After making its name in the world of headphones, Sennheiser is turning its talents to soundbars.
Sennheiser is best known for its range of headphones and professional microphones, but it recently extended its ambitions to home audio as well, with the introduction of its new Ambeo Soundbar. This move might be intriguing for anyone who’s a fan of Sennheiser headphones, but you’ll need pretty deep pockets as the Ambeo Soundbar is very much a high-end piece of kit at $2500 (£2200 / AU$3,999), and the sheer size and weight of the soundbar means that it may simply not be suitable for many homes. Read more: Sennheiser Momentum Free It works hard to earn its keep, though. The bulky soundbar is packed with the latest audio technologies, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X for surroundsound audio, as well as Sennheiser’s own Ambeo ‘virtual 3D’ sound system. Sennheiser clearly has its sights set on the home cinema market with the Ambeo, although the bar’s Wi-Fi connectivity means that it can double up as a pretty impressive music system as well. Not sure if you should invest in Sennheiser’s high-end soundbar? Read on to get our full thoughts on this ambitious 5.1.4 beast. ‚Beast‘ might be the best way to descibe the Ambeo Soundbar – it weighs a full 18.5kg (around 40 pounds) and measures 126.5cm wide,13.5cm high and 17cm deep (49 x 5.3 x 6.6 inches, W x H xD), so you’ll need a pretty sturdy cabinet or stand to support that weight. It’s also quite picky about the layout of the room around it. Sennheiser recommends that the Ambeo sits at roughly chest-height when you’re sitting down in front of your TV, and you need to leave plenty of room on either side of it as well. That’s because the imposing soundbar houses no less than 13 separate drivers – six woofers and three tweeters on the front, which provide the left and right channels and centre channel for voices and dialogue. There’s an additional tweeter facing out to the left and right on each end of the speaker, plus two upward-firing drivers located on the top of the soundbar in order to provide the height projection required for Dolby Atmos. The tweeters on the ends of the soundbar require you to leave a gap of 1-5m on each side of the soundbar in order to enhance left/right separation, while the two top drivers mean that you also have to leave at least 10cm between the soundbar and the TV screen above it. To get it setup properly we had to rearrange the furniture in our lounge in order to accommodate the Ambeo Soundbar, and even then it barely had the required amount of empty space that it needs in order to flex its audio muscles.
