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Review: The Bluesound Pulse Soundbar Gen2i

Stephen Watson
April 5, 2019

If Carlsberg made Soundbars then Bluesound Pulse would be it!

 

Here at What Mobile, we have had a chance to review the Bluesound Pulse Soundbar Gen2i and its massive in size and sound.  It’s a multi-room soundbar that gives you high-resolution audio quality. That recently won the wired best sounder under £1000 so let’s see if it can live up to the award.

 

As mentioned this soundbar is a monster in size in over a metre in length but with my 42 inch TV, it does not look out of place. However, It’s not light and weighs 6.5Kg. The Pulse Soundbar comes in 2 colours black and white but there is over £100 difference between the two colours with black @ £799 & White @ £899 available via Bluesound.com 

 

Design wise Its 14cm high it just screams style with its smooth finish and the option to use the simple feet or the chance to use the wall mount bracket provided in the picture below.  In this review, I used the feet but if this was an investment I would have used the wall mount for sure.

At the back of the pulse is where you find all the connections and you get the following:

  • HDMI ARC Connection
  • Digital Optical
  • 3.5 mm analogue
  • Subwoofer Pre Out
  • USB Connector
  • Ethernet LAN connection
  • 240 V power input

At each end of the soundbar, the endcaps have the bluesound logo on the plastic material that is there to offer some protection.

 

The front of the soundbar just looks fantastic its all speaker both sides with just a small ring that lights up to show you what the soundbar is doing.  Style wise its simple which is what you want it’s designed to enhance a room and it does that 100%.

 

Features wise it allows for wireless use via the dual band wifi that is integrated and geared for the aptX HD Bluetooth ( AptX HD is used to compress and decompress music when streaming= Less distortion) You also Apple Airplay 2 built-in and for those who don’t know Airplay 2 is designed to throw music or video sound clips from your iPhone to a compatible receiver be that in this review is the pulse soundbar over your wifi network to allow you to listen via the soundbar.

Another  feature is that a number of streaming applications are supported such as:

 

All of this is controlled by the award-winning BluOS music management application which is very simple to use and everything is in a very easy to find layout. You will find the setup, steaming source selection and even volume all housed under one app. The app also allows for the chance to set up a multi-room system using other Bluesound speakers in the range such as the pulse subwoofer if you really hate your neighbours.   

Sound quality wise this speaker sounds just as it looks awesome! The soundbar will reach 55Hz and the midrange is spacious with loads of details the bass is very impressive when listening to Alice Murton No Roots. The range is full and so rich and the vocals also sound amazing very impressive.

Overall, The Bluesound Pulse Soundbar is a fantastic addition to your audio listening as not only does the BluOS app manage all your streaming apps in one place. However, the app to one side for a second you are getting high-quality audio and multi-room usage.  My only negative is when using the BluOS app is it does get confused if the Spotify app is open as well as the BlueOS app but my advice is you only need to use the BlueOs app for all of your music needs and in this review, I used Tidal Hi-FI steaming app as it offers the chance to use the Hi-FI/ MQA tier that can steam lossless formats which the bluesound pulse can decode.  So at £800, it’s well worth the investment.

[wp-review id=”54113″]

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