SennheiserAMBEO Soundbar Max - Soundbar for TV with 13 Speakers - 5.1.4 Sound Experience with Dolby Atmos & DTS:X, Home Theater Audio with deep 30Hz Bass without extra Subwoofer

Not as immersive as the KEF surround sound system it replaced, but sounds awesome enough and much cleaner looking than the multiple speakers and receiver that cluttered the room.Our room is large and open to the stairs at one end, and furniture in the way on both ends, so I imagine the surround effects would be much better if flat walls were closer to the speaker without impediments. Even so, sounds great.We did keep the KEF subwoofer, and would recommend a subwoofer for more of an immersive experience with sound effects of explosions and such in movies.

This is a very large speaker. I designed the wall around it. Shown with the Max is a 75" OLED TV. It's the perfect size for larger panels. I use the subwoofer out via cable to a Klipsch powered sub. There have been software issues over the past 9 months. Twice I've had to unplug the speaker to unbrick it. The most important thing is to calibrate it with the supplied microphone. I didn't for months and was not happy with the sound quality. Acoustically the range was limited, vocals were terrible in movies and with Ambeo sound shaping on the sound was hollow and distant. Then I calibrated it, took all of 5 minutes. BOOM! Entirely different sound experience. It really opened up spatially and vocals are focused, tight, and understandable.

This is an initial rating as hopefully my issue will be resolved. I powered on the Soundbar, updated the firmware, completed the room calibration and then connected my devices. I am having an issue where the sound cuts out and instead and I hear a loud, constant buzzing sound. This has occurred while using my PS5, PS4, Cable box and Nintendo switch. I've confirmed the TV settings are set to the correct audio out settings and I've also verified the same on the consoles. The TV I'm using is a 3 week old LG CX 65" OLED. I have the Soundbar and the TV connected via the eARC ports and I connected the consoles directly to the Soundbar. I've also tested having the consoles connected to the HDMI 2.1 ports on the TV but the issue still occurs. I've tried using different HDMI cables (The PS5 cable, the Sennheiser cable as well as a Zeskit Maya 8K 48Gbps Certified Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable). I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong but from all accounts the connectivity is pretty straight. The sound works initially but then after a couple minutes the buzzing occurs. If I can somehow get this issue resolved I will revisit this rating and amend.

It’s a awesome sound bar

To most Americans, the name Sennheiser is just another confusing German word, like gemütlichkeit. To any audio professional, Sennheiser is one of the greatest badges in pro audio, coming in right behind Neumann and Neve. As a sound engineer with 40 years experience, I have owned two fantastic pairs of Senn. headphones, several wireless mic systems, and I still own eight world-class Sennheiser studio microphones I would never part with. Their products are simply exceptional, and after throwing good money ($1300) away on a Naim Muso-2 soundbar, I had enough of the pretenders and I bought this. The product support is bad. Instructions are provided as picto-glyphs. If you have questions you'll wind up in Reddit forums looking for answers. But for sound – this thing is a ballsy heavy-hitter in a league of its own. Where it fails is in the eARC HDMI connectivity, which is as simple to set up as plugging in one cable. But it will then randomly mute the input, and will never produce audio again even if you reset to factory specs and do a firmware update. What does work, infuriatingly, is to unplug it and plug it back in 5 minutes later. Then presto, good as new. Another fail is no communication between the Ambeo and DirecTV's Genie remotes. No code, and no interest from either side to fix this. So your LG or Samsung or Sony remote will drive the volume if you have it setup correctly in the TV settings, but if you happen to have satellite with DirecTV, you need a minimum of two remotes, or the Genie and the app open on your phone. This bar retails at $2500 and I got it during a holiday sale at $1699. Very happy I didn't blow that extra $800 because it's not worth that. But in a regular-sized living room with a 65" TV, you're all set.

I’ve never really considered myself an audiophile but ai buy things to last and want quality. I had an older Yamaha receiver and surround setup, Klipsch sub, etc. Recently and because of covid (being stuck st home), I bought a new LG 65 CX TV, and XBOX Series X. Because I wanted an eARC connection and Dolby Atmos and full HDMI 2.1 passthrough to accomodate 4k and 120 fps, I scrapped my receiver and speakers for a soundbar and sub. Crazy right? I bought a Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar and SVS PB-1000 subwoofer. In a word, WOW! This blows away any soundbar and most 5.1.4 surround systems I’ve heard. Granted, true audiophiles will likely look down on this, but I must say, for the money, and granted, it’s not cheap, this is the best setup money can buy today. I have always liked having XM radio in the car and listending through a Burmester surround, but now I am loving music and movies and everything at home again. One negative is that when buying ‘bleeding edge’ there are lots of handshake issues with devices. I have painfully worked through them thankfully.

I used to have a full 5.1 surround sound system in my family room. While the surround effect is not quite as prominent from the back I love the new overhead effects from the ATMOS capability. It sounds fantastic with stereo music as well. I am very happy with the soundbar. It is so much easier to use as it it doesn't require a separate receiver.

Just hooked up, lacking bass, definitely need a sub in my opinion. Nice set-up, but might not be exactly what I desired. Maybe expectations to high. Nice for smaller room.