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;
We’d all love to be able to blast sound to the high heavens, but sadly, most of us lack the space and/or patient neighbors willing to put up with it. Well today, gaming gear giant Razer is announcing new software that it claims will be able to turn your ordinary headphones into a professional-grade set that emulates 7.1 channel sound. And from now until the end of the year, the software is free, so why not give it a shot?
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When it comes to quality audio systems, regardless of whether it is at home or somewhere else, you know for sure that the name Bang & Olufsen is synonymous with quality and clarity, and there are no two ways about it. Well, it seems that the folks over at Bang & Olufsen have done it again, this time around with the delicious sounding BeoLab 14 surround sound speaker system, which also ushers in an entirely new category of speakers to the Bang & Olufsen family of devices.
The BeoLab 14 surround speaker system is said to be able to revolutionize the marketplace, where it would come across as a conveniently packaged, all-inclusive solution which delivers compact aesthetics, exceptional audio quality and a high-end surround sound performance. The BeoLab 14 will come in a 4.1 or a 5.1 digital surround sound set up, where you will get up to half a dozen individual active speakers, where each of them has its own amplifier, resulting in an unprecedented level of sound quality, never mind that the speakers themselves come in such a compact form factor. Not only that, the BeoLab 14 is also said to be able to play nice with the slew of other TV brands, making it non- exclusive to just Bang & Olufsen televisions alone, now how about that?
The BeoLab 14 is said to continue from its predecessors’ successes, where stunning performance is still delivered despite coming in a compact form factor. The satellite speakers on the BeoLab 14 happen to feature diminutive circles of anodized aluminum with exchangeable fabric covers in a range of colors (white, black, silver, dark grey, red and petroleum blue), where they can be easily integrated into even the most stringent interior design schemes. Not only that, the sculptural subwoofer holds separate amplifiers for all speakers in the system, which should allow it to pump up the bass volume from a beguilingly slender footprint. The new BeoLab 14 surround sound speaker system will cost $3,995 and $4,395 for the 4.1 solution and 5.1 solution, respectively.
Press Release
[ Bang & Olufsen launches BeoLab 14 surround speaker system copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Danish style-merchant Bang & Olufsen has revealed its latest beautifully crafted, painfully expensive surround sound system, the BeoLab 14. Consisting of four aluminum speakers – which can be wall- or ceiling-mounted, or equipped with slender desk or floor stands – and a tapered subwoofer with an 8-inch bass driver, the BeoLab 14 setup pushes out a total of 840W.
280W of that comes from the class D amplifier in the subwoofer, which automatically adapts its output to the shape and size of the room. Each of the satellite speakers gets 140W to play with, and tips the scales at 800g. Formed from pressure-treated aluminum – in fact 170 tons of pressure is involved – they can be fitted with a choice of six colored fabric fronts.
The subwoofer body comes in white only, though the top fabric section can be switched out to match with your decor. Hooking up to a B&O surround-capable TV is a matter of plugging in the A/V multi connector, but you can also use an A/V receiver and any other brand of TV or projector.
Since you might not want to hide the vase-like sub under a table or behind the sofa, as per many blockish rivals, B&O includes a “positioning dial” which can quickly set it to the right sort of settings for whether it’s in the corner, against a wall or bookcase, or in the middle of the floor. There’s also peak volume protection, so that none of the cones burst from unexpected highs.
B&O says the BeoLab 14 surround sound speaker system is on sale globally this week, priced at €2,995 ($3,855).
Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 14: Surround speakers you probably can’t afford to hide is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Bang & Olufsen has been known to occasionally lower the price floor on its line of A/V gear. Continuing in that direction, the company just unveiled its Beolab 14 surround sound speakers, an entry-level offering starting at $3,995 for a 4.1 setup. The rig centers around a petite cylindrical tower that houses a 280-watt amp for its eight-inch down-firing bass driver and connections for up to five individually powered (140 watts) and equalized 2.5-inch satellite speakers. The circular drivers can be wall-mounted or set on stands, and those aluminum enclosures act as heat sinks (in addition to looking dapper). While B&0 anticipates that the soundbars on its existing TVs will act as a center channel, a 5.1 setup will be available for $4,395 if you need an independent middle speaker instead. The Beolab 14 will come in black or white when it launches in June and additional grille clothes will be an extra $99 per set, should you want to change the colors. You can find more details in the press release after the break while you start saving up.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
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.
Streaming music specialist Sonos has been hinting at home theater expansion for years now, but it’s taken until today for the fruits of that ambition to arrive: the Sonos PLAYBAR, aiming for a spot under your TV. Promising the traditional Sonos ease of setup and use, but with a dual-personality catering both for TV and movie audio, and for music, the PLAYBAR hooks up as another zone in your home entertainment network and packs nine speakers as well as playing nicely with other PLAY models. We caught up with Sonos to find out why the PLAYBAR was special.
