Soundbars/Soundbases

While the major CE brands are busy cramming everything but the kitchen sink into their soundbar offerings, the audio specialists continue to stick to the product’s raison d’etre – replacing the raspy, weedy sonics of your flatplanel’s in-built speakers with some high-quality stereo goodness.

The SB-100 claims to deliver a 5.1 experience through the magic of its so-called 3D sound feature, despite not being equipped with digital inputs or any kind of surround sound decoding. The only sockets are one set of stereo phonos and dual 3.5mm line inputs. Analogue signals are processed by circuitry licensed from Sonic Emotion and delivered to your ears via the SB100’s room-filling multiple drive units. There are six full-range tweeters and a 20W subwoofer that offer a combined 80W of power output, which is four times as powerful as most TV screens’ built-in speakers.