it. In that case, you can connect it over Optical and HDMI to get it to play.

The Roku Streambar has mediocre audio support via its ARC port. It supports Dolby Digital content, which is commonly found on Blu-ray discs as well as streaming platforms. However, since it's a 2.0 bar, it has to downmix it into stereo to play it.

The Roku Streambar has mediocre audio format support via its Optical In port. It can only support Dolby Digital content, which is commonly found on Blu-ray discs or streaming platforms. That said, it lacks DTS support.

The Roku Streambar has an okay latency performance. It has fairly low latency, so you don't notice much delay between the audio you hear and the video you see. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience can vary.

This soundbar has incredible wireless playback options. You can wirelessly stream your favorite audio from your mobile device via Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay 2, or Wi-Fi. However, you can't connect to the bar using Chromecast built-in.

This soundbar doesn't have an HDMI In port, so it doesn't support high-quality passthrough.

The Roku Streambar doesn't have a display. Just like the Roku Smart Soundbar, it has a light in the center of the bar. It turns solid red when you've plugged it in and turns green when it's ready. The light also slowly pulses when you're on mute, and it turns white for a moment to indicate that you've made a command. Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing its volume level if the TV is off.

The Roku Streambar comes with a small and simple remote. You can control almost all of the bar's features. However, unlike the Roku Streambar Pro, you can't connect headphones to the remote itself for private listening—you have to do that through the Roku app instead.

The Roku Streambar has its own voice assistant built into the remote. You can press the microphone button on the remote or use the app to activate it. Also, you can use a third-party Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and/or compatible Apple Homekit for voice assistant support. You just need to set them up in the Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or Apple Home apps respectively to stream them on the bar.

The Roku app acts as a remote and lets you control all the bar's settings. You get access to a wide array of sound enhancement features, as well as Roku's unique channels, including apps like Netflix and Spotify. Its private listening mode is pretty unique, too, since it lets you cast audio from your TV to your mobile device so you can listen without bothering those around you.

This soundbar doesn't really turn off, and even when powering the bar off, it mainly turns the TV off. When connected via ARC, your TV remote can also power the bar on/off and adjust the volume.