The company’s reluctance to extend itself beyond musical speakers has been down to a fear of losing focus: the audience is still dedicated music lovers, Sonos says, but concedes that many in that audience also love films. Meanwhile, while display technology has advanced hugely, skinny flat-panel TV sets have squeezed speakers into something of an afterthought, thus opening the door to hardware like the PLAYBAR.
All-in-one speakers aren’t new, of course, but PLAYBAR does some things differently. That starts with setup: there’s wireless onboard, for the easiest way of connecting, but you also get a pair of ethernet ports on the back for wired networks (and for passing the connection through, say, to your smart TV, or being the first node hard-wired to your router for an overall Sonos installation). Otherwise there’s just power and an optical digital input – no HDMI, since Sonos expects the TV to remain the “brains” in charge of switching and managing media – along with the usual three physical buttons for mute and volume up/down which are on one end of the bar.
When you first set up, the PLAYBAR can learn the volume buttons on your favorite remote (whether that be for your TV, your Blu-ray player, or your set-top box). Out of the box there’s presets for the popular brands/models – most users will just have to press the volume-up key for the PLAYBAR to recognize it – but there’s also a nine-key-press learning mode for new sets. Cleverly, Sonos collects up those programming settings and updates them across all PLAYBAR units, meaning the next user with the same remote won’t have to go through the teaching process. On the back of the soundbar there’s a broad IR repeater strip, just in case placing the PLAYBAR in front of your TV blocks its IR receiver, and there are two IR windows on the Sonos itself, catering for table or wall mounting.
Back when the PLAYBAR was first spotted sneaking through the FCC, there was speculation as to what its dual wireless chipsets might be used for. As the company explained to us, it’s all down to latency – or the avoidance of it – in surround sound mode. The PLAYBAR has one regular WiFi chip to hook up to the network as per all Sonos speakers, but also has a second, ultra-low-latency chip which is used to maintain up to three perfectly-synchronized channels in a surround setup, feeding two PLAY:3 rear speakers and a SUB subwoofer.
As for the speakers inside the PLAYBAR itself, there are six mid-woofers and three tweeters, the latter spread across the outer edges and one in the middle. At normal volumes, the woofers are synchronized, but they can automatically shift out of phase if required – complete with some clever DSP – to avoid distortion when you crank up the audio. Sonos has also equipped the PLAYBAR with completely different settings for music and movies (in fact they automatically change depending on physical orientation, too).
Most importantly, in either mode, it sounds great. Music has a surprising degree of precision, with vocals coming through clearly in the center while the rest of the soundstage has a spread that belies the placing of the speakers. Movies, meanwhile, go even further: the virtual surround you get with the PLAYBAR alone is impressively effective, and the bass has some decent thump to it (given the limitations of the 36 x 5.5 x 3.4 inch footprint and the speakers Sonos has been able to fit), but group it up with a couple of PLAY:3 rear channels and the SUB, and it’s both incredibly loud and precise.
Sonos PLAYBAR overvew video:
Control, as you’d expect, is via Sonos’ existing PC, Mac, iOS, and Android apps: the PLAYBAR shows up as a regular zone, which means you can group it up for party music. However, there’s a little extra consideration for the TV focus there too; if you try to add the PLAYBAR to a group, it’ll double-check to make entirely sure you want to do that, and if you start playback on your TV, the soundbar will automatically switch to whatever is coming through its optical input. You can, though, manually change the audio while leaving the screen on, handy if you want to show a photo slideshow with music from, say Spotify.
The Sonos PLAYBAR will go on sale on March 5, priced at $699 in the US, £599 in the UK, and €699 in Europe.
Sonos PLAYBAR hands-on: Your TV audio gets clever is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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.
Not everybody has the available floor space or audiophilic conviction for 9.1 surround sound—sometimes just a sound bar or even headphones may suffice. With the wall of sound-producing devices that LG just unveiled, finding a system to match your situation should be a cinch—even if it is 9.1 surround. More »
If you spend more money on gaming than you do groceries each month, allow us to give you another reason to stock up on cases of ramen noodles: Mad Catz’ Tritton Pro+ True 5.1 Surround Sound Headset is now shipping. Priced at $200, the Tritton Pro+ is compatible with the PS3, Xbox 360 and PCs. Sporting a flexible lightweight design, this triple threat rocks individual subwoofers in each earcup and “true Dolby Digital 5.1 surround” through eight separate drivers (four per earcup). In addition to its potentially deafening output, the Pro+ features an in-line remote and Selectable Voice Monitoring, which gives users the option to hear their own voice through the headset’s speakers — in case you wanna play multiplayer with the other people in your head. Also, you might wanna see a doctor.
Continue reading Mad Catz Tritton Pro+ True 5.1 Surround Sound Headset now shipping for $200
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Mad Catz Tritton Pro+ True 5.1 Surround Sound Headset now shipping for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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