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Best Buy spring audio sale: Save big on Sonos, Samsung and more
Klipsch, Sonos, Sony
Best Buy just kicked off its spring audio sale, so right now is the time to get those Sonos, LG, Samsung or Sony TV sound bars, headphones, wireless earbuds or speakers you’ve been wanting. Some of these deals are so good, they’ll be music to your ears, yet easy on your wallet.
Don’t wait too long; this event is happening until April 14, but there’s limited inventory on many of the most in-demand products.
The best deals from Best Buy’s spring audio event
Our in-house team of consumer tech experts have curated this roundup of the best audio deals right now during the Best Buy spring audio. Click on the links below and you can literally save hundreds on popular products that’ll make music and audio sound so much better.
LG 3.1.3 channel soundbar with subwoofer: $400 (save $200)
Best Buy
Regardless of your TV’s brand, size or type, if you want to enhance its audio with more accurate, clear and room-filling sound, you should connect a soundbar or surround-sound system. Right now, Best Buy has slashed the price of this LG 3.1.3 channel soundbar and wireless subwoofer by $200, so you can buy it for just $400.
Satellite speakers for creating a full surround-sound system are sold separately. Even if you don’t have an LG TV — like the new, 2024 LG Evo C4 OLED — this soundbar and subwoofer combo generate 480-watts of audio power that works with the TV you already own.
Within the soundbar are upward-firing height channels that support Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. This makes the soundbar and subwoofer simulate surround sound, even without adding satellite speakers. The soundbar connects to your TV using an HDMI eARC connection, while the subwoofer is wireless, so cable clutter is kept to a bare minimum.
Yamaha 5.2 channel AV receiver: $400 (save $100)
Best Buy
The RX-V4A 5.2 channel AV receiver is future-proof, thanks to its 8K HDMI support. The unit supports Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus. It’s also equipped to handle wireless multi-room audio with the help of Yamaha MusicCast and Apple AirPlay 2.
You get four HDMI inputs and a generous collection of other ports from an AV receiver that measures 6.8 x 17.1 x 14.9 inches. Use it create a powerful and advanced home theater experience. It comes with a remote and works with any brand’s TV and speakers.
For a limited time, save $100 when you purchase this Yamaha AV receiver from Best Buy for just $400.
Klipsch Reference 800 Series dual 8″ floor-standing speaker: $429 (save $171)
Best Buy
If you’re looking to add powerful (600-watt), floor-standing speakers to your living room or home theater system, and you want them to look gorgeous, the Klipsch Reference 800 Series speakers are an excellent choice — especially when they’re on sale for just $429 each (which is $171 off their regular $600 price).
These are traditional, wired, floor-standing speakers that generate high-resolution audio. Each speaker measures 43 x 17.5 x 10.9 inches. Speaker wire and cables are not included. For stereo sound, you’ll need two. Each is sold separately, as are other Klipsch audio components.
Within each speaker are two 8-inch, injection-molded graphite woofers that provide deep, distortion-free bass. You also get a Klipsch one-inch aluminum LTS tweeter and 90 x 90 square Tractrix Horn that provides impressive coverage, bandwidth and directivity control.
Thanks in part to Dolby Atmos support, these speakers offer amazing sound and they look great, too.
Sonos Beam (2nd Gen) and sub-mini dual 6″ Wi-Fi subwoofer: $835 (save $94)
Best Buy
Best Buy has bundled the popular and powerful Sonos Beam (2nd Gen) soundbar with the Sonos sub-mini dual 6-inch wireless subwoofer to create this powerful, discounted bundle. Right now, the two audio components together are priced at $835, which represents a $94 savings.
Advanced audio processing ensures booming, balanced sound from wall to wall. But when you want to watch TV and need to keep the volume down, turn on the night sound setting using the Sonos app to reduce intense noises and enhance quieter ones.
There’s also technology that ensures you hear every word in a TV show or movie. For even greater clarity when characters whisper or the action intensifies, simply turn on speech enhancement mode using the Sonos app. Dolby Atmos support is also integrated into these components for immersive listening.
Best Buy is also offering a discounted bundle that includes the Beam (2nd Gen), Sonus Sub (Gen 3) subwoofer and two Sonos Era 100 satellite speakers for $1,706, which is a savings of $90. For more advice on choosing the best soundbar for your TV, be sure to read our coverage of the six best soundbars for 2024.
Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro: $190 (save $40)
Best Buy
Especially when you pair them with Google ChromeOS or Android mobile devices, the water-resistant Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro wireless earbuds feature a ton of bells and whistles. We’re talking great sound quality with impressive noise cancelation.
They work particularly well with the Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets, as well as with Samsung smart TVs (like the 2024 version of the bestselling Frame TV). Battery life is up to eight hours per charge, or up to 30 hour of playtime with multiple charges using the case.
With these earbuds, you’ll hear 360-degree immersive audio and take part in crystal-clear, hands-free phone calls. Click on the link below to take advantage of the $40 off sale happening right now at Best Buy.
