Roku Streambar Pro Soundbar Review

The Roku Streambar Pro has a very similar design to the Roku Smart Soundbar. It's mostly made of plastic, and there's a tight fabric covering the front and sides of the bar.

There's no subwoofer included, but you can buy one from the manufacturer separately.

The manufacturer sells compatible satellites separately.

The Roku Streambar Pro has the same dimensions as the Roku Smart Soundbar. It's wider than the Roku Streambar, but it still fits between the legs of most 55" TV stands. It's not very tall, either, so it doesn't block your TV screen.

The Roku Streambar Pro has a decent build quality. Its plastic build feels solid and sturdy, and the tight fabric doesn't seem like it would rip easily. That said, if you grip the bar too tight in the middle, the front cover comes off the body slightly since it's glued onto the plastic body. If you handle it carefully, you shouldn't have any issues.

• Manuals
• Headphones with 3x sets of tips (4.0 ft / 1.2m)
• Remote with 2x AA batteries
• Power cable (5.7 ft / 1.7m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Optical cable (5.9 ft / 1.8m)

The Roku Streambar Pro has a fair stereo frequency response. Its sound profile is quite balanced, especially in the mid-range, where most voices and lead instruments reproduce. As a result, dialogue is clear and present in your favorite TV shows, and most music genres are accurate and detailed. As with most standalone bars, though, there's a real lack of bass that's noticeable with bass-heavy genres like hip-hop and EDM. It's not an issue with content that doesn't have a lot of bass mixed in, like vocal-heavy TV shows, but fans of certain music genres may want to add on a separate sub to improve its bass reproduction.

The Roku Streambar Pro comes with bass and treble adjustments, as well as EQ presets to customize its sound. We suggest using its default settings if you prefer a more balanced sound.

The Roku Streambar Pro has an alright soundstage. It's perceived to be about a touch wider than the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to make it seem larger. Focus is decent but not great. Sound effects seem like they come from more general areas around you, as opposed to accurate, pinpoint locations that match the action on screen.

The Roku Streambar Pro has decent stereo dynamics. The bar gets loud enough to fill most rooms with sound, though it's not ideal for larger living spaces. There's some compression at max volume, too, meaning that audio reproduction isn't as pure at louder volumes.

The Roku Streambar Pro has a very good stereo THD performance. At a normal listening volume, distortion falls within good limits, so audio reproduction remains clean and accurate. There's a small jump in THD at max volume, which is typical for most soundbars. It's important to remember that distortion is hard to hear with most real-life content, so more casual listeners aren't likely to notice much difference.

The Roku Streambar Pro has an okay center channel performance. It's a 2.0 bar, meaning it has to use its left and right stereo channels to simulate a phantom center. Without a discrete center channel, vocal reproduction isn't quite as clear and real. That said, you don't have any issues following the action on screen, as its frequency response remains quite balanced in the mids, which is where most voices are reproduced.

The Roku Streambar Pro is a 2.0 bar, and it has to downmix 5.1 surround sound formats like Dolby Digital into stereo to play them. The resulting sound isn't very clear or real, and it seems like audio is coming from a speaker placed in front of you rather than speakers placed all around you. If you want a better surround sound, you can always add separate rears from the manufacturer.

The Roku Streambar Pro has a few sound enhancement features. You have some control over its sound thanks to its bass and treble adjustments as well as its presets: 'Standard', 'Dialogue', 'Movie', 'Music', and 'Night'. In the app, you find an adjustable Speech Clarity tool to enhance dialogue, as well as a Volume Mode to balance the volume level between programs. You can also use the bar's menu on the TV to turn on the virtual surround feature, which widens the soundstage for a more immersive sound. Of course, you don't get as many features as more premium models, but it's still a decent offering for the price.

You can connect the Roku Streambar Pro to your TV over an Optical or HDMI ARC connection. Some older TVs lack HDMI ARC, and in that case, you can use an HDMI cable along with an Optical cable to get sound from the bar. Both cables are included in the box, and you can also plug in a USB drive to listen to files from the device.

The Roku Streambar Pro can playback Dolby Digital over an HDMI ARC connection. It's the most common surround sound format, so you find it on lots of different streaming platforms. However, there's no support for lossless or object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

The Roku Streambar Pro supports Dolby Digital over Optical. Since it's a 2.0 bar, though, it has to downmix it into stereo to play it.

The Roku Streambar Pro has fairly low latency. The audio you hear is mostly in sync with the video you see, so you shouldn't have any lip-synching issues. Some apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, meaning that your real-world experience can vary.

The Roku Streambar Pro lets you wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar over various platforms. It also gives you access to Roku's media streamer, so you can stream content from services like Netflix and Apple TV. If you're primarily interested in media streaming capabilities and are looking for a cheaper all-in-one solution, it's worth checking out the Roku Streambar SE instead.

There's no HDMI In port, so the bar doesn't support high-quality passthrough.

The Roku Streambar Pro doesn't have a display, so there's no way to see the volume level or the input you're on. Instead, there's a light in the front of the bar that flashes different colors based on your settings. For example, it slowly pulses when on mute.

There are no controls on the bar.

Compared to the Roku Smart Soundbar, the remote looks a bit different. While it still lets you control the bar's basic features and access streaming platforms with a single click, there are some additional features included. For example, the headphone jack lets you listen privately with the included earphones. Also, there are two programmable commands, so you can save and trigger any voice command automatically.

The Roku Streambar Pro has its own voice assistant built into the bar. You can trigger it using the app or the remote to control the bar with your voice. You can also pair the bar with third-party devices to use popular voice assistants like Apple's Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant.