AMBEO Soundbar Max - Soundbar for TV with 13 Speakers - 5.1.4 Sound Experience with Dolby Atmos & DTS:X, Home Theater Audio with deep 30Hz Bass without extra Subwoofer

This is simply a brilliant soundbar in almost every way. Precise, room-filling, and powerful, it is arguably one of the best I've had. However, for those of you that are looking for heavy bass that has been previously lauded by some reviews, you will be disappointed. No fault of Sennheiser, it just can't do everything. I bought a dedicated, wired sub from Sennheiser and the combo is epic. Don't try to do the bluetooth thing - it won't work (as of Dec 2025). These two beasts combine to produce a simply unreal experience that is a full level above anything else I've experienced (including the Sonos Arc Ultra + Sub). It's expensive, so over to you to calibrate how much the extra quality, power, precision is worth.

World class sound. Easy setup. I added the subwoofer and glad I did. Brings the impact of the whole system in play. The app works better with the WiFi connection than the Bluetooth. Seamless.

This is a very large speaker. I designed the wall around it. Shown with the Max is a 75" OLED TV. It's the perfect size for larger panels. I use the subwoofer out via cable to a Klipsch powered sub. There have been software issues over the past 9 months. Twice I've had to unplug the speaker to unbrick it. The most important thing is to calibrate it with the supplied microphone. I didn't for months and was not happy with the sound quality. Acoustically the range was limited, vocals were terrible in movies and with Ambeo sound shaping on the sound was hollow and distant. Then I calibrated it, took all of 5 minutes. BOOM! Entirely different sound experience. It really opened up spatially and vocals are focused, tight, and understandable.

I purchased this in 2021, and use it daily. The sound has been very good for the most part. For the past year it has occasionally had an issue where it would not shut off, and I'd need to unplug it to reset it. It has now blown a capacitor, filled my house with smoke, and lost most of its volume. Sennheiser support has been absolutely no help; in fact they've yet to respond to multiple inquiries, both via Amazon and also a service desk request in their own system. Find something less expensive, less heavy, and that has a linger life. It may not sound quite as nice, but it will save you a lot.

To most Americans, the name Sennheiser is just another confusing German word, like gemütlichkeit. To any audio professional, Sennheiser is one of the greatest badges in pro audio, coming in right behind Neumann and Neve. As a sound engineer with 40 years experience, I have owned two fantastic pairs of Senn. headphones, several wireless mic systems, and I still own eight world-class Sennheiser studio microphones I would never part with. Their products are simply exceptional, and after throwing good money ($1300) away on a Naim Muso-2 soundbar, I had enough of the pretenders and I bought this. The product support is bad. Instructions are provided as picto-glyphs. If you have questions you'll wind up in Reddit forums looking for answers. But for sound – this thing is a ballsy heavy-hitter in a league of its own. Where it fails is in the eARC HDMI connectivity, which is as simple to set up as plugging in one cable. But it will then randomly mute the input, and will never produce audio again even if you reset to factory specs and do a firmware update. What does work, infuriatingly, is to unplug it and plug it back in 5 minutes later. Then presto, good as new. Another fail is no communication between the Ambeo and DirecTV's Genie remotes. No code, and no interest from either side to fix this. So your LG or Samsung or Sony remote will drive the volume if you have it setup correctly in the TV settings, but if you happen to have satellite with DirecTV, you need a minimum of two remotes, or the Genie and the app open on your phone. This bar retails at $2500 and I got it during a holiday sale at $1699. Very happy I didn't blow that extra $800 because it's not worth that. But in a regular-sized living room with a 65" TV, you're all set.

Not as immersive as the KEF surround sound system it replaced, but sounds awesome enough and much cleaner looking than the multiple speakers and receiver that cluttered the room. Our room is large and open to the stairs at one end, and furniture in the way on both ends, so I imagine the surround effects would be much better if flat walls were closer to the speaker without impediments. Even so, sounds great. We did keep the KEF subwoofer, and would recommend a subwoofer for more of an immersive experience with sound effects of explosions and such in movies.

If you have a sound system and your significant other is sick of the speakers and electronics, this is the sound bar to buy. You’re going to need a sub. And the Ambio mic and setup will do a very good job of marrying them together. (I have a KEF RB 400 which works well with the bar.) Once you give it access to your home network, something you should not have to give it, you can set it up fairly easily. I got around networking it to my wi-fi by running an Ethernet cable to it. My two complaints are these: the side firing speakers should be aimed 45° to the back, not the front, to widen the sound stage, and it should have at least two tweeters rear firing on each end to improve "presence". The final demerit is for the remote: seemingly every remote on the planet has the volume on the left side of the face of the remote, and the channels or whatever on the right side, for some odd reason Sennhiser knows better than this, which can get frustrating since the reason we buy a sound bar is for the sound, not a memory training device.

The sound that came out of this bar is amazing!! Almost 30 days in, at a lower decibel, I heard a really loud pop and then the soundbar cut itself off. I was able to turn it back on, but the sound from the right side wasn't quite the same after that. After checking some negative reviews, I was able to see where others have had the same “popping”experience. It probably overheated and blew out one of the speakers. I really hated returning this item because it really did sound fantastic, but I also didn’t want to have to keep sending it in for warranty stuff. Sound is a 10, reliability is a 2. Maybe I got a lemon?