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JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam soundbar offers rare Amazon Multi-Room Music support

It's an all-in-one soundbar with simulated Dolby Atmos effects, support for Alexa and Google Assistant commands and a $400 price tag.

Headshot of Ty Pendlebury
Headshot of Ty Pendlebury
Ty Pendlebury Editor
TV and home video editor Ty Pendlebury joined CNET Australia in 2006, and moved to New York City to be a part of CNET in 2011. He tests, reviews and writes about the latest TVs and audio equipment. When he's not playing Call of Duty he's eating whatever cuisine he can get his hands on. He has a cat named after one of the best TVs ever made.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Ty Pendlebury
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JBL has unveiled its latest all-in-one soundbar ahead of CES 2021, the JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam, which offers Wi-Fi streaming including Amazon MRM and simulated Dolby Atmos effects.

The soundbar uses JBL's proprietary beam-forming technology, MultiBeam, to bounce surround channels off your side walls while Virtual Dolby Atmos gives you height effects (it lacks height speakers). It uses an "onboard" subwoofer with four passive radiators for "deep and punchy bass," JBL says.

See also

The Bar 5.0 offers voice control via both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, although it lacks an onboard assistant. There's also Apple AirPlay 2, Chromecast built-in and Bluetooth. 

Notably, JBL says the Bar 5.0 MultiBeam will be compatible with Amazon's Multi-Room Music protocol, which lets you group Echo speakers together. The only other non-Amazon product to support it so far is the Polk Command Bar. 

The JBL Bar 5.0 follows the excellent JBL Bar 2.1 Deep Bass, which came out last year and offered excellent sound for the money. Given the new bar lacks a sub, I expect the Deep Bass model to sound better, especially with movies.

The JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam will be available in spring 2021 for $400 (£350).

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