At the upcoming IFA 2013 event in Berlin, LG Electronics will be showcasing its LAP340 Sound Plate and two Sound Bars, the NB4530A and NB5530A models. The electronics maker will also be showing off some other devices, among them being Smart Blu-ray players, both docking and portable speakers, the BH9530TW home theater system, and the […]
The last time Pioneer introduced a speaker bar was 1998, but 15 years later the company’s giving it another go. The just-announced speaker bar system, the SP-SB23W, will retail for $399 this fall — reps said the device was designed to pump out high-quality audio without sacrificing a small, attractive design. It’s clearly not the most compact rig on the market, but it does offer decent output. It features six independently amplified speakers and an eight-channel active digital crossover network. There’s also a wireless subwoofer with a 6.5-inch driver and Dolby Digital decoding on board.
On the noisy show floor here at CE Week, it was a little difficult to judge sound quality definitively, but the dialogue recording we heard did sound extremely crisp. For those who already count a Pioneer speaker or two among their home theater setup, the speaker bar should fit in perfectly; it sports a wood — rather than plastic — construction, and the company says its cabinet enclosure offer better control of the speakers “because of its resistance to unwanted resonance.” Check out our hands-on photo gallery below, and head past the break for the full press info.
Zach Honig contributed to this report.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Philips’ Fidelio HTL9100 soundbar, the speaker system which can offer both virtual and true 5.1 surround sound thanks to detachable speakers, has finally made it to store shelves. Landing in the UK at £699 ($1,077), the HLT9100 looks at first glance like a regular soundbar, and indeed operates normally in either stereo or virtual-surround modes;
This week we’ve had a peek at the soon-to-market VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar, a speaker unit that comes packaged with a wireless subwoofer, two satellite speakers, and the ability to connect wirelessly (or wired) to your HDTV. While several different wired connections are available, the main sound bar connects with the subwoofer using Bluetooth – and you’re able to connect to your television using this system as well.
What VIZIO delivers with this system is a fully ready-for-action system, the box containing both the cables for the speakers and the gear necessary for your to mount the speakers if you do so desire. Of course you’ve also got the option to set the bar at the base of your television if you’ve got it on a television tablet station, and your subwoofer certainly needs to sit on a flat surface.
But your satellite speakers just beg to be hooked up to the corners of your room, angled directly at your head, and so forth. In the box you’ve got two satellite wall mount brackets with the attachment screws you’ll need to mount the satellite speakers to them. These satellite speakers aren’t wireless, you should note, each of them need to be connected to the sound bar in order to blast sound. The wireless connection exists between the subwoofer and the sound bar – up to 60 feet of space can exist between them – though the signal is best under 30 feet, and in the clear, too.
Once you have the wireless connection in place, each satellite speaker is connected to the subwoofer with a single RCA cable. The sound bar is also able to be connected to your television with as little as a single cable, if you like. The back of the bar has a USB port, a digital optical audio in, coaxial in, a single analog audio in port and a set of analog audio in ports.
Each of these inputs are seen by the sound bar as a different option accessible by the set of buttons on the far left of the unit or through the system’s remote control. Because of this, you’re able to connect several devices to the bar at once, choosing between them if you’ve got a need for such a thing.
Button controls on the side of the sound bar include five separate clickers, one each for power, input, and Bluetooth input, with one button for volume up and one for down. You’re able to “wake” the system from its low power “sleep” after it’s not been in use for an extended time by pressing the power button or by tapping a volume up or down button. This set of buttons is easy to get used to, but we’d have preferred some physical differentiator between the set to more easily tap at once.
The remote control works with a digital display that contains one of our other – admittedly very few – complaints in that it doesn’t seem to light up enough to be read in the dark. While it’s nice to be able to see which option is being selected, in-the-dark movie adjustments will be limited to what you’ve memorized for controls. If that’s just volume adjustments and track controls, you’ll be good to go. The controller itself is a conveniently small size and has a soft-plastic bottom, making it a comfortable experience – and again, one easy to get used to for sound control.
