SmartHouse

SONOS FIXES SOUNDBAR HEIGHT PROBLEM WITH NEW SOUNDBASE

As TVs get bigger and better and as a new generation of high end sound bars emerge, a problem has arisen that has reopened the door for the return of soundbases as they use to be called.

- Written by David Richards

During the past 18 months Australia has seen an explosion in sales of Ultra High Definition TVs that are designed to deliver 4K content in their full glory.

At CES we saw an explosion in both soundbars and a new generation of wafer thin TVs such as the new Samsung QLED or the LG OLED Wall TV.

Because of this explosion in TV sales, owners have also invested in a new generation of network enabled soundbars that eliminate the problems of running a 5.1 home theatre kit around a room.

The only problem is that the bulk of soundbars are taller than the bottom of the new TVs resulting in the RF input, that allows users to use a remote control being blocked from the line of sight of a TV remote control.

This has led to some manufactur­ers such as Bluesound the maker of a 24bit soundbar now selling mounts that raise a TV over the height of a soundbar.

Sonos on the other hand has released the Sonos Playbase, it’s a speaker that sits underneath your television. The system is basically a giant speaker that you place underneath your new TV.

It provides an excellent audio quality whether you’re watching the TV, watching a movie or streaming music to other Sonos wireless speakers including Play:1, Play:3 or Play:5.

It can connect to the internet via Wi-Fi and allows you to stream music from most popular music platforms including Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music or Google Music.

All you should do is use an optical audio cable, direct to your TV and you have the best of both worlds high end TV sound and music.

In this issue of SmartHouse we bring you the latest from CES as well as the first review of the Sonos Playbase and the all new Samsung QLED TV.

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