SURROUNDED

IF YOU WANT A CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE WITHOUT ANY AGGRAVATION, YOU’LL NEED A SOUNDBAR, SAYS Simon LucaS

It’s not small and it’s certainly not cheap but Sennheiser’s mighty Ambeo is as close as you’ll get to a true Dolby Atmos experience without fitting speakers in your ceiling. The Ambeo is fitted with 13 speaker drivers, two of which are at the very edge of the bar (to create width) and two of which fire upwards from the top to deliver the sonic height for which Dolby Atmos is famous. Treated to the Sennheiser’s 500W of power, these 13 drivers create audio that’s wide, focused, detailed and – with an Atmos soundtrack fed in – delivers a genuinely convincing impression of overhead sound.

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multi-room What Sonos doesn’t know about turning out elegant, high-performance speakers that work brilliantly in multiroom systems isn’t worth knowing. The Arc isn’t as discreet as most of its models (you’ll need at least a 55in TV to put it under or it will look a bit daft) but it sounds great with both movies and music. It integrates seamlessly into a wider Sonos multi-room system, and can be used with a couple of Sonos speakers at the rear and a Sonos sub if you decide to go the whole homecinema hog. And it gives a sensation of Dolby Atmos sonic height that only the Sennheiser Ambeo can better.

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surround

Not so much a game of two halves, more a soundbar of four pieces. What looks at first like a soundbar with accompanying wireless subwoofer turns out to be a subwoofer and a soundbar with detachable end modules that can be easily positioned alongside or beside your seat – so true surround sound can be yours. And in addition, the modules (like the main body of the bar) have upward-firing drivers to create some authentic Dolby Atmos height. When you’re finished listening, they magnetically clip back into place and become part of the soundbar again. The JBL Bar 9.1: quite big and very clever.