Sam's Club has the PHILIPS 5.1.2 Soundbar w/ Wireless Subwoofer Dolby Atmos - B8967 on sale for $179.99 + free shipping for Sam's Club members. It does not look like store pick up is available.
Features:
Dynamic Sound
This soundbar brings 5.1.2 channels and 390W of dynamic sound to everything you watch or listen to. The rear speakers and up-firing speakers render true surround sound with depth and height, bathing you in enthralling sound. This 5.1.2 soundbar puts you right in the middle of the action. Movies, music and more come to life with crystal audio clarity.
Dolby Atmos
Increase the drama no matter what you watch. Dolby Atmos gives you an incredibly immersive audio experience. Your favorite movies and shows will sound breathtakingly real as sound flows above and all around you. A powerful subwoofer and two rear speakers connect wirelessly for fully immersive surround sound.
HDMI eARC
Lose nothing from the mix and get fully absorbed in the drama. This soundbar is compatible with HDMI eARC, a high-speed connection that lets you experience the full effect of advanced formats like Dolby Atmos. The soundbar also has dual HDMI inputs.
Works with AI Voice Assistants
Ask any speaker that works with the Google Assistant to play music through the soundbar. Prefer Siri? This soundbar works with Apple AirPlay 2 so you can ask her as well. Turn the music up. Skip tracks. All completely hands-free.
https://www.samsclub.com/p/philip..._product_4
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The most notable thing I could learn is that it does not support DTS.
https://www.stereowisep
https://www.gadgetsnow.
I don't think of Philips as a high-end manufacturer, and I don't know how reputable those review sites are, but for the price this might be a great deal if you aren't wanting the Samsung 800c or anything similar.
I've recently purchased the 600c and was looking to get the rears, but I am now wondering about this system.
EDIT: nevermind, they are
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The most notable thing I could learn is that it does not support DTS.
Also, maybe I'm slow this morning, but why is there 1HDMI in and 2HDMI out? Was Phillips thinking that 1 device should put out sound to 2 different TVs?
Lastly, a lengthy Amazon review for reference. Seems that having the device connected to the soundbar, and the soundbar to the TV will prevent a lot of headaches than just using the TVs HDMI Arc. The TV supports 4k passthrough so use it.
This thing is huge. I couldn't get a sense of how big it was from the marketing pictures of it on Amazon. I have a 55-inch television and it nearly span the entire width of it. The sound bar itself looks and feels like quality. It is quite dense in its feel with a bit of heft. It has a metallic look and feel, and the touch buttons are responsive enough if you push on them with intent to do so. I'm not a fan of touch buttons especially with not haptic feedback because you can tell if you are actually pushing them. This makes me push the button more times than needed because I don't know if it registered the touch. But I understand the design reasoning for the touch buttons as visually the sound bar has a clean look.
The rear surround speaks looked like quality but felt like nothing special in the hand. I can say it feels tightly put together as no gaps between the seals, so not creaking or movement of the speaker housing. The surround speaker also had a cold metallic feel similar to the sound bar but without the heft. Then the sub... The sub looks cheap visually, doesn't feel like anything special when you run your fingers across it, but boy does it feel like something substantial when you try to lift it. The housing is also tightly put together, but I can't really tell what it is made of by touching it.
I was hoping I would somehow be able to mount the bar right under my television. My TV mount is on a stand and the mounting brackets are quit long, with my television mount so high on the brackets, there is excess hanging under the television that I thought I would be able to use for sound bar. This would have occupied and blocked the remainder of the mounting brackets, so it doesn't look as unsightly, but this was not possible. The mount points on each end of the sound bar and therefore is not VESA standard compatible. So now the sound bar sits on a low shelf which I don't think is ideal or optimal for making convincing surround sound.
Sound Quality:
Out of the box, I was quite underwhelmed. I was always wary of getting a sound bar since ideally you need to have symmetrical walls and the sound bar have to be placed at an ideal height. This sound bar is in my bedroom, and I have don't have any of the ideal requirements. Even the surround speakers based off the diagram looks like it should be placed right behind you couch so that it is relatively close to your head. In my room, I sit about six or seven feet from the sound bar and TV, and the surround speakers are about fifteen feet away near the window wall of my room. My walls are far from symmetrical, so everything is far from ideal for good surround sound. But I was able to make it work good enough especially after I found a good Atmos surround sound source on Netflix to try out. I tried the Witcher and picked at a scene that may have not have a lot of action, but it had activity going on while the protagonist carried on dialog. I heard next to nothing from the rear speakers. I crank up the rear volume balance I high as the settings allowed me to take it and still, nothing. I was expecting more from Atmos. Then the dialog was really recessed and too low to hear properly. I cranked up the center channel volume as high as it can go in the settings and turned up the treble just a bit for added clarity. It still seemed too low, so I cranked up the main volume to around 45-50 levels when it initially was around 20-25. Dialog was better but still not much from the rear speakers, but I turn the Atmos up mixing to the maximum levels and then there was some inaudible sound coming from the rear sounding a bit like a slight eco of the center channel.
