Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus Soundbar Review

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus has a sleek design with rounded edges. It's mostly made of plastic, and there are grilles on top to help protect the drivers inside. Tight fabric wraps around the edges.

The subwoofers are integrated into the bar.

The bar is rather wide, so it doesn't fit between the legs of most 55" TV stands. It isn't very tall, either, so it won't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on your table. If you want a similar bar that takes up less room, check out the Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Mini.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus has great build quality. It's mostly made of plastic, which feels very sturdy and solid. The grilles on top of the bar are designed to protect the drivers inside. The fabric wrapping around the sides has a tight fit, so it isn't likely to rip easily. Still, it might collect some dust and debris over time.

• Manual
• Power cable (6.2 ft / 1.9m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Remote with battery

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus has a decent stereo frequency response. Its low-frequency extension isn't as impressive as other bars with dedicated subwoofers, so there isn't as much thump and rumble in the bass range to bring bass-heavy genres like EDM to life. Its overall sound profile is fairly balanced but slightly bright. Voices and lead instruments are clearly reproduced, and they seem to sparkle due to the extra emphasis in the treble.

Note: We tested the bar after running the room correction feature. Its AMBEO 3D virtual surround mode was set to Regular to mimic a typical listening experience. When you play stereo files with this feature, the bar upmixes the content, so you hear audio from all channels except the center.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus doesn't come with bass or treble adjustments. However, the companion app has a four-band graphic EQ for each preset. We used the Foundation band to adjust the bass, which you can see here. With an additional two decibels added, the bar's sound is a bit more balanced with stereo content. Voices and lead instruments in your favorite tunes are still clearly reproduced, and you get a touch of extra punch in the bass. However, the EQ can't add to the low-frequency extension, so the deep rumble in the low-bass is still missing.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus has a great stereo soundstage. Its soundstage is perceived to be a bit wider than the bar itself, which is nice. Also, it has good focus, so it's easy to pinpoint sound effects to an accurate location in the mix. For example, if you listen to an orchestral recording, each instrument seems to come from the same location it would on the stage.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus gets loud, so you won't have any trouble filling larger and more open spaces with sound. As you crank up the volume, there's some compression and pumping artifacts present that distort the sound.

The bar's distortion falls within good levels at a normal listening volume, so audio reproduction is clean and pure. There's a slight jump when you push the bar to max volume, which is common with most soundbars. However, distortion is hard to hear with real-life content, so unless you're an astute audiophile, it isn't an issue.

The bar's discrete center channel is designed to improve vocal reproduction. Its frequency response is even and balanced, albeit a touch on the bright side due to the lack of bass. As a result, dialogue reproduces with clarity, and you don't have any trouble following along with the action on screen.

The bar performs okay with 5.1 surround content when using its AMBEO 3D mode. Content plays from the side-firing and front-firing speakers on the bar, as well as the up-firing drivers. For a phantom localization, it does well, so sound effects seem to stretch into the space around you. However, it doesn't seem as real-to-life as a setup with discrete surround speakers.

With its AMBEO 3D mode turned on, the bar is a fair choice for height content like Dolby Atmos. It uses its side-firing and up-firing drivers to simulate height in the space around you. The frequency response on these channels is fairly even but a touch bright due to the lack of bass.

Subjectively, the bar's soundstage with Atmos content is just okay. Sound stretches wide into the space around you, aided by the AMBEO 3D mode. However, you don't notice sound effects in the space above you or behind you, which takes away from the overall immersive feel. Details are a bit diffused at times, too, as the volume is high on some effects and low on others.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus offers a lot of sound enhancement features. There's a room correction tool that optimizes its audio reproduction based on the unique acoustics of your room. Also, it comes with a virtual surround feature called AMBEO 3D, which you can set to one of three different intensity levels: Light, Regular, and Boost. Subjectively, we found that audio sounds richer with the AMBEO 3D mode turned on.

You can also customize its sound to your liking. There aren't traditional bass and treble adjustments, but the app has four-band graphic EQs with each preset: Adaptive, Music, Movie, News, Neutral, and Sports. Through the equalizers, you can adjust the bass, the mids, and the treble, which is handy.

You can connect the bar to your TV over Optical or HDMI connections. The two HDMI In ports are great if you want to use the bar as a hub between different devices, like your TV and your PC. You can even add an external subwoofer to your setup using the blue RCA input. The USB input is only for firmware updates, so you can't use it to playback audio files.

The bar supports lots of different audio formats that you're likely to come across on both streaming platforms and Blu-rays discs. It can playback 5.1 surround sound formats like Dolby Digital as well as lossless and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus supports the most advanced sound formats via HDMI In. You can playback surround sound and object-based formats like Dolby Atmos or lossless formats like PCM 5.1. They're more and more commonly found with streaming services for both movies and TV shows.

Over Optical, the bar supports both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround sound formats.

Latency is low when you connect the bar over ARC or HDMI In, so the audio you hear is in sync with the video you see on the screen. You may run into lip-synching issues if you connect over Optical, though. However, there's a lip-synching tool in the bar's companion app that lets you adjust the delay, which can help if you run into issues.

The bar can passthrough some of the highest-quality bandwidth signals, including Dolby Vision Passthrough. That said, it can't do 4k @ 120Hz.

You can stream audio wirelessly to the bar over lots of different connections. The manufacturer says that you can connect to the bar over music services like Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, and TuneIn in the future.

The Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar Plus doesn't have a display. Instead, it uses status lights that flash different colors and patterns depending on the settings you adjust. You can control the light's brightness in the app, which is handy.

There are some physical controls on top of the bar itself. They let you adjust the volume, activate Bluetooth pairing, change the source, and mute the microphone. There's also a multi-purpose O button that lets you play/pause your music and activate the voice assistants.

The remote is pretty simple and lets you control most of the bar's settings from your couch. However, it's not universal, so you can't use it to control your TV. If you prefer, the Sennheiser Smart Control app also acts as a remote on your smartphone.

You can control the bar with your voice using its built-in voice assistant features. If you don't want it to listen to you, you can mute the microphone.