Each channel in this system’s surround speakers works with 1 x 2.5″ full-range driver. The subwoofer works with a 6″ throw (high excursion) driver and the full system has 102dB sound pressure with what VIZIO says is less than 1% total harmonic distortion. The sound bar works with 3 channels, left and right, each of the three tweeters coming in at 3/4” each. This the system is rounded out with a set of Center Channel 2 x 2.5 full-range drivers.
You’ve got a pack of software compliments to the hardware delivery here with features like DTS Circle Surround, DTS TruVolume, and Dolby Digital / DTS Digital Surround for audio decoding. Needless to say, this system can get loud. There’s really no arguing that.
The delivery you’re going to get with this setup depends a lot on the machine you’ve got feeding it, of course, but in testing each of the inputs with different devices – and not just televisions – we’ve found the end product to be generally well balanced. If you’ve got a child sleeping in the room next to your television attached to a VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system, you may have trouble finding a balance between too quiet and too loud.
Adjusting for bass, moving the sound around to the system’s satellites, and taking a bit of time to optimize the sound for your chosen room will correct for this sort of situation. Also helping with this situation is DTS TruVolume – made specifically to provide a consistent volume no matter the media. Making sure you understand how to work with TruVolume as well as this system’s adjustment abilities is vital for a superior sound experience.
This system delivers the best of what your HDTV, stereo, or any other sound-blasting device is capable of. The VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system delivers an immersive sound experience that’s not just good for the relatively inexpensive package it’s delivered to the market with: it’s worth more than it costs ($329.99 USD, if you’d like to know). It’s not often that we can say such a thing for a device here in an age when a product is replaced by a newer, more powerful version of itself in no time flat: VIZIO delivers a product you’ll be satisfied with for many years to come.
Sound quality is something you’re not going to want to skip when you’re aiming for a full home theater experience. VIZIO delivers a powerful solution in the S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar system, one that’s not to be overlooked.
VIZIO S4251w 5.1 Sound Bar Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Movie and TV audio for music lovers: that’s how Sonos describes its new PLAYBAR, the first product from the whole-home audio company to tackle sound that comes with moving pictures, rather than audio for its own sake. Speaker-bars aren’t a new concept, but Sonos is aiming to bring some of its near-legendary ease of use to the segment; and, since this is a Sonos speaker after all, it works as a node in your streaming music system too. Perfect extension of the core brand, or a distracting dilution? Read on for the full SlashGear review.
There are a couple of key form-factor elements you know you’re getting with a speaker-bar, though Sonos does try to put its own spin on the concept. They’re generally long and narrow, intended to go under or above your TV, and to separate the left and right speakers by as much as possible to broaden the sound stage.
So, the PLAYBAR Is a reasonably handsome slab of matte silver aluminum and black fabric, fairly heavy at 11.9lbs (though a single person can still lift it and move it around), and with holes on the back integrated into rubber feet for either wall or table positioning. It’s not as long as some speaker-bars we’ve seen, at 35.43 inches across, but it’s fairly broad at 3.35 x 5.51 inches. Physical controls are limited to the familiar cluster of Sonos buttons – mute, volume up, volume down; all flanking a white status LED – on one end of the bar.
On the back, in a recessed panel, are the ports: two ethernet connections, an optical audio input, and a power socket. Conspicuous by its absence is HDMI – Sonos tells us it views the TV itself as the hub for multimedia control, and so the PLAYBAR Is intended to focus solely on audio not source switching duties – as well as the aux-in analog input you get on the PLAY:5 speaker. In the box, Sonos includes a power cable, a flat ethernet cable, and an optical audio cable. All remote duties are handled by the usual Sonos apps.
Inside, there are a total of nine speakers, each with its own Class-D digital amplifier. Three 1-inch titanium dome tweeters are spread between the outer edges and the center, while six 3.15-inch aluminum cone midrange speakers fill the remaining space; there’s no onboard subwoofer, though you can wireless connect a Sonos SUB if you want more low-end.