I was really disappointed at that point. I finally have sound device capable of decoding and producing an Atmos signal, but it sounds so flat. Even listening to music was just "OK". It was punchy but didn't feel very dynamic or spacious where I feel engulf in instruments. Anyway, Witcher was boring to sit through and wait for action scenes, so I tried another Atmos supported Netflix movie. It as a CGI kids movie about sea monsters so action scenes happened mostly on a boat at sea. Now this one sound dynamic in its sound production. I heard the crashing waves me, the destruction of the hull as it got cracked and broken to pieces by the monster, the activity of the crew in the surrounding being heard in the rear surround speakers. The bass was so overwhelming, as it overpowered a lot of the sound in the action scenes that I had to turn it down. With the volume level at 45-50, I had to crank the bass channel volume all the way down into the negatives based off its position on the room. This allowed me bass to be more punchy and not excessively booming. I hit a great balance for enjoying movies in my not so ideal room. The sound alone made the movie that was geared for children fun and exciting. I wouldn't have watched that movie otherwise.
Finally, there is the streaming features. You have to download the Google Home app to cast or stream to the sound bar. Depending on the source of the sound will determine if the Atmos up mixing send any sound or levels of how audible the sound will be when played out of the rear surround speakers. It was my first-time using Google Home (a Google app I didn't know existed). It works great and made connecting to the sound bar with a smartphone or Google OS tablet easy after the initial setup.
The speaker redeemed itself and I am torn between giving 4 or 5 stars. When you configure the speaker correctly and have a good enough audio source, you get crisp sound with clear dialogue and strong bass with engrossing sound that occasionally comes through the rear surround speakers if the audio source has intended sounds specified for the rear channel.
**Update: 10/21/2022**
I just got a new smart TV with eArc HDMI port instead of the standard Arc port. Once I enabled "Enhanced" mode on this eArc port the sound became more dynamic and expansive in its sound channel signal positions around the room, so the 3d surround sound became much better at the cost of a little bit of the volume levels, as the volume was notably lower even after I max the volume levels. The sound was a noticeably cleaner as well. I will take the more dynamic cleaner sound over the higher volume levels.
**Update: 10/23/2022**
One more update. Went from 4 to 5 stars overall rating. As I've tried to learn my new television, I started learning more about the soundbar to get the best uses out of it with the television. I realized the on some Dolby 5.1 source movies on built in apps like Youtube and Netflix causes the volume to be come very low like when you turn on night mode on a home theater device. I found the fix for this.
It sems the smart television also attempts to decode Dolby surround on its own, that combined with the sound bar also trying to do the same thing causing the two devices to clash and degrade the sound quality causing loss of channels and volume levels. Not only did I have to set the HDMI port to Enhance on my television, but I also had to change the audio coming through the HDMI port to "Straight Through". PCM mode also helps but "Straight Through" works the best. The other options on the television was "Dolby Digital" and Dolby Digital Plus" which made the volume much too low in Dolby enabled moves. Straight through allows the television to not process the sound and send it straight to the soundbar to let it process the sound in a fashion that yields the best results for it. Now I have the full volume decibel levels where I don't need to max out volume on the sound bar anymore just to hear everything allowing for a greater home theater experience. There was just two many cooks in the kitchen processing Dolby signals and this caused them to clash.
**Final Update: 10/30/2022**
This is an annoyance that made me re-think the five stars. The soundbar seems to have an aggressive power saving feature, where it goes into standby if it doesn't detect an audio signal for 15 minutes even though there is a constant video signal passing through it. If you have a PC connected to it, this causes issues where you screen constantly cuts off when the soundbar goes into standby. You will have no video until you turn the soundbar back on and switch over to the which ever of the two HDMI ports your PC is connected to. Oh why not just connect directly to the television HDMI port? When the soundbar goes into standby, it interrupts the video by cutting it off for several seconds before the screen refreshes and comes back on with the sound now on the television speakers. It is not a quick or smooth process waiting for the video to come back though the television itself may contribute to that issue with the way it communicates through the eARC port of the soundbar. Having a standby feature you cannot defeat is unacceptable in my opinion but if you are just watching television or streaming content, you probably wouldn't even notice this inconvenience. With that I've covered just about everything I've found through thorough use of this product.
https://www.amazon.com/Philips-B8...merReviews
I actually called Hisense and they returned my call! Kudos to them. Unfortunately, they confirmed that the Hisense soundbar (recently hot deal at Walmart) could not adjust the channel volumes independently.
I'm also hesitant on this Philips because, although the sound bar has upfiring atmos speakers, its satellites don't. But I cannot find any deals on sound bars that have upfiring atmos speakers in the sattelites, except for Samsung but I missed that deal.
But please, anyone with more info on this Philips, please post. It seems to look good on paper, except for the lack of DTS. If it's otherwise really good, I might go for it and just try to find source material with something other than DTS audio? I just would hate to watch a nice movie that has only DTS audio...
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Instead, the marketing speak is saying that the Philips sound bar supports HDMI eARC. Although it's true that HDMI eARC can *PASS ALONG* all kinds of digital content (including DTS:X encoded audio), the Philips would not be able to decode it. I guess it's useful if you want to pass the audio from, say, an external blu-ray connected to the TV via the soundbar so your TV could maybe decode the DTS:X. But typically you would want the sound bar to do the decoding. If you read the lengthy Amazon review reproduced above, you'll see that guy had the problem where he was using the TV to decode audio then trying to pass that to the sound bar and it was problematic - better to just pass the audio to the soundbar so that it can decode the auido directly to the speakers.
Anyway, no, this Philips sound bar does not seem to be able to decode DTS audio (but someone please prove me wrong, if so, I'll buy this).
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