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It may seem like a rather niche product, but for those who don’t already own a soundbar or media streamer, the Roku Streambar comes with a glowing recommendation. There’s one important thing to understand, however: having 2 or 3 speakers instead of one does not double or triple the sound. It increases a few decibels (dB) for each speaker added. The Ray has been conceived to slot into cabinets without its sonic dispersion being impacted. However, it doesn’t feature the virtual Dolby Atmos decoding of Sonos’ more premium soundbars – the Beam Gen 2 and Arc (both below). So, pragmatically, Sonos also decided to ditch the HDMI eARC connections of its pricier products in favour of a classic optical input, which almost every TV will have, but monitors and consoles may not. Remember: don’t use a speaker impedance below the rating given by the manufacturer. Overheating or permanent damage can result. I’ve seen it happen! 3. What is speaker polarity? This is because unlike separate speakers with no crossovers, in this case, many sounds will be filtered out. What this means is that little to no sound would be produced if another 2-way speaker is connected in series.
For example, tweeters can’t reproduce bass frequencies (and can in fact be damaged by them) so a 2-way speaker crossover is used to prevent this. Similarly, a woofer can’t produce high pitch sounds well and is prevented from doing so. The size of the soundbar is primarily down to the larger-than-enough drivers Sennheiser has managed to fit in, and the result is a sound big enough not to need its own subwoofer, with clear, direct dialogue and detail and subtlety in spades. The way it stretches the sound around you creates a great atmosphere and really draws you into the action.As we note in our review: "While some soundbars with external subwoofers go deeper, the bass here is delivered with weighty gusto and seamless integration. This is what helps the Sennheiser achieve the sort of effortless, natural tonality and texture that most rivals can’t begin to match." But the best thing about the Ambeo Max's sound? How little attention it draws; "there's none of the beamy, nasal harshness found in many other soundbars and on the whole, the processing is natural and convincing." Although soundbars are typically designed with film and TV in mind, we also put them through their paces with music too, testing out a range of streaming options with a variety of genres, both classic and modern, enduring that we listen in the highest quality that the soundbar is capable of. Delivering Dolby Atmos from a small chassis is no mean feat, but the 2023 What Hi-Fi? Award-winning Sonos Beam Gen 2 achieves a convincing, immersive performance without so much as a vertical speaker in sight. Instead, when watching Atmos content, two of the soundbar's five front-facing arrays are dedicated to reproducing overhead and surround sounds. With its hefty processing power, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 uses psychoacoustic HRTF (head-related transfer function) technology to give the impression of height without needing to get vertical. Subwoofers are sometimes built into soundbars, but many come as separate units included in the price. Both types have advantages: soundbars with built-in subwoofers are more space-efficient, while standalone subs generally deliver fuller, more impactful bass.Unfortunately, ARC/eARC can sometimes introduce a slight audio lag resulting in lipsynching issues that can vary depending on your TV-soundbar combo. However, many brands include controls to adjust the delay on a soundbar's app, and sometimes there's also an option to modify it on a TV's settings.
The other two sound modes are less impressive, but useful nonetheless. The processing-free Pure setting delivers audio as intended by its creator, while Night mode decreases the dynamic range to improve low-volume listening. There are also three dialogue enhancement options available, all of which successfully accentuate speech.We’ll go through all of its different connectivity options – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, stereo, optical etc. – and then proceed with assessing its sound quality across each supported method, across whatever channel configurations are possible, using a range of audio sources.
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