That’s not the only cleverness inside, however. Sonos has fitted the PLAYBAR with an accelerometer so that it knows which way up it’s placed: that means it can automatically figure out if it’s on the wall – with the “top” facing out – or sitting flat, and adjust the equaliser settings automatically. There’s also a pass-through IR system, which repeats your TV remote’s commands in case the TV’s own IR receiver is blocked in some way. The PLAYBAR can also learn the volume commands from your existing remote, so that you don’t have to dig into the app just to tweak the audio when you’re in the middle of a film.
Sonos has built a reputation around not only great audio quality but ease of setup, and the PLAYBAR is no different. You’ll need to be using the latest versions of the apps for iOS or Android since they add support for the PLAYBAR’s unique features, but otherwise adding it – whether to a new or an existing Sonos system – is a matter of hitting the mute and volume up buttons on the bar itself and waiting for the app to recognize it. That can be done over a WiFi connection (as straightforward as plugging in power and the TV audio cable, though you’ll need to have at least one Sonos speaker or BRIDGE hooked up to your router via ethernet) or with a wired connection to your router. The second ethernet port can be used to pass through the internet connection to another device.
Like a regular Sonos speaker, you can assign a name (such as “TV Room”) to the zone; however, there are also some new steps to the setup. Starting with the TV turned off, you can first optionally add a SUB to the PLAYBAR, and/or a pair of PLAY:3 units for use as rear surround speakers. If you choose to, they’ll still be available for regular music duty, only they’ll also be preset as the default home cinema set too.
After that it’s a case of turning on the TV and waiting for the PLAYBAR to start piping the audio through. Sonos recommends digging into your TV’s settings to disable its onboard speakers, and then guides you through registering the remote you’ll be using to adjust volume – probably the TV remote, but it could be for your Blu-ray player or cable box. In our test system, that was as simple as pressing the volume up button on the remote, and the PLAYBAR automatically recognized its volume and mute controls from that point on.
If your remote isn’t recognized, however, Sonos guides you through teaching the commands to the PLAYBAR, a process which takes about nine button presses. Cleverly, the speaker-bar’s new found skills aren’t kept to itself: it sends the new settings back to Sonos’ servers, where they’re bundled into the firmware catalog for future PLAYBAR units to choose from. That all happens transparently to the user, of course.
Just as setup is different, so there are some new options in the settings page once you’ve got your PLAYBAR hooked up. There are still bass and treble adjustment sliders, and a “loudness” switch, in the equalization page, but not the balance control you have on standalone PLAY zones; however, you do get a new audio delay control, which helps match up lip-syncing. We didn’t have to make any adjustments to that ourselves.
You can turn off the IR signal light and the IR repeater, if you prefer, as well as run through the remote control setup again. There’s also the autoplay options: whether the PLAYBAR will automatically switch over to the optical audio input when the TV starts making sounds (rather than continuing to play music) and, separately, whether the PLAYBAR automatically leaves whatever group you have it set to when autoplay happens.
Sonos has been clever with how it manages connectivity and shared use, given that the PLAYBAR will likely be relied upon both as a TV speaker but also as a music system. Inside, there’s not one but two wireless chips: one 2.4GHz chip for hooking up to the regular SONOSNet 2.0 peer-to-peer network joining all PLAY units together, and a second 5GHz radio for directly connecting with a SUB and/or PLAY:3 pair for home cinema duties (though not PLAY:5 speakers, since they lack the 5GHz support).
By including this second chip, Sonos avoids any latency introduced by piping rear audio or bass track data through your home network, as would normally be the case for multiple PLAY speakers. It’s vital when you’re dealing with multiple speakers playing the same content, since any lag will be instantly noticeable. We set up a pair of PLAY:3 speakers for use as the rear surround set, and could observe no delays in the soundtrack.
As long as autoplay is turned on, when you turn on your TV the PLAYBAR automatically switches over to that source. That includes leaving any group you have it currently playing music in. If you subsequently try to add the PLAYBAR to a PLAY speaker group, or add tracks to its playlist via the app, it will pop up a message warning that doing so will stop the TV audio in that zone, and ask if you actually want to do that. One small frustration was that the PLAYBAR didn’t subsequently rejoin the music group once we stopped using it with the TV; we had to manually add it back in.
