Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a home theater fan, I doubt we will hear any argument from you that surround sound is one of the best inventions ever. The problem for many home theater fans is that their room simply doesn’t have the space for a true surround sound solution. That means a lot of home theater fans end up using a sound bar that tries to simulate surround sound, and often fail miserably.

Now, Phillips has unveiled a new sound bar at CES that’s perfect for home theater fans that don’t have the room for a traditional surround sound speaker system, but would like surround when watching movies.

The sound bar is called the Philips Fidelio HTL9100 and it’s designed with removable rear channel speakers for true 5.1 surround sound. The best part about those removable speakers is that they are truly wireless. Not only does the sound bar beam the sound to the rear channel speakers with no wires, those rear speakers are also battery-powered. That means you don’t even need an AC outlet where you place the speakers when you want to listen to surround sound. The wireless speakers are good for 10 hours of use per charge and recharging means you need only connect them back to the sound bar.

This is a great idea for those of you who only need surround sound when watching the occasional movie or video game, with the speakers snapping neatly back into place when not in use.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t come cheap. The Fidelio HTL9100 sound system will be available in May 2013 for $799.99 (USD). A less expensive model – the HTL7100 will sell for $599, without the subwoofer.

Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we have speaker docks in our sights — and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here.

If there’s any post-adolescent period that deserves its own soundtrack, it’s your college years. Sure, our portable audio picks will let you jam on the go, but the best collegiate experiences are shared with friends — and listening to music should be no exception. Even if you’d prefer to keep your playlist out of your friends’ feed, be it in person or online, you’ll still need to wake up each morning, and what better way to ease into the waking world than with your favorite tracks? These speaker docks offer more functionality than your average smartphone clock, and they’re certainly better equipped to play DJ when it comes time to close the books. Join us past the break for our 2012 picks.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: docks and clocks

Filed under: Misc, Household

Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: docks and clocks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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