Philips' new soundbar range has just been revealed, and it looks like a very smart set of bars designed to solve key practical problems that not all of the best soundbars take into account very well.
First up is the Philips B8500 (pictured above), which is the highest-end of the three, and jumped out to me not only because it supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X (as do all the models here, in fact). It's a 5.1-channel soundbar, featuring left, centre and right speakers, plus two angled side-firing drivers, with an eight-inch separate subwoofer.
The three problems with mid-range TVs (and quite a few high-end ones) that I see it solving are:
1) the generally middling sound from these TVs. It's a hefty soundbar, it's gonna sound much better!
2) Its design is made to accommodate a TV with a central stand. Naturally, it's specifically designed to fit seamlessly with the Philips OLED810 and Philips MLED950 TVs – also released this year – but it will likely fit better with most TVs that have a central stand, because it has a large cut-out in the body underneath it, at the back. Hopefully that means you won't need to put it so far away from the front of the TV in order to avoid it wobbling on the stand.
3) It has 4K 120Hz HDMI passthrough, meaning that if your TV has two HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming and that's not enough (since you'll usually need one of them for the soundbar as the HDMI eARC port), you can still get full next-gen gaming nirvana. This will be useful for those with TVs from Philips, Panasonic, TCL, Hisense and many mid-range Samsung models.
However, the downside of the Philips B8500 is that it doesn't have any dedicated upfiring speakers, so any Dolby Atmos height effects will be virtual. That may hold it back, but a lot will depend on the price, which Philips hasn't revealed yet. It's planned to launch in September 2025.
Next up is the super-slim Philips B8200 (above), which also comes with a super-long subwoofer, keeping the beanpole appearance going. It's also been designed to fit well with Philips TVs that have a central stand by having a magnetic base to clip it securely onto the stand – and it also aims to work well TVs that are very low to the surface (including several Philips TVs over the years), with a height of just 42mm. It's a 2.1-channel soundbar, and the lengthy subwoofer has two drivers itself, and can be used upright or laid flat. Again there's no price yet, but it launches in August 2025.
Finally, the Philips B6100 is designed to be less wide than other soundbars, so it can fit between the feet of TVs. It's another 2.1-channel system with a dedicated subwoofer, and will be available in May 2025 (again, with no current price).
All of these models feature Bluetooth for audio streaming, including Bluetooth LE Audio support, which is nice and future-looking.
The speaker configurations here are fairly basic, so the final verdict on these will come heavily down to price as well as speaker quality. But I really like the approach they're taking of trying to solve the practical design problems that people have with soundbars, and not just leaving it up to us to realise too late that a nice soundbar is an awkward fit with our TV and we're gonna need a bigger stand.
These are all confirmed for a UK and Europe release; I've asked Philips if a US release is planned, and will update when I hear back.
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