In our coverage of the five best wireless earbuds for 2024, the Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro is our pick for best wireless earbuds for Android.
Samsung HW-S800B 3.1.2 channel soundbar and subwoofer: $700 (save $200)
Best Buy
During Best Buy’s spring audio event, this soundbar and subwoofer combo is $200 off, which brings the price down to $700.
The Samsung HW-S800B works with any TV from any brand, but offers some bonus features when you connect it with a Samsung smart TV. This soundbar offers a 3.1.2 channel configuration and comes with a wireless subwoofer. The system supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.
Featuring an ultra-slim design, the soundbar uses Samsung’s SoundFit technology to automatically adapt the audio to the room around it. You also get Q-Symphony support when using the soundbar and subwoofer with a Samsung smart TV.
And when it comes to gaming, a game mode pro feature boosts the audio quality of your favorite games by taking advantage of the soundbar’s up-firing speakers to generate simulated 3D sound.
Samsung Q-Series 9.1.4 channel surround sound system: $1,100 (save $300)
Best Buy
It’s one thing to invest in a soundbar and subwoofer combo that simulates surround sound and spatial audio, but for the real deal, try the Samsung Q-Series 9.1.4 channel surround sound system. It includes a soundbar, wireless subwoofer and two satellite speakers. And for a limited time, Best Buy has cut the price of this system to just $1,100 — which represents a $300 savings.
In addition to supporting Q-Symphony on a Samsung smart TV, when it’s connected to any TV, you get Dolby Atmos and AirPlay 2 support, plus a game mode feature that makes games sound more immersive.
And the active voice analyzer (AVA) ensures that all dialogue is clear and easy to understand.
Sony WH1000XM5 noise canceling headphones: $330 (save $70)
Best Buy
In our coverage of the five best noise canceling headphones for 2024, we selected the Sony WH1000XM5s as our pick for music. These are Sony’s top-of-the-line consumer headphones. They offer superior noise cancellation, up to 30 hours of battery life and support for hi-res audio. They also make hands-free calls sound crystal clear.
One feature we love in these headphones is their support for DSEE Extreme. This tech upscales compressed digital audio in real time to restore high-range sounds that would otherwise be lost to compression.
Overall, the WH-1000XM5s does a superior job playing any type of music.
Head over to Best Buy and pick up a pair of these great sounding headphones for $70 off, which brings their price down to $330.
For all of your consumer tech needs, follow our extensive and continuously updated tech coverage, including an ever-expanding lineup of product reviews and buying guides.
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Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89.
Towne “passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family” Monday at his home in Los Angeles, his publicist Carri McClure, told CBS News in a statement. She did not provide a cause of death.
In an industry which gave birth to rueful jokes about the writer’s status, Towne for a time held prestige comparable to the actors and directors he worked with. Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and ’70s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the signature films of an era when artists held an unusual level of creative control. The rare “auteur” among screen writers, Towne managed to bring a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles onto the screen.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for AFI
“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s a sort of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”
Recognizable around Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times, for “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo” and “Greystoke.” In 1997, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.
“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” said “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant on X.
Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a dress shop, closed down because of the Great Depression. His father changed the family name to Towne.
Towne’s success came after a long stretch of working in television, including “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” and on low-budget movies for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his breakthrough in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought in Towne for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on the set while the movie was filmed in Texas.
Towne’s contributions were uncredited for “Bonnie and Clyde,” the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghost writer. He helped out on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View” and “Heaven Can Wait” among others and referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game.” But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s sex comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized by “Chinatown,” the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.
“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to follow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). The husband is chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Gittes finds himself caught in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, embodied by Evelyn’s ruthless father, Noah Cross (John Huston).
Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir, but cast Gittes’ labyrinthine odyssey across a grander and more insidious portrait of Southern California. Clues accumulate into a timeless detective tale, and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in movie history, words of grim fatalism a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
The back story of “Chinatown” has itself become a kind of detective story, explored in producer Robert Evans’ memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in Peter Biskind’s “East Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1960s-1970s Hollywood, and in Sam Wasson’s “The Big Goodbye,” dedicated entirely to “Chinatown.” In “The Big Goodbye,” published in 2020, Wasson alleged that Towne was helped extensively by a ghost writer — former college roommate Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not ask for credit on the film because his “friendship with Robert” mattered more.
The studios assumed more power after the mid-1970s and Towne’s standing declined. His own efforts at directing, including “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” had mixed results. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a commercial and critical disappointment when released in 1990 and led to a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.
Around the same time, he agreed to work on a movie far removed from the art-house aspirations of the ’70s, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a race car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. The 1990 movie was famously over budget and mostly panned, although its admirers include Quentin Tarantino and countless racing fans. And Towne’s script popularized an expression used by Duvall after Cruise complains another car slammed him: “He didn’t slam into you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you. He rubbed you.
“And rubbin,′ son, is racin.'”
Towne later worked with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies. His most recent film was “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles story he wrote and directed that came out in 2006. Towne was married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also wrote screenplays, his credits include “The Natural.”
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