VERDICT
SEPTEMBER 2019 HOME CINEMA CHOICEPowerful, artful Ambeo
We’ve seemingly waited an age for Sennheiser’s Ambeo
technology to debut in the home cinema space, but it
doesn’t disappoint. This is a monumentally accomplished
all-in-one that sounds supreme with both movies and
music. It doesn’t so much create a wall of sound, as paint
a tapestry. It's powerful, artful and able to excite and
delight in equal measure.
It’s expensive, for sure, and not exactly stylish either.
It has a few minor niggles, too. Yet this is a cut above the
soundbar mainstream. It’s a fabulous example of what
Ambeo with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X can do QSPECIFICATIONS
DRIVE UNITS: 6 x 4in long-throw woofers; 5 x 1in tweeters; 2 x 3.5in full-range
upward-fi ring drivers ONBOARD POWER (CLAIMED): 250W CONNECTIONS: 3 x HDMI
inputs; 1 x HDMI output; digital optical audio output; phono AV; subwoofer pre-out;
Ethernet DOLBY ATMOS/DTS:X: Yes/Yes SEPARATE SUB: No REMOTE CONTROL: Ye s
DIMENSIONS: 1,265(w) x 135(h) x 171(d)mm WEIGHT: 18.5kgFEATURES: Ambeo processing modes; optional wall-mounting; microphone-
assisted calibration setup; 4K HDR passthrough (HDMI v2.0a); eARC support;
Google Chromecast; USB; Bluetooth; Wi-Fi; MPEG-H compatible; Movie, Music,
Sports, Neutral and Night modes; Smart Control app; 30Hz-20kHz claimed
frequency response; UPnPAMAZON FIRE TV STICK 4 K:
Fill up one of the Ambeo
Soundbar's three HDMI
inputs with Amazon's
low-cost (£50) but high-spec
streaming stick. Format
support from VOD apps
includes Dolby Vision HDR
and Dolby Atmos.PARTNER WITH
Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar
« £2,200 « en-uk.sennheiser.com
WE SAY: When it comes to single-box 3D audio, no product does
it better than this Sennheiser. Ambeo adds polish to Dolby
Atmos and upscales stereo like a boss.REVIEWS 39
The Ambeo Soundbar isn’t just for movies, though.
It’s convincingly musical too. And when tunes and
immersive audio come together, the listening experience
can be intoxicating.
Kraftwerk’s Tour de France, remixed in Dolby Atmos,
is a fantastic example of just how eff ective Ambeo with
music can be. The system eff ortlessly fi lls the room with
pumping electronic beats, so much more engaging than
a straight stereo presentation.
Ståle Kleiberg: Mass for Modern Man, by the Trondheim
Symphony Orchestra and Choir, in Atmos, may be tonally
rich, even dense, but the Sennheiser is similarly undaunted.
It unravels the knot of instruments and voices with the
precision of a seamstress unpicking an elaborate weave.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is just how good Ambeo
is at ‘upscaling’ two-channel content. It genuinely blurs
the lines between a natively immersive codec and
post-processing. I'm not suggesting you magically get
discrete surround sound, or whizz-bang eff ects emanating
from your ears. But the soundstage becomes wider,
nuanced and realistic.
Sky One Kung-Fu show Warrior, which is broadcast
in stereo, hits harder through this Sennheiser 'bar.
Any disappointment about the lack of 5.1 transmission
fades away. And when you do have a multichannel TV
mix, perhaps live sport, the ambience that’s created is
smooth and naturalistic. You're not listening to channels
panning left or right, you're simply engulfed by sound.
There are caveats, of course. During my review, a
connected Blu-ray player from Panasonic repeatedly
turned on and took control of the 'bar. There seems
to be a CEC control issue here that needs fi xing. And,
as mentioned earlier, the Sennheiser app is a good deal
less polished than you might expect, so there's room for
improvement here too.
- A subwoofer
pre-out lets you
connect a third-party
bass box... - ... but the six bass
drivers deliver a
claimed low-end
reach of 30Hz