Home Cinema Choice – September 2019

HOME CINEMA CHOICE SEPTEMBER 2019

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Atmos drivers are protected by metallic mesh. The bar’s

curving cabinet allows for additional side-fi ring drivers,

which rely on a nearby boundary to bounce their output.

In all, there are 13 speakers at work here, with a

combined claimed power output of 250W, peaking

at 500W.

Design embellishments include the familiar Sennheiser

logo work to the left, and new Ambeo branding, which

illuminates in use, to the right.

Audio trickery

Ambeo, in case you're wondering, is Sennheiser’s own

immersive audio technology. It’s scalable, meaning that

it can be deployed as a proprietary multichannel codec,

or implemented as an augmented audio trick atop the

likes of Dolby Atmos.

The former was used as part of Pink Floyd's experiential

exhibition Their Mortal Remains, to simulate a live

performance of Comfortably Numb. The track had been

The soundbar's promise is of a 5.1.4 experience from

a single box, and that’s close to what you get. In many

ways, it’s both more and less than that. This is high-end

home cinema reinvented.

As you might expect for the £2,200 ticket, build quality

is formidable. The Ambeo Soundbar's forward-facing

speaker array sits behind a taut cloth grille, while upfi ring

36 SENNHEISER AMBEO SOUNDBAR/£2,20 0

Douglas Adams famously described space as big.

'Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely,

mind-bogglingly big it is.' The same can be said of

Sennheiser’s debut Ambeo Soundbar. Weighing in at

18.5kg and measuring over a metre wide, health and

safety dictates this is a two-man lift. Sennheiser sells

an optional wall-mounting accessory, but I'm not

convinced any of my walls could safely support it.

Proprietary Sennheiser processing makes Dolby Atmos more

immersive, insists Steve May

All hail Ambeo!