There’s more happening in the world of Dolby Atmos, as Sennheiser expands its Ambeo lineup, even if it won’t arrive until later.
Bringing the world of dimensional and spatial audio home isn’t necessarily an inexpensive affair, but if you’ve considered Sennheiser’s massive Ambeo soundbar in the past, that statement more or less hits the limit.
Priced at around four thousand dollars in Australia, the Sennheiser Ambeo is a massive spatial soundbar which sounds excellent, but costs an proverbial arm and a leg. If you want the name Sennheiser attached to your next soundbar, there’s a solid chance you were saving for it, but come next year, you mightn’t need to save as much.
One of the announcements to come out of the mid-year consumer tech show that is IFA 2022 was that of soundbars from Sennheiser, as the brand talked up a new model to get in under the big Ambeo, and yet one that also changed the technology a little.
Coming next year in Australia, the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus will be a 7.1.4 standalone soundbar, something the company describes as a first, essentially supporting seven channels of surround sound — left to right and all around — plus one channel of a subwoofer and four dimensional, typically up and around.
To do this, Sennheiser will use a self-calibration process to position virtual speakers around the room, typically working by firing them at different times, and supporting the sound through various technologies, such as DTS:X, Sony 360 Reality Audio, and the most common of the bunch, Dolby Atmos. Unsurprisingly, it will upmix stereo and 5.1 content to a spatial sound, though how well it does that remains to be seen.
Support will also be there for other technologies, such as Spotify Connect, a quick way to get music from an iPhone using AirPlay 2, and assistants from Google, Amazon Alexa, and Apple’s Siri.
It also won’t be alone.
While the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Plus joins the Sennheiser soundbar lineup, so too does a subwoofer, with the optional Ambeo Sub including a self-calibration mode, as well, built to learn the room thanks to a microphone.
The Sennheiser Ambeo Sub will use a 350W Class D amp with its 8 inch proprietary woofer, and while there’s only one, Sennheiser does say you can link up to four Ambeo Sub models together for a massive sound.
Neither the Ambeo Soundbar Plus nor Sub are expected this year, though we expect we’ll hear more about them in time for CES 2023 next year, with release expected shortly after, arriving in Australia in January. As such, the Ambeo Soundbar Plus is expected localled for $2399.95, while the Ambeo Sub will cost $1119.95.