Simple setup would be for naught if the PLAYBAR didn’t sound any good, but happily that’s not the case. Sonos has tuned the speaker-bar in two distinct ways, it says, for music and for TV/movies, and we were impressed by performance in both.
For music, the PLAYBAR offers much of the experience we’re familiar with from the PLAY:3 and PLAY:5, only with added grunt. The natural balance of treble and bass are very similar to those of the smaller PLAY units, which helps it slot neatly into a multi-speaker system, but there’s a healthy bump in power that meant the PLAYBAR could easily match a PLAY:3 set to roughly half volume, while the bar was dawdling down at less than 25-percent.
Midrange sounds have the warmth and breadth that we’re used to from the company’s kit, while trebles have an eager sparkle that makes vocal tracks shine. Complex instrumentals didn’t get lost, with the PLAYBAR’s dynamic EQ automatically keeping things spread across the bar in a way belies the all-in-one nature of the system. Even at high volume levels, there was no buzzing or rattling from the PLAYBAR itself, and there’s a welcome absence of distortion even up to neighbor-infuriating levels.
If there’s any criticism to be made, it’s one that most speaker-bars share: bass tends to come in third compared to treble and mids. That’s definitely not to say the PLAYBAR disappoints in the low-end – it’s tight and aggressive, and probably more than sufficient if you’re living in an apartment – but those looking for the full audio experience will probably be tempted to throw in a SUB, whereupon they’ll find great lashings of bass that manages both precision and exuberance.
It’s movies where that could be most useful, though the PLAYBAR does very well on its own for TV sound. The stereo separation and the 45-degree angle of the speakers means left and right audio is clearly distinguished, the PLAYBAR using a combination of positioning and EQ to bounce audio from the walls. In fact, the onboard computer is crunching 24m calculations a second, Sonos says, to figure out how each sound wave created by each of the nine cones interacts, adding and subtracting those waves to emphasize explosions, make musical soundtracks more enveloping, and allow speech to pierce through everything.
Throw in a couple of rear PLAY:3 speakers, meanwhile, and the experience is all the more impressive. The PLAYBAR is tremendously capable, turning its hand to a variety of movie styles. The rumbles and ominous groans of Prometheus were rich and hauntingly sonorous, while The Dark Knight and Transformers put the surround system through its paces and showed how precise the rear set could be. We noticed no issues with lag or delay.
All that DSP means Sonos can add a couple of new features you wouldn’t normally get on a PLAY speaker: Night Sound and Speech Enhancement. Toggled on or off through new buttons in the “Now Playing” section of the controller app, Night Sound aims to make the PLAYBAR more accommodating to those who like to watch movies while everyone else is asleep. In short, it compresses the audio, dampening louder sounds like explosions and gunfire, and enhancing quieter sounds like speech, so that all can be heard without forcing you to hover over the volume control like a hawk.
It works surprisingly well, though you’ll obviously miss out on some of the original zeal of the soundtrack. As for Speech Enhancement, that operates in a similar way, though leaves the louder sounds untouched. Instead, it simply emphasizes the frequency range of the human voice, lifting speech out of the rest of the audio.
Since it’s a Sonos system, there are some less obvious, but no less neat, things you can do. By grouping the PLAYBAR with one or more other PLAY speakers, for instance, you can pipe your TV’s audio around the home: useful if you want to keep an ear on the news or a concert you’ve been watching. Alternatively, you could start a slideshow on the TV, and accompany it with a playlist of Sonos-streamed audio, whether from your own collection, from internet radio stations, or from on-demand services like Spotify and Pandora.
Sonos took its time creating the PLAYBAR, and that consideration shows both in how it sounds and how easy it is to setup and use. Certainly, at $699/£599/€699 it’s expensive when compared to a regular speaker-bar. You can find those for a couple of hundred, after all, though their audio performance may not match up to the PLAYBAR’s beautifully balanced sound. Still, you’re not just getting one product, but two: a speaker-bar for your TV and another zone in your Sonos system, certainly more than equivalent to a $399 PLAY:5.
