- Photo: Soundmatters
Real home cinema fans can’t go without good sound quality, but not having a big tangle of cables everywhere is a plus. Soundmatter’s new Slimstage soundbar comes without a separate AV receiver, satellite speakers and an external subwoofer, yet is still able to recreate multi-channel sound from stereo to Dolby Digital 5.1 through to DTS. The Surround Sound is produced without the need for reflecting it from walls, making this sound projector very flexible.
The best place to put this acoustic tube is directly under the flat screen TV. Although it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing of gadgets, it is very functional. It is 99mm high and 79mm deep, and comes in various lengths so it fits well with 30, 40 or 50inch TVs. The longer the soundbar is, the more bass modules it contains and the more it can thud and thump.
At the front there is a 23×122 pixel LCD which also has buttons for the most important functions for when the remote is out of reach. The Slimstage soundbar can also be used with analogue sources such as video players, thanks to its range of digital and coaxial line in ports. The Euphony HD line out should also make it possible to listen to surround sound on normal headphones.
The shortest variant of the Soundmatters Slimstage comes with a price tag of around £490. For the other models, this increases to from around £650 to £815. As mentioned before, a higher price doesn’t just buy you a longer model, but rather a difference in the sound spectrum. The manufacturer could have used “size matters” as its slogan.
