Last Thursday, in a staged house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I sat on a couch that was a little too low and a little too deep, in front of a small, beige smart speaker that sat between a trio of arched midcentury storage cabinets. Two tall curved white screens sat on either side of the smart speaker.

The speaker was the new $299 Lifestyle Ultra, Bose’s answer to the Sonos Era 100. Along with a $1,099 ultra sound bar and an $899 subwoofer, it’s one of three new home audio products the company announced today, all of which seem to be a direct shot at Sonos — hopefully undercutting the company’s recent recall. I heard all three at Bose’s New York event, and the speaker in particular impressed me.

The $299 Ultra speaker is the most interesting and most distinctive looking of the bunch. It has a front-firing woofer and tweeter, an up-firing driver—unlike the Era 100—and a bass port on the back. (For music, Bose uses its own processing for up-firing sound rather than Dolby Atmos.) On the top of the speaker, behind the up-firing driver, are capacitive controls for power, Bluetooth pairing, microphone mute, volume control, and a play/pause button. Volume and play/pause are in a circular depression, which you can trace with your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to control volume as well. The Ultra speaker and soundbar support Alexa Plus.

The speaker sounds impressively big with great sound clarity, and without the harsh highs found on speakers like the SoundLink Plus. In fact, when listening to Olivia Dean’s first sample—“Man I Need”—I thought extra speakers might be playing from behind the curved white screens.

I was partially right: the screens were hiding two more Lifestyle Ultra speakers, but they weren’t playing during this track. Instead, they were there for a later demo of a stereo pair. Playing Leon Bridges’ “Peaceful Place” and Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” they demonstrated good stereo sound separation.

I found the Ultra speaker to pack a bit of punch when it came to things like snares (I noticed this most during Chris Stapleton’s “Bad As I Used To Be”), at least at the volumes we listened to. This may be due to the lack of room accuracy, a surprising omission from an ultra speaker at launch. Especially when being used in a stereo pair, I expected there to be some way to tune the speakers to the room and compensate for any placement issues. I’m told that Bose is considering the possibility of adding room correction at a later date for both single-speaker and stereo setups.

Instead of putting all streaming app playback controls in the Bose app like Sonos does with its own app, Bose instead relies on grouping and playback functionality within apps like Apple Music and Spotify that people already use regularly. The Ultra speaker can stream music over Wi-Fi via Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect, and can be added to AirPlay and Google Cast speaker groups, including those with non-Bose speakers. When Wi-Fi isn’t available, you can stream to the Ultra via Bluetooth. The speaker is Oracast-capable, but won’t be Oracast-enabled when it launches on May 15. Raza Haider, Bose’s president of premium consumer audio, told me that Auracast will be turned on as the ecosystem matures.

I was expecting Bose to unveil a competitor to its Sonos app, but this more open option — allowing you to extend what you currently have whether it’s Bose or not — is interesting. It also bypasses the hassle of keeping all these individual streaming apps in the Bose app and making it work properly. “We’re intentionally trying to be more open and less app-based in our experience,” Haider said. In addition to Spotify Connect, I’m hoping Bose will add services like Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect in the future.

Above the Ultra speaker was a demo of the $1,099 Ultra sound bar, Bose’s first major sound bar redesign in years. It features two up-firing drivers, two wide-set drivers for the left and right channels, two Bose phase-guide drivers – proprietary designs that direct sound to the sides – and two additional drivers combined with a center tweeter. Capacitive controls are similar to those found on ultra speakers.

We started the soundbar demo with a Spice Harvester evacuation scene. The MoundAnd it was a little underwhelming. It’s one of my go-to scenes for film sound checks, so I’m very familiar with it. While the width of the soundscape was great and I could feel rumbling through the floor, there was a hole where the bass frequencies should meet the midrange, which made the sound feel hollow. Sound definition was crisp, and the soundbar did a good job with the Atmos channels, but I couldn’t get past the absent upper bass frequencies.

Fortunately, Bose is releasing an Ultra Subwoofer, along with the Ultra Speaker and Ultra Sound Bar, and the Sound Bar needs to fill the frequency hole I hear. Instead of just feeling some vibration from the low end, the bass sounded full and supportive on Jacob Collier’s “Mi Corazón.” That was a significant difference, but at $899, it also turns the soundbar/sub combo into a $2,000 system (the same price as the Sonos Arc Ultra paired with a Sonos 4 sub).

For a full Atmos system, two Ultra speakers can be used as rear channels, creating a 7.1.4 configuration. Wembley Stadium, from the live-ad concert segment of the film Bohemian Rhapsodysurrounded and filled the room well. The Atmos had good height, although it was a little unclear in its placement at times. This may be due to the design of the room and my sitting position – although interestingly, unlike smart speakers by themselves or in a pair, the whole system has room calibration.

Based on my experience with the Ultra speakers in particular, the potential for the new Bose Lifestyle Collection is huge. When I asked him about the possibility of a battery-powered version or a larger speaker, Haider said, “There’s more to come. This is the launch of a new platform for the Lifestyle series.” “The next one won’t be small.”

Photography by John Higgins/The Verge.