The magic of the PLAYBAR is how straightforward it is, and how few compromises it demands. You don’t need to be familiar with Sonos to actually use it: in fact, once you’ve set it up, you could feasibly never turn on the Sonos app again, and merely use your regular TV remote. The only messages in the app are concerned with pairing the PLAYBAR back in with music groups; TV playback takes priority. That makes it highly family-friendly, essential if you don’t want a less-technical partner to get frustrated.
Still, our own experience with Sonos is that its simplicity means that even the most gadget-averse soon come to recognize its charms, and the PLAYBAR has that appeal in spades. The audio performance for both music and movies is excellent, and even if you don’t pair it up with rear PLAY:3 speakers and a SUB (which can certainly get expensive, at nearly $2k to outfit a room with the whole set) you’re still getting excellent sound. Superlative performance, ease of use, and multi-room flexibility? Even at $699 it’s enough to make us fall in love with the Sonos PLAYBAR.
Sonos PLAYBAR Review is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
There a lot of people out there with flat screen TVs mounted on the wall or sitting on the entertainment center that want better sound than the TV came with from the factory, but lack the room for surround sound. If your TV is wall-mounted, it’s not always convenient to use a traditional 2.1 or 2.0 speaker system because you may not have a shelf near the TV. In this instance, what you need is a sound bar and Sceptre has a new one that will work with any TV.
The new Sceptre sound bar is simply called The Speaker Sound Bar. It has dual speakers inside and promises to double the sound capability of your TV. The speaker bar has high-efficiency amplifier technology able to create rich 3-D virtual surround sound. The sound bar offers four different audio modes including movie, music, news, and sports.
Input options include dual RCA analog and a SPDIF digital input. Most modern TVs have a digital output it would work perfectly with this input option. The sound bar can be mounted on the wall or it can set on the entertainment center underneath the TV. The individual speakers inside the sound bar measure 2.5-inches in diameter.
The response bandwidth of the system is 20 Hz – 20 kHz. The sound bar weighs 5.07 pounds with the wall mount installed, and it measures 37.25 x 3.5 x 2.28″ without the wall mount. One of the best features of The Speaker Sound Bar is that it’s available for $169.99 at local retail outlets.
The Speaker Sound Bar from Sceptre works with any TV is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
We all know that Apple churns out some really spiffy looking devices, and have done so for a fair number of years already, without any hint of them stopping anytime soon. Well, if you happen to own at least one of the following – the iPad, iPod touch, iPhone or MacBook, then you might want to check out the Carbon Audio Zooka slide-on speaker bar which was specially designed as an accessory for the mentioned devices.
Of course, for anything to work in tandem with Apple’s devices, they will certainly need to look their best – or at least, flow along with the general design principles over at Cupertino. Good to know that the Carbon Audio Zooka slide-on speaker bar conforms to such lofty standards, and we shall take a closer look at just what it is capable of delivering for your ears to enjoy right after the jump.
First and foremost, we are looking at what Carbon Audio claims as “extraordinary sound quality”, where the Zooka is tipped to deliver a concert hall experience which is capable of significantly enhance the kind of music you hear, movies you watch, and games you play – amongst others, of course. Not only that, you can live in complete wireless freedom with the Zooka thanks to the ability to “project” sound via wireless Bluetooth, leaving you with the choice of placing the speaker a good 30 feet away from the primary device.
There is also an integrated microphone thrown into the mix, allowing the Zooka to work in tandem with the iPad, transforming it into a high quality speakerphone that will make your Skype and Facetime experiences a whole lot more pleasant. Of course, having said that, it will also play nice with other communication software to boot. Sporting a unique patented design, the Zooka can slide onto the edge of an iPad or MacBook without getting into the way of the camera.
To make sure the Zooka lives up to its purpose, there is also a removable kickstand that lets your iPad stand up, making it ideal for watching videos on the go without leaving your hands tired. The Carbon Audio Zooka slide-on speaker bar can be yours for $99.95 each, where it will come in nine colors including black, blue, dark grey, green, orange, pink, purple, red and teal as it rolls out sometime this August.
[ Carbon Audio Zooka slide-on speaker bar for your Apple devices copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
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